Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was invited to attend a talk on the book Never Enough about the “toxic achievement culture” in affluent areas.

My initial reaction was give me a f$!&#*; break. The competition is real. Play to win. I do not need a privileged upper class woman lecturing me.

For families with generational wealth, sure, go ahead and embrace your unique child, don’t pressure them.

The rest of us got where we are through tremendous effort. There is only a small amount of room at the top and life for the disappearing middle class and below is difficult.

I’m just perplexed that the working affluent (W2 vs the truly wealthy) think that anything besides hitting it hard is going to cut it for their kids.

I feel as if the whole NPR / WaPo “mentality” has run amok, and is leading our country in a very dark direction. Specifically, a direction very racist against Asians, as well as other cultures which value education and achievement.

Huh?

-Asian

Anonymous wrote:I was invited to attend a talk on the book Never Enough about the “toxic achievement culture” in affluent areas.

My initial reaction was give me a f$!&#*; break. The competition is real. Play to win. I do not need a privileged upper class woman lecturing me.

For families with generational wealth, sure, go ahead and embrace your unique child, don’t pressure them.

The rest of us got where we are through tremendous effort. There is only a small amount of room at the top and life for the disappearing middle class and below is difficult.

I’m just perplexed that the working affluent (W2 vs the truly wealthy) think that anything besides hitting it hard is going to cut it for their kids.

I feel as if the whole NPR / WaPo “mentality” has run amok, and is leading our country in a very dark direction. Specifically, a direction very racist against Asians, as well as other cultures which value education and achievement.

Anonymous wrote:The middle class is disappearing because people are moving up. There are many avenues to a UMC/UC life.

I'm sorry for your kids that you are unable to see that.

More people are moving down with the far-right policies that promote concentrated wealth

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's all relative, OP. Push your kid just enough, but not over the line. That "line" is relative. Your kid doesn't need to make $200K/year.

FWIW, one of my kids is an academic powerhouse, and the other is not. We expect the "not" one to do their best, and we provide supplemental material to help them, but we've never gotten them a tutor. We guide and inform them of what it takes to get into xyz college, and to be able to be financially independent as an adult. This DC will not go to a T50, or maybe even a T100 given how incredibly competitive the college landscape is today. But, we have been teaching them what it takes to be financially stable. That doesn't mean financially "well off".

I come from a lower to lmc family but we are umc now. So, maybe it's your expectations coming from an umc background.

Serious question- how did you know your kid was not as smart vs. just not applying themself? Why didn't you get them a tutor?

DP. Assuming it's a serious question - I'll answer because we were in the same situation. Most tutors are really great at chewing the material and putting it in your mouth, figuratively speaking. This helps a lot because it saves the kids the chewing efforts. But this is also why it's only truly helpful short term. Long term, you have to develop that chewing muscle. I know many kids who did really well with tutors in HS and burned in college spectacularly, because they did not recognize the amount of work the tutors did for them on digesting, mapping out and systematizing the material. Without that help, they are toast. I'd rather my kid flop around a bit when they are younger, and figure out how to study, and feel really confident in their T100 school. Which is exactly what happened.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The middle class isn’t shrinking because they are all moving up?!
Um, no, Pollyanna, that is not the case.

Yes, that is the case. Really.

https://www.americanexperiment.org/the-middle-class-is-shrinking-but-that-is-because-people-are-getting-richer/#:~:text=And%20for%20the%20most%20part,has%20reached%20a%20historic%20low.%E2%80%9D

That’s some libertarian rag not real studies
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_of_the_American_Experiment

Look for yourself. There are many cites. This is a known phenomenon. The middle class is shrinking. And they're not going down, they're going up.

We have two teens and one thing I desperately want to teach them is how to be wise with their money. You can totally have a full and happy life without ever “hitting it hard” Read books, be creative, have family, travel. Most importantly, have good mental health and enjoy life. All that can be achieved with college education (not necessarily top schools) + good financial planning and knowing your priorities. I know SO many living examples.

Op- look at all these people writing to you who are less than you! You are pushing your kid and your kid is doing great. You are not even pushing, you are showing your kid the realities of the REAL world. Grab your bootstraps and get moving kid- right?

Now, watch how the fools on here smile and laugh when they go out. It is almost like they are enjoying themselves for who they are, even though they are sadly middle class.

Aren’t you glad for all of these fools who see this foolish emotion called contentment as important? Or maybe they think the endless chase for more things and experiences is vapid and adds to the destruction of the planet. It doesn’t matter what their motivations are, they are easy competition.

You should be grateful to them, they will just make you and your child look better and better because they don’t care, they are content with so little.

But if there is some part of you that is questioning what is important to you and your child, maybe you should pick up the book and read it.

Anonymous wrote:It's all relative, OP. Push your kid just enough, but not over the line. That "line" is relative. Your kid doesn't need to make $200K/year.

FWIW, one of my kids is an academic powerhouse, and the other is not. We expect the "not" one to do their best, and we provide supplemental material to help them, but we've never gotten them a tutor. We guide and inform them of what it takes to get into xyz college, and to be able to be financially independent as an adult. This DC will not go to a T50, or maybe even a T100 given how incredibly competitive the college landscape is today. But, we have been teaching them what it takes to be financially stable. That doesn't mean financially "well off".

I come from a lower to lmc family but we are umc now. So, maybe it's your expectations coming from an umc background.

Serious question- how did you know your kid was not as smart vs. just not applying themself? Why didn't you get them a tutor?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The middle class isn’t shrinking because they are all moving up?!
Um, no, Pollyanna, that is not the case.

Yes, that is the case. Really.

https://www.americanexperiment.org/the-middle-class-is-shrinking-but-that-is-because-people-are-getting-richer/#:~:text=And%20for%20the%20most%20part,has%20reached%20a%20historic%20low.%E2%80%9D

That’s some libertarian rag not real studies
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_of_the_American_Experiment

^ both work in IT

We are UMC, both me and DH are immigrants, coming from poor families. Both went to tier 100-200 schools. We would be much wealthier now if we were managing our money better years ago. But we NEVER had to hit it hard. Love our jobs but never work nights/weekends.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It used to be that there were athletes, nerds, etc.. now everyone is trying to excel at everything. Everyone is doing sports, APs,
Academic enrichment.. 1500+ score is so common now. There is pressure from the environment and expectations that a kid weill excel at multiple things.

Remember there's other factors, though.. The growth of the 1500 scores has lot to do the SAT becoming significantly easier than it used to be, and in some ways, more trainable. Academic enrichment is partly on the rise because there is less tracking, and less teaching. GPAs are stellar because of grade inflation, etc.

is it? Why did they make it easier?

It's not. PP is making excuses. There was a recentering 30 year ago that inflated scores a bit near the median.

DP. They have recentered scores several times and have updated the subjects as well as scoring. It's a totally different test now than what we took.

Yes, each iteration is easier. Why? They're a commercial company - they don't want to make scores lower. That would make students look bad collectively and feel bad individually. And would make people stop taking the test.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It used to be that there were athletes, nerds, etc.. now everyone is trying to excel at everything. Everyone is doing sports, APs,
Academic enrichment.. 1500+ score is so common now. There is pressure from the environment and expectations that a kid weill excel at multiple things.

Remember there's other factors, though.. The growth of the 1500 scores has lot to do the SAT becoming significantly easier than it used to be, and in some ways, more trainable. Academic enrichment is partly on the rise because there is less tracking, and less teaching. GPAs are stellar because of grade inflation, etc.

is it? Why did they make it easier?

It's not. PP is making excuses. There was a recentering 30 year ago that inflated scores a bit near the median.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It used to be that there were athletes, nerds, etc.. now everyone is trying to excel at everything. Everyone is doing sports, APs,
Academic enrichment.. 1500+ score is so common now. There is pressure from the environment and expectations that a kid weill excel at multiple things.

Remember there's other factors, though.. The growth of the 1500 scores has lot to do the SAT becoming significantly easier than it used to be, and in some ways, more trainable. Academic enrichment is partly on the rise because there is less tracking, and less teaching. GPAs are stellar because of grade inflation, etc.

is it? Why did they make it easier?

Anonymous wrote:It used to be that there were athletes, nerds, etc.. now everyone is trying to excel at everything. Everyone is doing sports, APs,
Academic enrichment.. 1500+ score is so common now. There is pressure from the environment and expectations that a kid weill excel at multiple things.

Remember there's other factors, though.. The growth of the 1500 scores has lot to do the SAT becoming significantly easier than it used to be, and in some ways, more trainable. Academic enrichment is partly on the rise because there is less tracking, and less teaching. GPAs are stellar because of grade inflation, etc.