<p>shawbridge - MIL from New Canaan!!!</p>
<p>There are lots of " regular" parents out there.
I didn’t graduate from high school- my husband hasn’t attended college ( I took my GED eventually & am currently taking vocational classes at a community college)
But we sent both of our kids initially to private schools ( one k-12 plus college, the other wanted to go to public inner city high school) including schools where scions of Microsoft/Amazon et al. attend, so ya I also got to know quite a few parents who are profs.
But I think that you notice what * you notice* more than others do.</p>
<p>If you had a large nose for example, that you were self concious about, you tend to pay attention to others who have similar features ( or those who have " perfect" noses).
I don’t think I am that self conscious about my lack of education or lowish income & while my kids have gone through stages where they are much more aware of that, it doesn’t have much to do with living a good life ( as opposed to the * good life* 
)or making a difference.</p>
<p>There’s all kinds of people in the world. For the kids with trust funds extending out for generations to come, that is their life and their world. It is “normal” for them. Their conversations are “normal” for them. One person’s reality is not another person’s reality. Being able to move gracefully through those various social realities comfortably is the true lesson. And yes, I imagine it would be daunting if you had never been exposed to those types of conversations. By the way I’m a “regular” working mom, but we have friends who don’t have a dime and friends who are stinking multi-generational ‘rich’. We’re somewhere in the happy middle. So my kids grew up experiencing both sides of the coin. There are alot of “rich” kids at my S1’s school and sometimes my son and I chuckle about it. One of his good friends got a “boat” sent to him at college this summer. It was a small boat, but it was a boat. S1 and I laughed and laughed about that, I told him, have fun, but we’re not sending you a boat. It’s all a mattter of perspective.</p>
<p>I think you all have misinterpreted CollegeDad’s remarks. (Not a nice way to welcome a new member, IMO).</p>
<p>I think what the OP meant (OP, correct me if this is wrong) is that she is “just” a SAHM with a public college degree. In other words, she is NOT someone with a high-powered career with a degree from a top school–that is, the kind of mom you’d expect to have a kid at an Ivy.</p>
<p>Now, CollegeDad’s response means that the OP shouldn’t put herself down for being a SAHM–in fact, what she did as a SAHM probably helped her D get into the Ivy. That is almost certainly true in the case of HER D. (He’s not saying that career moms don’t get their kids into Ivys. Or that SAHM’s are the best kind of moms. Or anything like that. He’s not cutting down working moms–he’s trying to support the OP who feels she doesn’t measure up to the Ivy image because she is just a SAHM with a public school degree.)
All moms --SAHM’s, highly educated, high-income career moms, or moms who work nights at WalMart–have a big influence on getting their kids where they end up.</p>
<p>I agree - I thought collegedad was just trying to be nice!</p>
<p>H and I come from working class stock…no one on either side of our families had ever gone beyond highschool. We both grew up with few resources but both of us ended up with MBAs and PhDs and as professors at an Ivy. We actually know quite a few professors who came from similar backgrounds. </p>
<p>Now we (hubby, me, and the kids) straddle very different socio-economic worlds on a regular basis…spending lots of time with our large families of origin, those with extreme wealth (e.g. donors to our school, families at our kids private schools), and lots of folks in between (such as ourselves). </p>
<p>Despite the stereotypes and judgments of the “other camp” on each side of the socio-economic fence, people are just people once you really know them and not really that different from one another. Throughout the economic ladder you find sharp minds and dim bulbs, shallow people and deep thinkers, kind hearts and the mean-spirited.</p>
<p>Starbright - that was one of the nicest things I have ever read.</p>
<p>OP - DH and I are college graduates but we have chosen careers in education/non-profits, so we are what we call “earning disabled.” D is at an ivy and she has met students from all different backgrounds and would agree with starbright. She finds people who are kind, generous, welcoming, etc., and then there are a few stinkers. I don’t think those traits correlate to family income or social status. </p>
<p>As for checking out your family lines - whew! It is amazing what you can uncover - some of it exciting, some a little humbling!!!</p>
<p>The Mayflower story reminds me of another one. When S was in first grade, the kids in his class were told to make cards thnking whomever they wanted (Thanksgiving was approaching). One kid wrote: “I thank the Mayflower for bringing my mom’s ancestors to America.” All fine–but the kid was adopted from a foreign country. His adoptive parents were not ony blue blood, they were also very wealthy; but he himself had been given up by his birth mother because she could not afford to raise him.
I do think that differences in wealth show up, though not just at Ivies. Sometimes it’s over some quite small expenses. I once overheard an exchange between a girl whose parents were obviously well off and another whose parents were school teachers and who was on scholarship. The first girl was talking about going for tea in the afternoon and that the cost was “only $2.50.” The other girl muttered that the weekly cost of tea was more than she earned in one hour’s of work-study.
But I think that exchange could have taken place at a flagship university where the student body includes children of the local elite as well as children of families of more modest means.</p>
<p>Wait- first CC argues the difference of an Elite education vs a great public U and the “connections and quality of peers” is significant and worth going in hock 55K+ yr for that experience, and now the argument goes along the lines that the obnoxious rich kids are in the State schools and “regular” kids are at the elites with the elites! "cmon, you can’t have it both ways. Isn’t the idea to go to the elite school to hob nob with the elites and thus be lifted out of your original socio-economic strata to a higher level because of these connections with the rich and powerful families?</p>
<p>Wealth is relative. We have two kids in the Ivies. We do go overseas for vacations. But we always regard ourselves to be middle-class.
At the schools, my kids have friends whose parents are industry moguls and kids that are on full aids. To them, that is part of the special experience of an Ivy. In these schools, the environment and attitude have taught them to look beyond the bank account, value the intellect and dreams of a person. Never judge and put labels on people. And most of all, learn that true CLASS is when you know how to make people around you feel comfortable and never remind them of the difference between you.
In life, we have to navigate and function amid different “classes”, the Ivies is a good place to learn.</p>
<p>Isn’t the idea to go to the elite school to hob nob with the elites and thus be lifted out of your original socio-economic strata to a higher level because of these connections with the rich and powerful families?</p>
<p>I think what we find what we look for.
We looked for a stimulating education, with experienced teachers and involved families- that is what we found both in public and private school ( eventually)</p>
<p>Olympiclady, are you being sarcastic? If anything I would guess that per capita the ivies probably aren’t the greatest concentration of wealth as those schools have had strong initiatives through their finaid to diversify their student bodies. I would guess if you want to find greater concentrations of wealth in student bodies you need to look outside the ivy league. I could be wrong, but I have strong suspicion that is correct.</p>
<p>momofthreeboys - your suspicion is correct. It’s been good for D1 to have a wide variety of friends in college, when they plan on outings they need to make sure everyone could afford it.</p>
<p>Different kinds of elites. There are the local elites, the national elites, the economic elites, the intellectual elites. There is some overlap between the different kinds but they need not be exactly the same.
Some may see value in hobnobbing with the rich and powerful. Some see value in being among intellectual peers. Some want a diversity of backgrounds and interests. Some want to stay local, some want to go far from home.</p>
<p>Some of the most ostentatious displays of wealth I’ve seen were at my state flagship. COA at the time was ~$3,000/yr., so dropping $$ on spring break trips, designer clothes, Greek life, nice cars, etc. was not such a big deal if one’s family was already upper middle class.</p>
<p>S1 reports that he has no idea who has money and who doesn’t at his school.</p>
<p>At one point in our lives we were contemplating a private school placement. We realized at a couple of the academically well-regarded schools we’d be considered poor cousins, given that the school(s) published the expectation that it would be our “primary source of philanthropy” in addition to tuition. AHEM. We did not want our kids to feel like they were economically deprived when the reality was that they had the good fortune to have parents who could put a roof over their heads, buy them books, keep them fed and pay the doctor bills.</p>
<p>OP – state school mom here, been home FT, worked FT, currently PT. Many paths, one goal – get our kids successfully launched into happy, healthy, productive members of society.</p>
<p>CountingDown is so correct.
At our private HS, those that were on partial subsidies for tuition were buying much better sport equipments than my kids and had all the latest electronic gadgets. We always wonder why the rest of the parents should be subsidizing them with our exorbitant tuition bills.</p>
<p>always wonder why the rest of the parents should be subsidizing them with our exorbitant tuition bills.</p>
<p>Well run schools do not use tuition to subsidize scholarships.
Why would you pay tuition that you judge to be excessive at a poorly run school?</p>
<p>It’s a figure of speech. You are right, the subsidy comes from the endowment fund. Both the alum and current parents contribute to that. Also the tuition are used to pay for teachers’ salaries and current operating expenses. As long as these students are using the same facilities and teachers, the tuition we pay is subsidizing them.
But anyway, this forum is not about private high schools.
I just want to make the point that in the “non-elite” and public schools, there is just as much if not more “wealth-flaunting”. There is a better chance that the students at the elite schools are more focused and interested in their intellectual pursuits and respect the non-materialistic achievements. As a result, there is less notice and values paid to the perceived family wealth. At least, it is a non-issue to my kids.</p>
<p>I relate. My DD, who is quite grounded, found it amusing to share about her parents’ regular jobs at her Ivy League School. Although we are both professionals, we are not diplomats, Supreme Court Justices, on the cutting-edge of our fields or royalty, etc, etc. She had no idea we were so ordinary until she got there. Of course, there were other kids with ordinary parents, but that was all she’d ever known – kids whose parents had pretty normal jobs even if they were very bright and accomplished. The other was the new factor. She had no problem with it. I felt a little bit intimidated that I wasn’t doing cutting-edge research in my field, etc. but I got over it pretty quickly.</p>
<p>My son didn’t have a stay at home Mom, but he did have a stay at home Dad, which was even more unusual at his not-Ivy but allegedly highly "elitist LAC. I have to say we were surprised and overwhelmingly pleased by just how down to earth and normal the parents of his classmates turned out to be. Smart? Yes. Accomplished? Yes. Filthy rich? In one or two cases yes, but for the most part no. Pretentious and exclusive? Absolutely not.</p>
<p>Same for the kids. Especially in a rural atmosphere where there’s not a lot to spend money on, the trappings of wealth and privilege aren’t immediately apparent. Many of the very wealthy and privileged kids whom my son interacted with went to great lengths to conceal how they were different from their classmates. They bent over backwards to accomodate their friends’ financial constraints. If one couldn’t afford an activity they’d do something else.</p>
<p>My son was shocked to visit the Manhattan home of a student whom he had known for years and to learn that the family’s vestibule was bigger than the apartment we had lived in in New York. He said he had no idea.</p>
<p>There will always be people – students, parents, neighbors – who flaunt advantage, but I think that college is a great equalizer and it’s less of an issue than you might think even at the most “elite.”</p>