While Stuy did have an upper-east side contingent, they were a tiny minority in a school population made up of mostly low-income/lower-middle class immigrant/first-generation kids when I attended in the early-mid '90s.
Also, some friends from that contingent did have siblings who attended private/day schools either because they failed to score high enough to be admitted to any of the SHS or they voluntarily opted to leave because the pressure/sink-or-swim atmosphere wasn’t for them.
Another thing was a lot of the upper/upper-middle class NYC area families other than the ones who sent their kids to Stuy and other SHSs back when I attended still had a bit of snobbish disdain for our school because we were public and the vast majority of the student body came from low-income/lower-middle class backgrounds(a.k.a. "My dearest darling snowflake won’t deign to associate with such “riffraff”! ").
And some of the parents from the upper-east side contingent owned up to hearing such remarks from neighbors/friends from their upper/upper-middle class SES and vehemently dismissed all that as insufferable snobbery endemic within that section of their neighborhood social networks.
I’ve since heard from younger Stuy alums that that mentality practically ceased by the end of the '90s/early '00s though I still hear some remnants of that mentality on occasion though much less than when I was a middle/HS kid.
I am not sure I understand the meaning of article? I get that the 401K savings should not be considered money you have. Best to just look away. But the choice to vacation and drive a luxury car is a choice. So how can the author say they are in the red? From a very strict cash flow standpoint, it may be true that money coming in is being earmarked for other things but that does not mean the family is struggling?
Don’t we all feel like any money over and above all the required bills and responsibility is free money to blow and enjoy? Technically we have zero’d out our income. Does not mean we are broke or struggling.
ucb, some actually do. I was in that income range when my oldest was little. I know and always have known parents who used every spare cent from the whole year, who got help from relatives, worked overtime, or got summer jobs to pay for good childcare situations for the summer. Some also send their kids back home to relatives in other countries for the summer. It is a very big issue for working parents of all income levels here.
“In my area, it’s not a thing but I know people from places where it is. Honestly, I always felt sorry for the kids, both when I was a kid and as an adult. To me, summer has always been the less hectic months where families can spend more quality time together.”
That’s because it’s not your cultural norm. My kids grandfather went to camp 80 years ago. My mom went to camp. I went to camp. Around here almost every kid goes away for the summer 4-8 weeks. My kids once told me they “feel sorry” for kids who don’t get the experience of living with a cabin of friends, color wars, canoe trips, late night “sneak outs” etc… But I told them that this isn’t what everyone wanted to do. Some grow up with that nice slow paced days of summer. It’s all what you know.
My longest camp was a week on a neighbor island. It was fine but it was also fine just hanging around and having longer to do whatever struck our fancy (and we could afford). From age 14, I worked every summer as well, earning money which was helpful in paying college expenses. Being away at camp would have limited employment options.
I would have loved to have gone to summer camp. It just was not in the budget in my house. We went to vacation bible school (that’s a day camp at one’s church, for those unfamiliar), and that was it.
Once I was married and had kids, I was very fortunate to be able to send my kids to sleep away camp. I think they cherish those memories.
As great as summer camp is, I don’t understand people of modest means spending a huge % of their annual pay on it!
My family didn’t have the means to send us anywhere for the summer. I was left to my own devices while my parents worked. Nobody I knew went away to camp. Where I live now, none of the kids go away. I only went away to scout camp with my boys.
@maya54 Plenty of kids still go away and get the camp experience but just for a couple weeks not 7. If anything, the cultural norm in my world is folks going to lakeside or oceanside places from a couple weeks to all of the summer with family, length depending on whether both parents work and what parents careers are.
Like you, @himom, I worked from 13/14 on as well. Of course, living in an area where others go to camp/vacation to, there was always seasonal work and we had the benefit of camping, hiking, canoeing, swimming in a lake or the ocean whenever we wanted.
The benefit of my summer jobs besides the pay was being able to know things I liked and disliked about jobs and industries. I had a variety of jobs–clerical, switchboard operator in a hotel, salesclerk, shoe sales person, summer rec aid, law clerk and more.
Who tells their tax preparer how much money they have in savings? I can’t imagine my tax preparer asking me such a question, unless they were also my investment advisor.
Mycuopoftea, what if the person has been maximizing their non-taxable savings and has a couple of big ones in those? I don’t even look at our 401k and IRA statements when I do our taxes…
I don’t submit my retirement account, investment account and banking account statements to the tax preparer, just the tax forms that showed how much capital gains/losses/dividends there were. They say nothing about the total amount in the accounts.
And same as Bunsen. I don’t look at my 401K/Roth statements or send them anything relevant to those accounts. And they can’t detect much from the 76 cent interest I get from my checking account. They would have no idea what I had in any of those accounts.
If you sell stuff in your 401k, unless you take an RMD or another distribution, it is not taxable either. Mr. B daytrades the heck out his Schwab… I mean he makes one trade a year - that’s daytrading in my books.
Plus, 1099-Ints and Divs, don’t give assets. If you don’t trade often and if you don’t own much interest bearing stocks, you’re not going to incur many taxable events. And even if you do own interest bearing accounts, it’s not like some of them are earning much right now.
I went to camp many summers, for just a week. It was a really inexpensive Camp Fire Girl camp where we did a lot of arts and crafts, which was incredibly boring to me, but my friends were there, so I did it. I didn’t know anyone who went to camp for very long, it wasn’t much of a thing around here. But I guess I would have felt sorry for them to have to spend so much time away from home (I assumed all camps were boring), or that they’d have to be doing something that they were really interested in, to want to spend the summer away. Couldn’t imagine anything that fun, still can’t. Unless it was a “let’s travel to Europe for the summer” camp In fact, I could do that right now.
I don’t even look at our 401k and IRA statements when I do our taxes…