<p>I have a small Badger sticker in my rear window. People who went there will recognize it and most others won’t. I see other cars around town with various Wisconsin decals about every week. Most are alums.</p>
<p>When I lived in the north suburbs of Chicago it was very common for the grads of the various Big 10 schools to fly a school flag from there home on football saturdays.</p>
<p>pebbles, can I go with you?</p>
<p>Or maybe you should just stay here and help us raise the level.</p>
<p>Parent2009, seriously, I am finding this whole “discussion” quite interesting…</p>
<p>Now…you are saying that one should care about what others might think? (meaning if you display a college decal)</p>
<p>So, where do you draw that line? Everything you do is guided by what others might think?? So, let’s say you are well to do, should you drive a junker because you wouldn’t want to drive an expensive car for fear of what others might think? Would you or wouldn’t you? If you had bought your wife diamond stud earrings, would you want her not to wear them for fear of advertising your ability to buy such an item or what others might think? I dunno about you, but we do what we want because we believe in what we do and are not guided by what others might think of our decisions. </p>
<p>By the way, we love our kids. I meant we love their colleges ONLY because our kids are happy there. I’d like any college my kid attended if they were happy to attend it. That’s what I love. Their colleges aren’t the “best” but simply ones where they are really happy at the moment and are enthused by attending. </p>
<p>Also, you have yet to answer the question posed by me and others about your idea that the car decal is bragging and about some form of pretention and I was saying that for me, I’d slap on any college decal my kid attended, even if my local community college. Would that be ok to you since that might not make others feel bad or might not appear to be elitism or pretentious or whatever you called it? Which ones are OK and which are not? Apparently Tulane was OK because that parent had a good reason. Lots of us have given reasons why we’d support any college our kid attended in a sense of school spirit and allegiance to the school and belonging to that community. Could you attempt to answer this? I am truly fascinated by your take on all us folks here.</p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>PS, thank you everyone else for the many laughs I have gotten from your clever posts today. I stay away from the political threads on CC but this thread really takes the cake…who would have thought?</p>
<p>When I visited my d. two weeks ago, I was tempted to purchase one of their “Smith: 100 Years of Women on Top” tee-shirts, but finally thought the better of it. Then I went to the arboretum and they had “Smith: 100 Years of Women on Topsoil” - that was even harder to resist. 
Never got around to putting the purple “W” from my alma mater on the car, though if I did, I’d fit right in, even if no one would recognize where I went to school.</p>
<p>So much for prestige.</p>
<p>I like the insider-only twist. I once saw an elderly gentleman with a single thread in his lapel. It turns out to be an indication of the French Legion of Honor for heroic service during WWII.</p>
<p>Those are funny in soooooo many ways and I commend you for the post. Comic relief is wonderful.</p>
<p>Oh comon, it can’t be that much worse than what you’ve already posted. Unless… wait… are you a scientologist?!</p>
<p>Congratulations, smcmom. What a triumph and moment of pride for you and your family. I can feel your pride - genuine and warm - across the airwaves. I was the first generation in my family to attend college, also. Not so rare then, but I know my parents felt just as you do. Your reasons for placing your decal are wonderful. </p>
<p>So are the reasons of all others posting here.</p>
<p>
yeah, Kat, but who the heck wants to brag on BAZOOKA? Just consider my Duke sticker “prestigious gum!!!”
~b.</p>
<p>berurah, I love you! I swear you’ve made me laugh more than anyone else here over time! I love people who laugh!</p>
<p>
Oh, ctymomteacher, LOVE YOU TOO honey!! You are just WAAAAAAAAAAY too sweet. And anyway, when faced with some of the posts on this thread, what is there to DO but laugh?? <em>lolololol</em> ;)</p>
<p>~berurah <3 <3 <3</p>
<p>now this is the berurah I know…showing off her skills at using colored fonts.</p>
<p>Yeah…I was thinking about that when I typed in my original TULANE LIVES! post. If I knew how I would have made THOSE letters ten feet high and bullet proof! or at least big and green, anyway.</p>
<p>Whoa. This thread! I just read it today. So much passion stirred up by college stickers! </p>
<p>I haven’t put any stickers on the car, just 'cuz I don’t put stickers on the car, but I don’t see anything wrong with them. Boy, I’ve never looked at a college sticker on a car and been offended by it. Offended by a college sticker? I just don’t get it . . .</p>
<p><em>poof</em></p>
<p>:(</p>
<p>
hey simba~</p>
<p><em>ahem</em>…what happened to KNOW AND LOVE??? ;)</p>
<p>~berurah <3 <3 <3</p>
<p>Parent2009…if you feel strongly about your convictions, you should have no trouble answering that question because you have posted on this thread numerous times what your opinions are and in fact have done so QUITE strongly, using descriptive words like “nauseating” when describing others’ actions, as well as assuming their motivations, despite their clarification to the contrary. You answered other questions I posed, why not this one? It goes back to one of your earliest posts on this thread…</p>
<p>You wrote: " I have no problem with political statements on bumper stickers, just egotistical ones. And I’m not trying to flame here. I just don’t understand the need to advertise that your kids are on the honor roll or that they go to a fancy college. 'Nuf said."</p>
<p>So, you were referring to the posting of college decals in a parents’ car window (I think you’ve now clarified that is is OK in the kids’ own car window…though too bad for the kids who are not privileged to own their own car but we’ll let that one go…and you also said OK to their wearing the college tee shirt but no to mom or dad wearing it…got you so far, ok)…but on the car decal, you saw it as “egotistical” and “advertising” and you brought up the adverstising in the conext of a “fancy college”. So, what I have been asking, as have a few others…it is only a problem if the college is a so called “fancy one”? And is that egotistical but a decal to Castleton State College would not be? (you guys likely haven’t heard of that one but lots of kids here go). Is it only OK to put one in the window if not an elite school or is it a negative thing to you to put any car decal of a college logo in the parents’ window? It seems you are taking offense to the ones who slap on the fancy college, in any case but please do clarify as I truly am trying to understand this. Now that you assigned motivation to parents like me who have the college decal per the child’s request, mind you (I already told you that my older D felt insulted by dad who didn’t at first put the decal she bought for him in his car when he just didn’t want to mess up his car) and yet, I am wondering since you THINK you know why I, or others put such a decal on our car, what are your thoughts, then, that I would HAPPILY also put the decal on my car if my kid attended Castleton State? I’d put ANY school sticker on the car, it is kinda a college tradition, a bonding with their school, for me. So, if my motivation is to advertise, brag, be egotistical or display some fancy school name, how does this coincide with what I just stated? </p>
<p>If you have come this far to state your view, I see no reason to not be able to clarify your point as to whether all college decals are a no no or just ones that are fancy that someone else might view as “bragging”. </p>
<p>Some of us, are proud of our kids, feel bonded to their schools and support their schools, no matter the name of the school. Perhaps you DO know some parents where status is everything but that doesn’t mean that is the motivation behind all who display school spirit because their kids also wanted them to. </p>
<p>In fact, I feel badly that right now I have been driving around with only one of my kids’ college names on my car because of the weird kind of decal that the other kid’s school has that just doesn’t work. I’m a parent supporter at both of their schools so that isn’t so good. I don’t care what others think but it is about what I feel about it. I don’t put the decals on for others but for myself and my kids. I think it is sorta a tradition when they get into the school to buy something with the logo on it…the decal was one of the cheapest things so that’s what we got, plus a mug for dad, a penant for the guidance counselor who puts them up for every school for his students in his little office, and a sweatshirt for the kid. In fact, relatives for graduation were buying my kids their college sweatshirt…so what’s that say about them? They weren’t doing it to brag or out of pride but more like a fun thing for the kid to have something from their school, a pretty common tradition…just look at all the paraphenalia in every college bookstore! One of my kids visited UMichigan and we kept laughing because about every other store on each street in Ann Arbor was selling tons of UMich logo items. It is about school spirit and school pride. We were there on a football Sat. and so many alums sporting UMich shirts!! When I see people with car decals or sweatshirts on, I don’t ever see it as bragging, but find it real interesting to strike up a conversation. It is kinda like “where are you from?”, not all that different.</p>
<p>I am thinking that your own observation of college decals brings out certain feelings YOU have more so than what the person who put them there meant by it. Like if I see some car with Yale on it, I don’t feel jealousy, I don’t feel that the person is egotistical or is into elitism…I am more like interested, “hey you go to Yale? cool…how do you like it? Do you know so and so who goes there?”</p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>PS…I am ONLY talking college decals, not the Honor Roll Bumper stickers, which our local schools don’t have and while I don’t object to those who put them on, are a little different…they are not a name of a school but an honor type thing. A college name is not an honor but is just the name of where you attend.</p>
<p>Very late to this thread…I do have a college sticker on my car. Actually it is the 2nd one I bought…the first one got traded in with the car… the # 1 reason I have it is because I see it in my rear view mirror all the time (I love the fact that it reads correctly in the rear view mirror)…so it is a constant little reminder of my son. I am in my car a lot…and while I would never keep a picture of my child in my car, having the sticker is a wonderful trigger that makes me think of my child. For that reason alone, I will always have it on my rear window…as long as he is away… life is very busy…and the sticker makes me pause and send out good vibes!!</p>
<p>wow, so sorry I’ve missed this scintillating give and take for the last couple of days. To sum up, what does it say if I have Swarthmore sticker on my 1990 Volvo which has 188,000 miles on it? Generally, what is said is "Oh, where’s that? Isn’t it a girls school in upstate NY?</p>