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<p>The WSJ article mentions wealthy int’l students from Saudi Arabia, Columbia, England. You really think these kids or their parents have to do these “little life tasks” themselves in their home country?</p>
<p>"think we all enable our kids in various ways. I still wake up my daughter for school most mornings and make her lunch if she asks me. "</p>
<p>That’s a perfect example. I wouldn’t wake my kid up in high school, with the possible exception of an early morning flight. To me, that feels like enabling dependency. Not to say you’re wrong - but to point out that we all enable in different ways.</p>
<p>Right. Of course, my kids KNOW how to wake themselves up and make their own lunches (or even dinners). No one helps them at their dad’s. Part of it is about me wanting to be a mom doing mom things for just a little longer, since they are growing up so fast and becoming so independent. It feels nice to be needed…which perhaps is the crux of this whole debate.</p>
<p>For 60K a year, they should get towels, as well.</p>
<p>We are veering quickly into “Four Yorkshiremen” territory, one-upping one another on how much less enabled our kids are than everyone elses.</p>
<p>“We used to have to get up at six oclock every morning, clean the lake, eat a handful 'ot gravel…”</p>
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<p>lol…best post of the thread! :)</p>
<p>“My mother used to give me two hot, baked potatoes each morning. One for each pocket to keep my hands warm on the five mile walk to school. I would eat them cold for lunch.”</p>
<p>Well, at least you had school. And two legs. And baked potatoes. And a mother.</p>
<p>My father used to tell us that…I never questioned why he walked so far to school considering he lived in Chicago.</p>
<p>Anyway, I know many “hothouse flowers” - some are relatives, in fact. Kind, lovely, hard working, dedicated people who don’t know how to do many basic chores. They wouldn’t think to pull a weed out of a flowerbed, and instead would “have a talk with the gardener.” Whether this is a result of upbringing or a lack of interest in mundane chores, I’m not sure…probably a bit of both. It’s certainly not a moral shortcoming. I have noticed that no matter how much money they have to throw at a problem, they are often at the mercy of some vendor or another. My SIL’s powder room toilet stopped flushing while I was there a few weeks ago, and instead of opening the back of the toilet and taking a look, she wanted to call the plumber right away. I took a look and it was simply a matter of reattaching the little chain that can detach. I like to be able to do simple tasks because it is liberating and empowering for me, but I know that others don’t get that…and that’s fine too.</p>
<p>My dad is like this (and he grew up poor). He thinks life is to be enjoyed and he has no interest in spending time doing household chores or mucking around a toilet if a plumber can be called or cooking if there is a restaurant nearby. He’s a neat person, he doesn’t make a mess, but he’s just not interested. If he had to be, he’d figure it out, but he doesn’t have to be.</p>
<p>Bizarrely, I can’t rustle up much “give a [bleep]” about this. </p>
<p>Rich, foolish people will always spend profligately. The important thing for non-rich people to understand is that aping the spending habits of the profligate wealthy is a foolish endeavour. (I will point out the irony in CC parents complaining about this - IMHO, non-rich parents who send their kids to expensive private colleges to major in Art History are doing nothing more nor less than aping the spending habits of their rich counterparts, a fact that was well-understood a few decades ago but now borders on heresy.) Also, perfectly middle-class people who otherwise might be unemployed are hauling in cash because of the profligacy of these wealthy teenagers. That’s a bad thing… how?</p>
<p>As long as non-rich kids understand that there is dignity in living within their means, who cares? Miss Manners keeps repeating that you can have a great wedding in your backyard when you serve nothing more than tea and sheet cake. Many wealthy people drive used cars, wear serviceable shoes, and otherwise refuse to attach their self-worth to their consumption. If you spend your money to enjoy life (e.g. getting the driveway plowed so you don’t throw out your back shovelling), you’ll probably enjoy your life; if you spend money to show how amazingly awesome you are and how much dough you can fling about like beads at Mardi Gras, you’re going to be miserable. </p>
<p>(For the record, if one of my siblings got a speeding ticket, I would definitely help them through it or contact a local lawyer. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together can scrub their own toilet, do their own laundry, or move their belongings across campus, but the same cannot be said of handling even mundane legal issues.)</p>
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<p>I think that what was going on was that he was broadly hinting that a member of the peasantry who was accustomed to performing tasks normally left to servants–ie, YOU–should step up and make the bed for his son.</p>
<p>Maybe he would have given you a tip! :D</p>
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<p>Haha, I enjoyed the image provided by the analogy above. :D</p>
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<p>This is a very good point. The service $300 a month. It’s really not all that much money compared to the overall costs of college, and certainly affordable for the full-pay families at American private colleges, yet American students aren’t flocking to it. Not surprising.</p>
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<p>To me, nothing, because I wouldn’t be planning either. Planning two bat mitzvahs was enough (and was far far far more work than planning a birthday party, even one like that described in the article); the D’s can plan their own weddings. 
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<p>As for the 21 yo’s bday party, I’m trying to imagine a 21 year old who is OK with a birthday party where the favors and the cake are decorated with pictures from his childhood. When I read that, I figured that either the birthday boy was never, ever again going to have his mother plan a party for him, or that his mom was going to be planning everything for him for the rest of her life.</p>
<p>This is such a cultural issue, in my opinion. DH grew up in another country. There, the middle and upper classes simply did not work with their hands. For example, they would never ever care for their own lawns–something many middle class people in the US do for themselves. One reason for this was rigid classism, and the other was likely economic and the scarcity of resources. Their way, not everyone needed to own clippers, shovels and scythes or those Panama hats to keep the sun out of your eyes.</p>
<p>That said, there can be a correlation between learning to handle your basic needs and being generally competent as a person. For one thing, handling those chores takes organization and planning. You have to buy detergent in advance, make sure you have enough quarters for the machines (back in the old days at least), sort your clothes, and plan a time to do laundry when the machines would be available and before you completely run out of underwear. The same for cooking and other chores. For example, as a teenager I had to mow the lawn before I could go out on Saturday night. It couldn’t be done Sunday and it didn’t matter how much homework I had. I had to make sure there was enough gas too. Thus there is an element of preparation and time-budgeting required. This correlation is probably why some posters are insisting it’s important for students to learn to fend for themselves. They’ve seen how undisciplined and disorganized some kids are who have never had to see to their own needs. </p>
<p>However, I don’t believe doing menial chores is the only way to learn competence. But it’s one way.</p>
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<p>Might be the word “concierge” that’s a turnoff here (rebranding suggestion: College Caretaker). Laundry aside, this doesn’t have to be about overindulgence or wealth, more peace of mind for international and faraway parents. </p>
<p>Many don’t know the system here and/or want their kids to concentrate on their studies. If my student were going to college in Saudi Arabia or Colombia and got a speeding ticket, I would hire a service like this in a heartbeat. And my Dutch friend would have loved it when her daughter had a medical concern in NYC.</p>
<p>I should add that those accustomed to having all their needs attended to by others can be inconsiderate of the “other half.” A kid like that will spend the afternoon before the day classes start, playing frisbee on the quad while you are dutifully shopping at the student store and learning where your classes will be held. The next morning he’ll ask to borrow a notebook and pen from you and want to know how to get to Paisley Hall. Later he’ll want to borrow your textbook because he didn’t have a chance to buy his book yet and there’s an assignment due. He’ll also be the guy on your trip to the beach who doesn’t have his own sunscreen and wants you to share yours, which you went to CVS to buy the day before. If quarters are needed for the machines, you’ll save them up and make a trip to the bank for change if needed. He’ll just take yours and leave you a $20 and won’t get why you’re unhappy about that and will call you uptight.</p>
<p>Few years ago, when we moved overseas for my job, my company had classes to teach us local customs (brief us on local security too). It was challenging to get utilities turned on, to get new cell phones, enroll your kid at the local school…so they offered a lot of assistance to us to get those things done. If we had to go to the hospital or get a traffic ticket, they would also provide some assistance. </p>
<p>I think for those international parents, they are spending $300/mon for their kids to have “surrogate parents” in a foreign country. Most parents on CC wouldn’t admit to it, but I know a lot of students still bring their laundry home for their parents to do, or when their parents visit them in school the parent would do their laundry or clean their room for them. We don’t think much about it because it doesn’t cost anything when a parent is doing it. I feel like I am my kids’ concierge service, except I am not getting paid.</p>
<p>As long as he takes me to visit his private island I can front some $0.25s and some sunscreen.</p>