Stop Pretending You’re Not Rich

Parent Cafe
161

" No guilt and no regrets. Why should I sacrifice the well-being of my own child to make some point?"

Yeah, but wouldn’t it be better if we COULD have schools where all children are getting a quality education and wouldn’t that be better for the long term health of our country? (and I’m saying this as a person who has spent many $$ on private school tuition.) I really don’t think it should be a matter of birth and circumstances. I’d pay more taxes for a workable solution. I know, wishful thinking…

162

We switched our kids to private HS when I noted they kept losing their friends each year because they’d transfer to private HS. They were also hassled by faculty and students at public school for using words and knowing things the faculty didn’t. They found good friends in private HS, which they hadn’t been able to make in public school. They have kept those friends over a decade later.

163

I appreciate the people who have paid for private school (for whatever reason), AND paid the property taxes to support everyone else’s kids too, carrying double the financial load. While I would have liked to have the perfect school right in my neighbor that catered exactly to my child’s needs, it wasn’t in the cards, though the local public school is probably perfect for most.

164

@doschicos I agree - it would be wonderful if we had schools where all children were getting a quality education. I was just speaking to the guilt aspect. I do feel sad knowing that other children don’t have the same opportunities my own child did but I don’t feel guilty for doing what’s best for my own child. I’d pay more in taxes,too, but here in CA that doesn’t always translate to better schools…

165

Not to divert from the topic, but Prop 13 destroyed the tax base that supported California’s excellent public school and university system. It hasn’t been the same since.

166

I have sent kids to both public and private schools, and my D is a special ed teacher at a challenging NYC public school. I think we won’t get near-universally excellent public schools without making some very hard decisions that I don’t think would be palatable to many people. Otherwise, as there will always be a bottom 20% of income, there will be some percentage of students who won’t be successful.

167

I think people in the top 20% feel attacked when they read this kind of article because most of them have worked hard and are still working hard and expect to keep working hard, and the suggestion that they are “privileged” conveys that they have been given what they have achieved. This conflicts with that hard-working reality/experience. Almost all of us are working really hard, and some of us – through the luck of any number of things – have the wind at our backs. Or a head start. Or fewer obstacles in our way. It’s hard to appreciate this when you have sweat in your eyes and you see the backs of others in front of you!

It’s hard in a culture like ours, where we are told that we can do anything we set our mind to it, to believe that what we have or have achieved is the result of anything more than our own efforts. It is true, though, that many of us are planted in more fertile soil than others…

168

So much of who we are is an accident of birth. Intelligence is largely determined set at birth. As are special skills/talents (athleticism, artistic, etc). Personality/physical traits that make success more or less likely are also set at birth. Now no doubt you have to work hard at academics, athletics, art, etc. to be successful. But we each have ranges within those areas so there are limits to what hard work can do.

And that is all before you look at the accident of the family into which you are born. Huge factor in you success going forward. Having parent(s) who care is a huge factor in success in life. Some kids have parents who are healthy/abled and others do not. Some kids have parents with lots of resources and others not.

How should we compensate in all of the differences in terms of accidents of birth and how do you balance between the significance of those accidents and hard work/effort/discipline?

169

Well, they should feel attacked…because they are! Guys like Reeves and his fellow travelers have their own plan for fixing what’s wrong with the world, (according to them) and it relies on getting your money. There are limits to what you can get from the very top ranks, and they need the upper middle class and lower upper class to pay for what they’ve already “promised”, not to mention what they have in mind next.

If you’ll notice, a lot of what galls Reeves is the result of people exercising their basic freedoms in life. He’s one of those jokers who believes in freedom of course, but more in principle and not so much in practice.

170

Yes but the guys currently setting policy do not support Reeves or others so while there may be a lot of talk, not a lot of action. Clearly, the top 20% has been doing pretty well (especially at the top of that range).

I agree with GSL (#166) people don’t feel rich when they worry about losing their jobs, how they will pay for college and/or how to ever retire comfortably. But we all need to be grateful for how lucky we are if we are not worried about how to pay this month’s rent or put food on the table.

171

“Yeah, but wouldn’t it be better if we COULD have schools where all children are getting a quality education and wouldn’t that be better for the long term health of our country? (and I’m saying this as a person who has spent many $$ on private school tuition.) I really don’t think it should be a matter of birth and circumstances. I’d pay more taxes for a workable solution. I know, wishful thinking…”

I personally think this is a great ideal, but sadly, in no small way because of the way education is a ‘local matter’, it is not something we will see in this country, in many ways we never did. The Civil war in part highlighted the educational disparity, if you read histories of the actual war, in training soldiers, the disparity in education caused problems when it came time to train soldiers (my dad remembers in WWII having soldiers even then who were illiterate, from places in the country where education was poor at best). There is a reason almost every industrialized country has education in large part or totally by the central government. It means that poor regions economically struggle to have good schools, while schools in very affluent areas are decidedly better (and who quite bluntly don’t necessarily want to see efforts to close that disparity, these districts give their kids a decided advantage over others, less competition in other words)

There were school systems like that, the NYC public schools during the great depression era (ironically) were the envy of the world, you had working class kids getting the same education more well off kids did, and it really was a time when poor kids had a lot of the opportunities more well off kids (this despite the fact that kids often left school to help support their families, not saying it was a panacea). City College, then free, was known as the “Poor man’s Harvard” and at one point had more nobel prize winners than Harvard and the rest of the Ivies. Didn’t last long, economic and societal factors (especially white flight) led to the NYC schools going from being strong for everyone to being another urban district, with some brilliant and decent schools in some neighborhoods and terrible ones in others.

As I said in an earlier post,though, I don’t think feeling guilty is the answer, I would much rather people recognized what the problems are, the things they have, and try to find ways to make sure other kids can have them. My S never went to public school, but I strongly support the public schools in our town, obviously I pay taxes that mostly go to the schools, and I also have been involved in advocating for fairer education in the state (NJ, like most states, use local property taxes, which is ridiculous, it means people face crazy tax bills, and the cost of the schools is not equally shared, it falls on property owners, it is another reason to me why local control is idiotic, people complain about property taxes but resist, for example, paying for schools from income taxes (where the burden would be spread a lot more fairly; ask homeowners in Essex Country and Passaic County where school taxes are done county wide, and for modest houses have property taxes in the 15k range, because both counties have large, poor districts that don’t have a tax base). I don’t think people should feel guilty if they are paying for their kid to go to private school, about the only thing I think they should feel guilty about is sending their kids to private school then denigrating those with kids in bad school systems and claim that the problem has nothing to do with money and everything to do with how ‘faulty’ the kids are, that kind of attitude is one of the reasons the problem of badly performing schools never gets addressed (and no, money is not the only issue, but the reality is that if you look at schools that educationally are rated at the top of the heap by any means you want, they generally are districts with solid funding, pure and simple, and that money does matter, that rural and inner city poor districts achieve nowhere near what more affluent ones do).

172

It’s unclear how much this would affect mobility. In order for someone to move up into the top 20%, someone else has to drop out of the top 20%. That’s just mathematics.

173

Quote.

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This is a widely believed falsehood. Even NPR struggles to find a correlation between spending and achievement.

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/04/25/468157856/can-more-money-fix-americas-schools

There are plenty of studies that show additional spending on education provides only a minimal impact.

174

“It’s unclear how much this would affect mobility. In order for someone to move up into the top 20%, someone else has to drop out of the top 20%. That’s just mathematics.”

Obviously. :wink: But if there is a floor to what is acceptable in this country, than even the bottom 20% are doing okay, are they not?

@musicprnt Of course, in history, the USA (and other countries) have had large segments of the population that were illiterate. But, that doesn’t mean we can’t do a better job than we are. It won’t be easy but other countries, ones we used to consider inferior to us educationally and economically, have been able to make big strides and have improved their educational systems greatly. We need to prioritize it and realize it is as important (or more so) to our national security as a strong defense. Do folks here really think our country has a bright future if the disparities in wealth and education continue to grow?

Maybe we should stop using the term “guilt” and instead call it “awareness” or something more positive and action oriented.

175

^Maybe, but I think we’re starting to deviate from the original article. Here’s part of the author’s complaint:

176

I agree. Guilt is not useful, and my mom has already piled on more than a reasonable load
But owning it is key.

177

Perhaps not the point of the article, but there used to a narrower gap between the top earners and everyone else. While the percentiles are static, the income ranges are not. The bottom 20% could be earning only a few thousand less than the top 20% if the income distribution were very tight.

More money does not translate directly into better schools, but isn’t the cost per student at poor schools inflated by the fact that these schools tend to have more kids that require special ed, free lunches, and spending on things like tighter security? There is also much more “uncounted money” spent in rich districts - PTOs and education funds pay for computers, books, playground equipment, and in some cases classroom aides that parents in poor districts can’t fund. Not to mention all the classroom supplies parents send in these days. Let’s not pretend that wealthy schools don’t have more resources than poor ones.

178

DH’s mother says her ex was emotionally abusive to her and the boys. He catted around and got caught. He married his mistress the very first day he was legally able to after the divorce. He quit paying child support in order to adopt his new wife’s children. He actually went to court, told the judge he needed to support the new kids and petitioned to quit paying child support for his 8 and 12 year old boys-the judge halved his payments (which he never ever made again in any case)! He made no contributions to any college funds. He put his new kids into expensive private schools and sent them to prestigious private colleges. DH and his brother were estranged with him for many years.

DH says all of this is PRECISELY why he succeeded in life and in business. He said he would never have achieved near as much if everything had been given to him. He started working at a young age-delivering papers, collecting cans, raising chicks and selling their eggs. In high school, he always worked 2 jobs. In college, he sold trophies to athletic teams and worked in a restaurant.

He said he watched his mom struggle financially and he vowed that when he grew up, he would never depend on someone else to take care of him. He wanted to show his Dad that he was fine and would make something of himself without his presence and support. And, he did. He worked 7 days a week in a 100% commission job and is known in his field for his smart strategies and integrity. He still works most days and puts in many hours. He should feel absolutely NO GUILT whatsoever for doing well. He does feel very blessed. He believes the saying that “luck” is preparation (hard work and willingness to take risks) meeting up with opportunity.

In his case, his success has everything to do with what family he was born into. But not the way people would always assume.

179

The luck of being born intelligent is privilege?

Stop the PC world, I want to get off!!

180

^ Of course it is. Being born with high intelligence. Being born healthy. Being born into a wealthy country. These are all privileges. It doesn’t mean you can’t improve on them through hard work, but they do start one off ahead of the starting line.