The Cut released a new thinkpiece this week, and it’s been a talking point among the social media intelligentsia. The article? “The Fleishman Effect: In a city of Rachels and Libbys, the FX show has some New York moms worried they’re the ones in trouble.” Basically, affluent – perhaps even downright wealthy – women in New York feel especially exposed since Fleishman Is In Trouble streamed on Hulu. The miniseries is based on the book by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, and the whole thing is apparently THE talking point among a particular set of working mothers in Manhattan and Brooklyn. These are older Millennials, Xennials and young Gen-Xers who bought into Rise and Grind Culture, who believe that if they hustle hard enough, they can afford that three-bedroom co-op with a terrace, or they can get their children into the “perfect” nursery school. You can read the full piece here.
People have been discussing it all week, as I said. There are some bold takes and some unkind comments, honestly. While I don’t find these rich women sympathetic, I do find them sad and I do think they’re deserving of some compassion. Like, they were challenged by the all-too-real themes of Fleishman – class, ambition, aging, grinding without enjoyment. I wanted to excerpt a little bit:
Throwing money at problems: “Money is the fix for anything here,” says Paige, 40, who cringes as she tells me about the consultant she and her husband hired to help their 5-year-old get into a private kindergarten next year. “I’m like, Are we crazy? Am I doing this? We are two decent human beings, we are on boards, we are community leaders, and we are hiring someone to draft and edit our thank-you letters and to tell us to hold the door open on school tours? It’s just like, In what world is this normal? IN WHAT WORLD?” They’ve also hired a tutor and enrolled their child in Russian math—a trend now among preschool parents who’ve heard that the old Soviet method might give their children a leg up.
Beth in the suburbs: Beth, also 39 and in the suburbs, finds herself constantly asking her husband, “How do we get back to the city?” The math feels impossible. Even with a combined household income of $500,000, the New York life she wants for her family feels out of reach. “My dream life would be to live in Brooklyn and send my daughter to Saint Ann’s, but the reality of my life is I live in the suburbs and haven’t taken a day off in two years. I get up at 6 a.m., and I work until she wakes up, then I do breakfast and get her ready, then the nanny comes, I work all day, I relieve the nanny, and then get back on my computer and work until midnight after my daughter goes to sleep. I do that every day,” she says. “And it’s still not enough.” ‘
Beth is miserable: Since leaving New York, Beth has found herself in tears at least once a week. She makes $300,000 a year—more than she’s ever earned in her life—but she’s running out of minutes in the day to squeeze out more dollars. “How do I make the $700,000 that I’m going to need to send her to private school or do the renovation in the attic so I can turn it into the master suite so I can have a tub and so I can have one thing I enjoy in my life?” she says. Her takeaway from the show: “Both avenues are sh-t. You can stay in New York and climb, climb, climb and never get where you need to go and give yourself a nervous breakdown, or you can move to the suburbs and be like, Who the f–k are these pod people? Neither seems great. Is the secret to it all that we have to just choose a lane and embrace it?”
Someone commented that many of these women’s problems would be solved by simply sending their kids to public school. I agree? The whole thing of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to send your children to “the best” nursery schools and elementary schools is so f–king idiotic. Maybe – MAYBE – I would understand spending the money on a fancy private high school, but not private the whole way. I also agreed with all of the sentiments of… just move. If you’re grinding away without enjoyment, try a different f–king city. Jesus.
But really, there are larger problems – when did people in New York get so provincial? Why are they acting like these struggles are completely new? The problem isn’t that women in their 40s are experiencing some new dilemma of work-life-hustle-competitive-parenting, it’s that they fell into the exact same f–king traps as several generations of women before them.
I keep thinking about the The Fleishman Effect article, lol. Are we like…gently rebranding pecuniary emulation and its emptying effects or what.
— Brandon (@blgtylr) February 7, 2023
that Fleishman article in The Cut underscores that people can live in new york city and pull half a milli each year and be so, so terribly provincial. like myopic does not begin to cover it
— Sarah Thankam Mathews (@smathewss) February 7, 2023
I like to feel solidarity with women having a little a breakdown but the fact that public school is not even the faintest consideration for these people feeling strapped with minimum 300k annual household incomes is why I simply cannot https://t.co/B0XdL7Va8G
— Lydia Kiesling (@lydiakiesling) February 6, 2023
Photos courtesy of Fleishman/Hulu.
I go back to this 2003 NY Times article again and again about educated white women opting out of the working world. Obviously they are incredibly privileged to be able to do so but it does talk about some of these same things. Plus you have these hyper competitive people turning all that attention onto their children. It’s going to get weird.
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/magazine/the-opt-out-revolution.html
So. I have some friends who live in nyc. And they have had to sue their school district because their children were not getting their needs met. They are able to send them to a private school now that specializes in their child’s specific needs. They are black.
My mindset is immediately- these kids have special needs that can’t be met in public schools or are made worse in public schools. But that seems to not be the case at all. I don’t understand putting that kind of pressure on yourself for specific things that you think will make your child a success. Children are little people. Do they even want this? Are you just signing them up for the same rat race you hate?
@moxylady. You are full of it. Period.
k- I have a bff who is a special needs public school teacher for 20 years. the concept of suing the school district to get kids the money to go to a private that is more suitable is usually a middle to upper class “thing” OR something people do when their kids have a really distinct cluster of special needs.
I’ve had friends with special needs kids navigate the public school system. my daughter was in a public school class for example that had 12 kids with special needs- that class was staffed with 4 full time adults and had specialists who pushed in or took kids out for various therapies- the main teachers are heroes though.
as for the 45-60k private special needs school in Manhattan? it’s kind of a racket that relies on a combo of rich families who pay in full and then other families (who easily make 500k but aren’t rich by NYC standards) who sue the system to get their cash out. I have friends who teach at those too…they’re excellent but not gearing kids for the ivies. just a different way to teach special needs.
Even in my area I have heard of people suing the public system for funds to go to private schools, but the people who win are usually those who have a “distinct cluster of special needs” as @gah put it. My parents even talked about it with a lawyer who specializes in….well, special education and educational law etc….(for my nephew who had several very real issues) and she was like, well, you can try, but its going to cost you a lot of money and I will tell you its very rare that parents win this one. there are a LOT of things the schools can and are willing to do rather than pay for private.
Maybe its more of a thing in NYC, IDK.
It is unfortunately sadly common in NYC to have to sue for appropriate placement when your child has special needs. The first option is always to try and place your child in existing programs in the public schools, even if those options won’t work for your kid. The special needs private schools will take your kid knowing that you can’t pay now, but that you will most likely win, but then you’re on the hook for the tuition if you don’t. I went to NYC public schools but sent my special needs kid to catholic school. Public school didn’t need his needs, I couldn’t afford regular private school much less a special needs private. I was a single mom and have never made the kind of money they talk about in this article, but the quality of public schools varies wildly in NYC. You need to be zoned for a good elementary, and then middle and high school is a lottery free for all. It’s not for the faint of heart, and if I had the money to have sent my son to an expensive private school I probably would have. That he said he is a student at Hunter College which is a part of the City University, so he wound up back in public education eventually.
It’s never good to be judgmental about whether people “should” send their kids to public school or not, especially for special needs. In some places you actually have to sue the school district to place them where they’re special needs can be met (at a private school), that is the only mechanism to make it happen. There are law firms that specialize in it. I knew someone who worked at a firm like that and found it gratifying, I remember being shocked to learn that was how it worked-I thought you world just file a request somewhere and they said, yes this is how you do it, by suing, that is the request, filing the lawsuit.
Regardless, people should be able to send their kids where they want that is best for their child, no matter how much it costs, as long as they can afford it or get funding for it or get the proper permission to send their child to a certain school in a given district (if it’s public and they don’t live in that area). Everyone knows what’s best for their child and it’s a free country and they should be able to send their kids to the best place they can, whatever that is, period.
I didn’t read the article, but the problem with the people quoted is that they are trying to live beyond their means and keep up with “the Joneses”. They should decide they’re happy in the life they have and accept it or scale back.
It you can’t afford to live in Brooklyn and send your kid to St. Ann’s, then don’t! Or make it happen! But be happy and love your life!
WTF?!?
I’m not full of it. She’s one of my best friends. And no- they aren’t wealthy. When you sue the school district, if you win they pay for your attorney as well.
And if y’all think that public schools are dealing well with children with special needs – regardless of the singular teachers we know who are amazing – y’all don’t know Jack about special needs individuals or the systemic bias and rampant failure to aid them on every single conceivable level.
Blow me @Tiffany.
I don’t know why Tiffany is being so weirdly aggressive. I’ve had multiple friends sue, and none were rich. One was a public school teacher whose adopted son had severe disabilities. Mostly it’s kids with dyslexia who were not progressing with the push in sessions the local public offered. They needed specialized school with intensive language arts instruction for half the day. They all were able to learn to read and mainstream back for middle school.
I remember that article. They did a follow up on some of those opt-out women. Some were divorced and back in workplace, some frustrated they had a hard time getting back in workplace. Now it seems you need to make minimum high 6 figures, being a doctor is the career equivalent of an administrative assistant and you need grind yourself down with work to be able to afford lots of expensive things to show you belong.
Here’s the follow up article – thanks @L4Frimaire for pointing that out so I could look it up: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/magazine/the-opt-out-generation-wants-back-in.html
Private schools are mainly a product of white flight–whites not wanting to desegregate their schools or communities and thus making it so only other whites could afford to attend private ones–funneling property tax money away from public/social needs to their de facto segregated institutions, to attract the best teachers with high paychecks instead of encouraging them to educate the populous and the underserved who need the best teachers more. Spare me your woes about not being able to send your kid to a private kindergarten–away from the unwashed masses. YOU are the problem with the American system, and you’ve bought into it lock, stock, and barrel. Yet you’re going to come to me and tell me you’re not racist. Racism comes out in action–private schools (and to a lesser degree, charter schools that are trying to keep up and compete), are racism incarnate. No sympathy for you. None.
And they probably think they are liberal/progressive as well. It is the upper classes working really hard to pull up the ladder behind them.
What an amazing post @THATSNOTOKAY! I posted before i saw your comment and you are absolutely spot on!!
Yep. My dad insisted on sending me to public school for this reason.
@Thatsnotokay – 💯
@ThatsNotOkay I read your comment 3 times cause wow, you said everything so succinctly and you really made me think of the bigger picture!
@thatsnotok – yes! 1000%
@thatsnotokay thank you for speaking the truth so clearly
This is entirely correct.
Agree with everything you say here.
And I’ll just add that as a parent who very deliberately chose to send kids to public schools, the skills my children have learned at their big, diverse, urban public high school are going to last them far longer than any advanced math or college prep-like classes they could have taken in private school. I went to an excellent high school in a wealthy suburb at a time when Oregon had some of the best schools in the nation (we’ve fallen pretty far due to defunding), but my kids are savvier and better able to navigate the world then I was at their age. They have people skills and a perspective on the world that it took me decades to learn. And as for their futures, they are going to do just fine.
And that’s sort of the crux of it. Why is doing just fine and building the life you want not enough? Why must their kids be pushed to be better, earn more, have bigger lives? That sounds exhausting.
Salmonpuff I feel the same way. Even though we could afford private fancy schools and my math-genius twins would probably benefit from some additional instruction so they didn’t have to shuttle between schools and work with outside tutors to learn, we LIKE them in a diverse school environment. Every weekend it’s a lovely mix of diverse teenagers at our house, literally; some second generation Indian, Italian and German immigrants and kids whose parents are execs from around the world and living in our city temporarily; black and POC local kids; kids who go to Temple every Saturday, kids who go to mosques along with Catholic and protestant Christian kids; and a healthy mix of financial diversity. We love it. We also love that we don’t pay tuition. And my teenagers say they are learning real world skills by going to school with both book smart and academically-struggling kids.
I grew up in a very socioeconomically diverse family — and it taught me to move in different worlds — and, most importantly, that different worlds existed. My son goes to a public high school that is economically and racially diverse. (He has friends who think our family is well-off and other friends who think our family is poor.) And he’s learning the same skills — as an adult, he’ll be equally at home in the corner tavern or a cocktail party.
If your ambition for your child is to be wealthier than you, prestigious private schools are the first step on that path. They open the doors to the contacts needed to get into a top college, get exclusive internship, get high paying jobs, and generally move in monied circles.
I grew up near a number of prestigious private schools and my friends who attended them all went to ivy league schools and stepped into huge careers almost from the day they graduated.
@Tacky – this. I see these (honestly) mediocre people who land amazing jobs or are given special treatment all because of where they went to school and who they socialized with/contacts they made with alumni.
@salmonpuff – 100% agree. We also chose public school because I honestly want my kids to be around people from all walks of life, and to have those life experiences that money can’t (and frankly won’t) buy. The kids in their school run the gamut – some are on a free-lunch program, and some are wearing the newest Apple watch or have the latest iPhone (this is elementary school).
I have friends who have chosen private school – to each their own – but I have found their reasoning to be rather elitist. Scoring the best in a test is not equivalent to making you a good human.
Yup. I went to private schools all the way through and my kids are going to public schools. I don’t want to take away tax dollars from other kids. It bothers my mom because she wants her grandkids to have the best education but my kids aren’t better or more deserving than anyone else’s kids. We love our school, they are getting a wonderful education. Send your kids to public schools!
Black mother of Black children here. We were committed to sending our kids to public school because we were public school kids right through until university. However, when push came to shove, and it was time to enroll our first in public kindergarten, we were stunned by the lack of diversity in our zoned school. Our kid would have been the only Black kid in the class. Absolutely not okay with us.
Other Black families encouraged us to consider a private school, which, shockingly, was much more racially diverse. In some communities, the upshot of residential segregation (which is still a thing, even if it isn’t legally sanctioned) is that neighborhood schools reflect the neighborhood.
This is not to badmouth anyone’s choices, but the anti-private school sentiment on this thread really reflects a particular set of experiences and views of what “diversity” looks and feels like. Just my .02.
@ProfPlum I couldn’t agree more. It really feels like private schools are being demonised on this thread. I chose to send my son to a private school (K-12) here in Australia, not because I think I’m better than anyone else, or because I think my kid deserves better than other kids. I was going to send my son to the local public school, until discussions with other parents who already had kids there changed my mind.
The public and Catholic schools in my area have large class sizes (30-35 per class), and a number of parents I spoke to whilst my son was still in daycare felt their kids get lost amongst it all. My son works much better in smaller groups, and gets overwhelmed in large group settings. The private school I ended up choosing has: no more than 20 students per class; is extremely well-resourced; a very strong focus on literacy; a teachers aid for every class; and is one of the most inclusive and culturally diverse schools in the district.
My son made a new friend last year who came from the local public school. The class sizes were so large that he fell through the cracks with literacy and was so far behind in his reading that he was being ridiculed by his classmates. Since moving to my son’s much smaller school, he has come along in leaps and bounds and is now at the same level as his friends. This is not to say that the local public schools are flawed because there are children who are thriving in them (I went to a public primary school and it was great for me). But all children are different, and some thrive in public settings, while others don’t. My son is very different to me and needs smaller groups to focus.
Of course, this is just my experience, but my point is, that diversity may be lacking in some private schools, but certainly not all. The choice of schools is a very personal matter, and it’s served my son well. He doesn’t work well in large groups, and the small class size has been very beneficial for him, and he has the most wonderfully diverse group of friends. I couldn’t agree with you more.
@ImWithTheBand if you’re in Australia then probably 99% of these comments don’t apply to you. The history of segregation and public education is going to be very different.
@ProfPlum you know I don’t disagree with you. (I went to a private HS that was more diverse than any public school my boys will attend). I live in a majority white county and our schools reflect that. It’s getting better actually year by year, but it’s slow.
My issue is more with white people making performative statements about “what can I dooooo about racism” when ignoring the very obvious answer in front of (many, but not all) white people – which is to support public schools. It’s not a one size fits all answer though.
Again, I went to private school from 6-12 and then I attended a prestigious and $$$$ private college. I’m not demonizing private schools. Not entirely lol.
YES. My husband and I are relatively high earners, but we will never send our kids to private school for this reason.
If you’re upper middle class or wealthy and white, your kids already have everything they need to succeed in life. They’re gonna be fine in public school.
All this diversity bs and being cool for sending your kids to public school is a bunch of BS. If the public school is not right for you child and your child is not excelling then you should switch to a private school. I have a special needs child and so far the public school is failing him so I will have to go the private school route. I don’t care if the private school is all black or white as long as it meets my child’s needs.
In the US at least, the passing of socioeconomic status from parents to children is not guaranteed for many. Children of middle class black parents have a much hard time holding on to the economic power than white kids. This conversation looks very different to families of color than for white families.
👏👏👏👏👏👏
THIS!!!!
Perfectly stated.
**Standing ovation**
My kids go to public schools and will go public unless something necessitates a change – and by that I mean a real learning issue arises (not just “my johnny is so special he needs something ‘more’ and I don’t know what school can handle someone as special and unique as he is” said in that super annoying sing song voice lol). But so far they are both thriving in public schools and I LOVE our elementary school so we’re staying put.
my SIL moved from a very diverse area (racially and socioeconomically diverse, it was specifically designed that way) to a very very white area that is also very very racist (like, if you drive through the town with a white local they’ll point out the “bad area” to you and surprise, its predominantly Hispanic. There is also a legacy of slavery in that area that you still see play out today.) Anyway, my point is that after she moved here (it was to be closer to family help so not a bad reason in itself), she posted something about wanting to become more aware about racism and was asking for book recommendations etc and wanting advice on raising her kids to be anti-racist etc.
I was like…..the best thing you could have done was stayed where you were, put your kids through the very diverse public schools (and also, very excellent public schools) – but instead you moved to a very white, very conservative area and are sending your kids to the $$$ private school. Even still moving and utilizing the public schools would have been better.
Private school has tiers and varies. My child’s Catholic school is more diverse than the public school she is zoned to. I have her there for the small community vibe and for the inclusion of ethics and moral discussions, even though I am not Catholic and have some issues with it.
Catholic school is by and large much cheaper. But I am located in south. Our school is four times cheaper than the fancy WASP schools.
My husband and I are public school grads, K-12 and our BAs, too. Our kids also attended public schools through high school. Both enrolled in private colleges, which wasn’t ideal, but to pursue the majors they wanted, it’s what had to be done. Their small campuses (my son’s college had fewer students than his high school — undergrad and graduate!) are located in the middle of a major metropolitan city with a lot of diversity in and outside the school, so that’s a plus, too!
We need to save our public schools. Immediately.
That’s not true in NYC. My local private schools are more diverse than my zoned public because no one can afford to live in my neighbor unless they’re rich or inherited a rent stabilized apartment. And there is no public preschool. It’s really messed up.
I don’t know the show but I’m dying to watch it now. This is the opposite of my life and I find it fascinating. These people have ZERO problems on paper and are miserable, yes? These women are exactly my age but while they are apparently caught in a hamster wheel, I’m over here, single, no kids, disposable income, a nice apartment (nothing ostentatious but a nice 650 sqft all to myself), wondering why I was ever worried about “not finding a man” or having kids.
I recently read something that really gave me a completely new perspective on these wealthy people. A quote that said “I have something they will never have: Enough.”
Exactly! I read the article and really felt pity for those women. I don’t feel sorry for them, stuck in a hamster wheel of their own making, I feel pity for them that they will never know what it’s like to be satisfied with what you have.
As I approach my 40s I absolutely love that I no longer GAF about what others have. I don’t GAF about what others think. It’s been the greatest gift of my 30s, it’s led me to be so satisfied with what I have and what I do. And they’ll never have that because of this mindset they buy into.
I kind of understand. It is entirely dependent on where you live; you are influenced by your surroundings, simple as that. I personally love New York and would move there in a heartbeat if I didn’t have a family. And the reason why I don’t think it’s ideal at all for a family is because of all the above: pressure/crazy expenses/great expectations.
It’s true: you absolutely can opt out of the grind, and many people do. But there is a reason people love cities in general and New York in particular. Metropoli have always been symbols of empire and merit-based mobility. But truth hurts: not everyone who moves there can make it, and even those who make it, feel like failures. That’s what happens when you station the 1% of the world next to those with nothing on the same streets. Always something impossible to aspire to; always reminders of where any one of us could end up. I don’t think this article is as much about evoking sympathy as it is, a slice of life. An examination into our collective, existential discontent. It’s a theme as old as time, as evidenced by our fascination with the works of Austen, Wharton, Fitzgerald, Capote and Proust. And yes, it’s both easy and hard to pity these women, as they evoke the same ambivalence we have towards the Lily Barts, Jay Gatsbys, and Holly Gollightlys of the world.
Emmi, I never heard that quote before, but I love it! I looked it up and it is believed that Joseph Heller said it to Kurt Vonnegut at a party (https://narendragoidani.medium.com/but-i-have-something-he-will-never-have-enough-8036d03d089b). As someone who is very much at that time in life where things are mapped out, I often question if I’m content or is that a nicer word for lazy. Still, I’d rather keep what I have than “grind” like those in this story. Salaries that are five times more than I make do not seem worth it if you never have time to enjoy it.
It’s a great quote, isn’t it?
I work for corporate lawyers who make many many many times what I earn. I sometimes caught myself thinking „Should I have tried to have a career like that? Was I just too lazy?“ But I simply never cared enough about bigger, better, more. I make good money and I am good at what I do. So compared to my boss I might be „lazy“ but what does it matter if I‘m happy with what I have? I have free time and money to enjoy it.
I can’t feel the tiniest bit of sympathy here.
Same. Zero sympathy.
I feel no sympathy either BUT im super happy she uses “xennial” in the post. Everyone always leaves us out lol. That is all.
Lol yes! I’m also a xennial and love seeing this because I in no way feel like a gen Xer or a millennial and feel like our issues are just different.
What do you mean? “ Xennial” is just a term referring to a person who is either late GenerationX (usually) or very early Millenial. But “Xennial” isn’t a real generation classification. Anyone who could be described as “Xennial” always falls into either “GenerationX” or “Millenial”.
If you were asking me I mean exactly what I said. I know it’s not officially considered a classification but I don’t really identify, and frankly feel too old to be grouped in with millennials even though I just squeak in according to the dates. I feel like so much changed during the 80s and 90s, especially when it came to everyday tech, that my childhood and experiences were much different than my cousins who were born 10 years after me and are also millennials. The internet changed everything, the way we communicated, worked, got entertainment, everything and I just feel like there is a sub group of us millennials, the last actually, that remember a childhood without the internet and the millennials that came after us had a much different experience and all of that shaped us into the people we are now.
Born in 1980 so my year gets claimed by both Generation X and Millennial classifications, depending upon which definition you read. I identify with some of both and yet neither experiences completely. Xennial sounds good to me, the overlap of the Venn diagram.
Yes! I’m late 1978 so get counted into both groups (more often Gen-X) and can absolutely see aspects of my life in both. I first heard the term a few years back and definitely had an ah-ha moment.
Team Xennial! (aka “The Oregon Trail” Generation)
Another one here to join Team Xennial!
Also Team Xennial! It IS a different experience to both Gen X and Millennials, primarily due to tech changing rapidly but also being born (if you’re US/European) into a growing economy and then coming of age in relative stability. We had a lot of benefits but also I think missed the tech fluency that the younger Millennials have. I identify Xennials by the common complaint ‘I want my trousers to reach my ankles, please, not be shorter, and no more of this crop top nonsense’ lol.
I feel for them. They are so caught up in a strange trap that is in their own minds. I have a different trap but I feel like I can sympathize. I hope they can listen to critiques and feel things and choose a new path. Shame and trying to prove and justify our actions and choices – mixed with social media and a lack of empathy and sympathy keep our society stuck.
I couldn’t even muster up enough interest or sympathy for the world of the show to watch. One trailer with JE and a view of the series was enough for me to nope out.
I don’t work as hard as Beth yet watching that show is still on my list of things I want to do. I need Beth’s time management skills since she can work that many hours and still binge watch a series.
Trying to live like the .1% on a 1.5% salary will kill you or make your family life miserable. These lives are no longer aspirational. *sigh*
I live in Atlanta, not NY, and we still went seriously OTP for this reason. My kid can grow up in the relative lap of luxury without needing the obscene costs of city living.
I’m also in the Atlanta area. We went OTP in 2008 after living in town because even rundown houses in our old neighborhood cost half a million. I miss it but I prefer not being housepoor.
Sorry if a stupid question, but what does OTP mean? I googled and still can’t get an answer other than “one-time password” lol
Outside the perimeter.
thank you! Had no idea
I live in the DC area, and far outside the beltway, and it is shocking to me how much everything costs
ITP/OTP Inside/Outside the perimeter in ATL- 285 makes a loop around the city proper. OTP is the ‘burbs.
manda, 285 is Atlanta’s 495.
Thanks, @summer! I was over here googling it and the definitions (one time password or one true pairing) were just confusing 🙂
Outside the perimeter! I visited my friend who lives in Marietta, a suburb outside Atlanta some years ago and she clued me in to the local lingo.
….what does OTP mean? (I and Google only know it as One Time Password)
They will never of course admit this but at the heart of so much of this is good ole fashioned racism. They want their kids around other rich White kids. And only around a certain kind of diversity. Asian kids. Black kids if they’re a private school kid that matches their economic status. They don’t want to be around working class Black or Latino communities.
I lived in the south for years. i’m still recovering from all the crap i encountered there. Parents pay private assessors to get their kids into gifted programs when they couldn’t get in through the school. Their logic is if they aren’t in gifted by middle school they’ll be in “gen pop”. They literally call it gen pop. And they don’t see the racism in what they’re saying. What you have now is a bunch of kids struggling in gifted cause they never belonged there to begin with. The schools have added an interview component too to keep those programs overwhelmingly White.
I know a divorced woman who literally went broke to rent in a particular school district (her kids got in gifted through private testing) She refused to take her settlement – which was generous, to move. That school district homes are selling upwards of 1.5 million and some for 3-4 million. She didn’t have enough to buy but could have lived comfortably outside the city in a dozen other school districts.
These women remind me of my old neighborhood. In their mind there’s only one acceptable school, neighborhood, etc. They are miserable but their misery is self imposed. If they weren’t so Karenish, they’d have an actual shot at happiness. It’s very hard to feel sympathy for someone so myopic.
Let’s combine our posts and write comprehensive essay about how gross, toxic, and racist this mentality is. How it perpetuates the wealth gap, education gap, etc., and how these people turn a blind eye to it because “they didn’t start it.” Well, look, if you live in America and enjoy its benefits, you also have to assume its debts. America owes a huge debt to BIPOC people that is coming due. Don’t like it, YOU can leave. Otherwise, it’s there on the balance sheet. Same as with any corporation.
“if you live in America and enjoy its benefits, you also have to assume its debts.” YES, I wanna put this on a t-shirt or something. So good.
@ThatsNotOkay I continue to be impressed by your insight. You’re awesome.
OTP= outside the perimeter
The “Perimeter” is Interstate-285, which forms a loop around the city. Anything within the Perimeter (ITP) is considered Atlanta proper, while areas outside the loop (OTP) is considered the suburbs. Sort of like London.
oh, thanks!
I haven’t heard that phrase since I was in middle school but I can confirm it’s true.
“They literally call it gen pop.“
Gen pop?! That’s terrible! I have as much sympathy for them as they have for the young children whom they are choosing to other…
@TwinFalls and @OriginalLeigh I wish I had a pic of my face the first time I heard this expression. So disturbing. So even when this type of parent stays in public school they find a way to segregate their kid, even if it means their kid doesn’t belong in the gifted program or will struggle. I know several people who paid for expensive private evaluations that of course, conclude a struggling kid is really a genius not being challenged, and boom – they’re in the gifted program. Thank goodness! No longer in genpop! Disaster averted. They only allow a small number of Black kids in gifted, no matter how deserving. We can’t have 20 Black kids in gifted unless it’s a predominantly Black school. Hell no not in our lily White Superior District. This will not stand.
We did both public and private. We switched to a small private school because honestly, public school had too much damn homework. No way a 6 year old should be at the homework table 2-3 hours. Ridiculous. We found a school that didn’t believe in homework (and was also a great school) and all of a sudden my kid got to be a kid again, playing outside after school, rollerblading, walking the dogs. Some days we even went to get ice cream, hit a skating rink or a bowling alley. It was lovely. And when kids turned in projects, you can tell they were done by the kids themselves – not a parent or a paid consultant.
Everyone looked at me like I had two heads when it came out that we turned down the gifted program before we left public school. I mean people were MORTIFIED. Don’t you want him to be challenged??? (Code for don’t you want him with rich White kids who can afford private evaluations?). My response: school is challenging enough what do you mean?
Some people literally avoided us when this information came out – and I’m not sure how it did because I didn’t leak it. Crazy ass neighborhood.
Honestly it’s kind of ironic that these women’s racism is causing them to be over extended, miserable, and going broke – all to keep their kids segregated.
I read the article in The Cut, and it was deeply exhausting. No sympathy. And it made me absurdly glad to live in my little mountain lake town in Virginia with two stepkids in college.
Same susieQ! Never felt so happy to live in an affordable New Mexico area where people don’t have a lot of money but value art, culture, family and time way more than these big careers and homes. I’m sure a lot has do with the diversity in my area to value more than money which seems to be a colonizer view point.
This is why parents need to get their kids out of the rat race. It’s all about sending your kids to the best schools so they get into the best colleges and listen y’all, I work at a fancy private college, and the emperor has no clothes. The rich kids get jobs based on connections. The poor kids get lots of debt and maybe a good job. But then they realize that job makes them miserable.
I don’t want my kids going to work for Goldman Sachs, so why play that game to begin with? Pare back the extracurriculars and actually spend time with your kids, instead of shuttling them from activity to activity. Everyone will be happier.
We live in an affluent neighborhood in Austin that we can afford easily. But I am so happy my kids don’t want to participate in the extracurricular. My son is academically gifted but couldn’t get into the gifted program, and my oldest struggles in school. Other parents seem more stressed about my oldest’s options than I am – so my kid won’t get a scholarship. Oh well. I refuse to make myself miserable or get stuck in the race. I see this cycle all the time with parents and kids and just won’t do it. It’s ridiculous.
I know so many people who struggled in school but have flourished as adults. Academic achievement isn’t everything, and good grades are not the only way to be smart!
You are so right. IMO, college is a good option, especially as it lets you mature and expand your knowledge in a (supposedly) safe environment, where you can make mistakes and learn from them. But Harvard is not the be all, end all. Ivies don’t give you much more than a state school, except you get to go to school with private school kids who think their sh*t don’t stink, though it smells worse than anyone else’s. Then you get to graduate with those kids and see how easily door are opened for them through their parents and connections, even if you did better than they did, while you struggle to get noticed. That the life you want? Some people can do better skipping college and starting at the bottom, while showing drive, compassion, and aptitude, and excel without the debt. If our country could get its act together and make college free, then I’d encourage all kids to go. But since it hasn’t, really weigh the cost-benefit, especially in terms of the place you choose to go. Only those who want to do banking (and who really wants to do banking–that culture is disgusting) “need” an ivy on the resume. Not even doctors or lawyers have to have that–they just need to kick ass on the MCAT or LSAT, or, if not that, get great internships/clerkships and match well when all is said and done. All of this is a racket rooted in a lot of racism too. The whole thing needs to be dismantled and rebuilt toward genuine equity and fiscal fairness.
I have a masters from a highly regarded school. My husband also has his. Both of my kids are smart, hard workers, but unless they start showing aptitude for some very specific skill that can only be acquired at Ivy, then we’re prepping them for community college, then finish at a 4 year if they want. Or, even a technical school. My other thing is go to school where you want to live. Of course, they might want to live in some really cool place, but there is no guarantee that with any decent degree they’ll be able to afford to live in that place after they graduate, and it is hard to get hired in smaller/cheaper locations coming from a prestigious school because people think you’ll move on once something better comes along. My neighbor owns a law firm, and he is way more likely to hire someone that went to the local law school than he is to hire a Harvard grad.
Eh, those big name universities aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Freshman get fobbed off on TAs just a few years older/further ahead in school while the big-name profs who pull in the big $$ in grant money & PR may deign to speak with grad students–generally to get them to do their grunt work–but never share their wisdom with the undergrads. A good student is a good student no matter where they go to university. As for public vs. private school, I’ve always thought there was something inherently snotty about private school–my kid’s too good to associate with the likes of your kids. I have the same feelings about gated communities.
@Millennial – that’s a really interesting perspective. I should bona fide myself first: I have no sympathy for the women and men in this gross, disgusting snob world of their own making. “Provincial” from the article is putting it nicely. These are blinkered, small minded people.
I have three children and I do not want them in the rat race, but I do have to fight back hard against my own brain encouraging me to push them, to “win” some invisible competition (that others are also in, absolutely, but it’s only a competition if I care, you know?). I just want my kids to grow up and have a normal 1980s middle class adulthood and it feels like that’s slipping out of people’s hands, hence the scramble. It sounds like it’s so hard for kids to even get into regular colleges sometimes nowadays… there’s always a nagging worry that middle class security is ephemeral.
But yeah, I can’t seriously make my kids crazy to try and get them into schools they’ll never get into.
This! I hope my kids go to trade school and start a business. My plumber makes $3m a year managing a bunch of trucks (and no school debt!!!). Demand for a good, reliable plumber will never go down.
It’s a sad thing that these moms don’t understand that having a happy, relaxed, present mom (both parents actually) would do so much more for their childs development and future success than any private nursery
My mother is a Montessori teacher. The kind of place that these people would kill to get into (and then ruin bc they want to see RESULTS). She always said the kids from “underprivileged” but old school households, like large families where the kids grew up crawling around the kitchen playing with empty pots while a babysitting relative cooked, had better cognitive and fine motor skills than those with raised by nannies in playpens/strollers all day.
I don’t have sympathy for these idiots bc they have choices. They just care SO MUCH about status that they don’t want to make “unacceptable” (aka healthy, rational) choices.
I especially don’t have sympathy bc I AM them – lived in Brooklyn. Worked in media in Manhattan. 6 figure income. Got a huge 3bd/2bath rent stabilized apartment in a “bad neighborhood” ( aka black) early, then watched as rents around me shot sky high. So had space AND disposable income.
Got pregnant by accident and saw the future – this. These people. And public school isn’t the option you might think it is in NY bc ofc that’s utterly unequal too. The Park Slope public schools (“good”) are, for example, why rents there are insane. And the park slope Karen mom brigade is a nightmare of PTO rules and nimby shit. I was zoned to a public school where lead and asbestos were discovered.
Also, I’m dark and my child very white and I nanny comments in the first month so I noped out of NYC. Went South. Put my kid in amazing Montessori on 10 acres of land. Bought a little house with 20% down bc it’s all so inexpensive (comparatively) here. Started a new life.
And yes, the people in my old NY life were so shocked at my choices they said I had post partum depression. My choices were… Embarrassing? It made everyone deeply uncomfortable.
Those “pod people” comments about suberbia? Jesus what a two-fer of both snobbery and utterly lack of self awareness. They choose “acceptable” suburbs full of exactly the same white flight ppl like themselves and then turn around and try to distance themselves from the Karen PTO rules and nimbyism!
Ugh. TBO I miss my old career. I definitely took an income hit (balanced by lower cost of living, better quality of life) and am not where I “should” be on the career ladder (takes time to build new connections, learn new ropes, lateral transitions)… But my child is having a better life, in an amazing school, with zero pressure and all the joy. And I get to parent and live my life without the self-imposed anxiety of these nutjobs.
I think that’s fascinating, about the kids who are being raised with “benign neglect” being more advanced. It makes sense to me.
I was born in the mid 1960s so I was pretty much raised that way. My brother and I were the second “set of two” out of four children, so we just played together and outside with the neighbors. It helped that we didn’t have a lot of screen time, of course. There was one TV in the house and it only had anything on that we cared to watch maybe six hours out of the week anyway.
I think the Park Slope Karen moms would have driven me crazy too. The Moms in my neighborhood in Houston were bad enough. And my kids were in public school, too. I wasn’t helicoptered and I wasn’t going to helicopter them no matter what anyone thought.
@annel – “benign neglect” is the exact phrase i use about my childhood too!
And…i moved to Houston 🤭. It’s definitely got its inner loop pockets of insanity, but it’s less about grinding and striving like the NYC scene and more about the unsubtle resource hoarding of the super wealthy… Lots of money in search of taste. Less fear about being able to afford things and more fear about being not being cool/stylish/au currant/trophy-wife-looking enough. At least from what I can see. I’m not really in it.
Are you still here?
On a larger scale, you see this happening all over the world. A famous professor developed a theory about it – I’ll try and find the link. The general gist is that we’ve bought into the idea that you have to go to college to be successful, and if you got to graduate school, you are even higher up on the food chain, with a PhD you are set to rule to world. And that’s not how it works. That’s not any of it works. So now there’s a TON of disaffected people with college loans and a bunch of people who weren’t able to go to college and are told that they are nothing and not recognized for their worth. It’s not a great situation.
This is accurate. I just got accepted into a PhD program on my 3rd attempt. It’s been 20 years since getting my MA. My dad, a farmer with only a HS education, was like, “is this gonna make you more money?” And it will.
But it’s so interesting to have his perspective that practicality rather than ambition is what’s important. We’ve led folks to believe these degrees are always gonna bring tangible benefits, but that’s not often the case.
I’ll get more $ at my job but realistically, this program isn’t for some huge job boon. It’s personal satisfaction and bragging rights, mainly.
But I feel like that–that “you need to go to college” etc, thing–is changing a little bit. I know a lot of people that do well in the IT field that didn’t graduate college. I also feel like they are pushing trades a little bit more as an option than they were when I was in high school in the 90’s. My friends with kids in high school have made it sound like there are more options and they are talking about them both, but maybe that’s just where they happen to go
Where I’m at, People are definitely realizing that college was basically just a waste of time and a money grab for most degrees. Obviously for something specific like becoming a doctor or lawyer you need college but for most jobs you can just learn on the job and it be a lot faster and easier and cheaper. We have people hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for getting an English degree from a quote good college and are now complaining that other taxpayers need to erase their debt because they wanted to have a fun time in College And were too good to go to a trade school or a community but now work at Starbucks (no shame in working there but it’s not gonna pay $200k debts off). My state is pushing free community college and trade education which is so much more practical. College for most people ended up being a huge waste of money and time. Let’s just admit a lot of college programs are just money grabs for upper middle class families thinking the kids are gonna get better career. Instead they got low paying jobs and debt. A lot of college is honestly just a scam
I agree that it’s changing a little bit- but it’s not that wide spread. The US doesn’t do enough to support the “trades” jobs. Including raising the minimum wage.
Hmm, I don’t think anyone who has a PhD thinks they’re gonna rule the world? Most people with doctorates are in academia which is only lucrative for a very few. Maybe if you get an MBA though…
I disagree. I would rather my kid get a degree in whatever field they choose. At least it’ll make it easier to get work in that field. I’ve even told them, while I don’t agree with the military route, if they want it they should at least do OCS or a four year even if it’s not a military academy. Because otherwise they’re just going to get shot or blown up. As for learning on the job – sure, ok, let’s just rewind back to my teen years when my parents spent my college fund on their divorce and I started supporting myself at age 16. I eventually finished school but yes, I did learn on the job and it took me until age THIRTY SIX to achieve a comfortable lifestyle. As in: not living check to check. My husband comes from a poor family and same with him, he learned on the job and it was a struggle to support our family until about two years ago. My dad was in a family of 7 and he enlisted to get out, then busted his ass to give his kids a better life than his so we wouldn’t have to work our whole youth and well, I told you what happened there. I think many people who say college is a scam or unnecessary have never had an experience where it’s not an option. Because I would have loved to attend college, to feel safe and supported and not worrying at age 19 if I was going to eat or pay my electric bill. Working three jobs. I will not let my kids have that “experience” because it is absolutely harmful and unfair. If they choose not attend college I can’t force them to go, but they’re both well aware that their only job is to make good grades and we will pay their tuition within reason. Decades of honest but hard work in an underpaid underappreciated field is NOT the ideal option. I’m not even forty and I want to run into the woods and retire forever because doing exactly what you’re talking about has burned me and countless others like me tf out.
I’m not saying it’s across the board. However, I work with a few PhD and they think they have a PhD in EVERYTHING. They will tell you that they can do your job better than you. And they don’t have a clue. And like you said, PhDs work in academia. In an office situation, you’ve got to get things done, not pontificate. And they all know how to pontificate. And they all made sure you know they have a PhD. Except one, and she’s the exception to the rule.
Just read the opening of the article – I had no idea I was fancy. I have original pocket doors in my little town in Virginia in my 123 year old house that’s in constant need of repairs but we have to space them out because I work at a non-profit. My kiddo is in public M.S. and there is definitely this feeling that private schools keep your kids from being bullied (not true), ensures that they’ll succeed (ask Malcom Gladwell about this one), and definitely from having an LGBTQ agenda or suffering from being too “woke”. I was at a birthday party last weekend where the only mom who had kids in a private school loudly told everyone that her kids were learning Latin (they are 6 and 8). Who cares? Seriously. You used PPP money fraudulently and have so much botox by 35 that you look uncomfortable. I feel exhausted just being around her.
THIS times 100. I feel sorry for these people that still feel the need to compete – and for what? It is not a guarantee of success. If anything the private schools just turn their kids into more priveleged assholes than the rest. And I say this as someone that went to a private high school! 😀
@Sarah, YUP! For all the private school principals who talk about how necessary their resources and environment are for development, my public school principal told my parents (when I was offered a full private scholarship after winning a debate competition) that a smart kid can succeed regardless.
Bri Lee’s book Who Gets to be Smart delves into this beautifully.
Ha! One of my best neighborhood friends lives just over the line to go to the rich public school that’s a feeder to the two major private schools here. She went to a party for one of the kids the other day. Whew, lots of people that haven’t been to their lake house in a while, or flown their planes. They rented out the entire upstairs of a restaurant and wore heels and diamonds for a 10 year old girl’s birthday party. How boring.
Latin? That sounds super useless.
Ummmm, learning Latin is not super useless. At all. Learning Latin at 6 and 8? Eh, probably. But in general learning Latin is very helpful IMO.
Latin is at the root of a lot of English words so it is actually quite useful to learn. My father took Latin all through (public) middle and high school in NC in the 1940s-50s and he became an excellent writer and grammarian with a wide vocabulary.
There are literally millions of people living in NYC on less than these women spend on nursery school. The problem is that these fools are gazing up at the billionaires and wanting things that 99.999% of the world doesn’t even think about, then feeling sorry for themselves when they can only afford one $1,000 purse instead of fifty.
Yep. We all have dreams of this kind of a life but most of us know it’s just never going to be attainable. These people earn more than the median so I guess they think it’s “in reach” and it’s not.
A household living on half a million dollars per year? If they gained some context in their viewpoint, there’s so so much they could do with themselves instead of trying to hire consultants for toddlers.
Yes, the couple who can’t imagine surviving in Brooklyn on half a million per year made me laugh. They must be dreaming of a lot more than a nice apartment and Saint Anne’s for the kids.
Well said. I feel like its human nature to “look up” and want to attain more etc. But at a certain point you need to talk yourself back down.
My husband and I make pretty good money and I admit, there are still a lot of times when I’m like, how do people AFFORD all this? How do they afford that huge house and those insanely expensive SUVs etc? But I work 8 hours a day, no more unless I’m getting OT, I have more leave than I know what to do with, I volunteer an insane amount at school, I work from home FT, and we take our kids on nice vacations – that’s my priority over a big house (I live in a small rancher.) Reading the schedule of the woman in this post – basically working 16-18 horus a day – even for 300k, that does NOT appeal to me. At all.
I would rather my kids go to their local public school, live in our small house, and spend lots of time with friends and with us, their parents, than live the lifestyle described in this article, even with the money.
(I will add that my kids both play travel soccer and a few other activities, but they do not consume our life, our travel soccer program is relatively laid back as these things go.)
@Becks, my life growing up sounds a lot like the life you are giving your children. We lived in a relatively modest house and my parents drove modest cars, but my dad made enough money for my mom to be an SAHM and for us kids to do any activity we wanted. We had nice family vacations, I did expensive activities, I took several school trips to Europe. I have to say that my upbringing–where we had enough money to live comfortably and securely and never want for anything, is much preferable to a more aspirational life if that meant never seeing my workaholic parents and feeling loads of pressure to achieve. I was a high achiever, but I was taught the value of doing difficult things to my best ability–I wasn’t trying to be an ornament for my parents to brag about to their friends.
You are giving your own kids the best upbringing that’s possible, I would say. There comes a point where more wealth doesn’t come with more happiness or satisfaction, but an ever increasing anxiety and more competition. You have hit the sweet spot. I wouldn’t trade my upbringing for the world, and I’ll bet a lot of the kids from these families wouldn’t wish their childhood on their own kids.
More stuff isn’t better. More time, attention, experiences, and peace of mind is better. The best kind of privilege to have, I believe, is the privilege that comes from seeing your family earn their living, work hard for what they have, and to be able to have the comfort and security to appreciate that privilege instead of using it as impetus for wanting more, more, more.
Aw thank you Lanne, that is very nice of you to say.
Something that sticks in my head is my brother telling a story (around the time my mom retired) of a friend of his whose dad took them all out to Ruth’s Chris for dinner (not sure if that’s a national chain, I know its in Atlanta, but for those who don’t know its a pricey steakhouse) and treated his kids and all their SOs to a very nice dinner and picked up the bill etc. And he made a comment to his son (my brother’s friend) that was something like yeah, this is really nice and I’m glad you all enjoyed it. But in order to get here I had to miss all the other dinners growing up, and I wish I had chosen differently.
My brother took this to heart and while he’s a surgeon who makes very good money, he lives in a very rural area and has a VERY laidback lifestyle. (they literally live at the beach, lol.) He could make a lot more money even in Baltimore or DC and I can’t imagine what he would make in NYC or LA. But, he wouldn’t be the one taking his daughters to sports and he wouldn’t be the one going on field trips with them and all that. So while his job is stressful, he chose his position very wisely and is actually enjoying life now.
These people in the article….for all their money, what are they enjoying?
This is why I’m skeptical of the “children, children, it’s all for the children” drumbeat that runs through a lot of these stories about rich-but-struggling families. I guess that’s the only acceptable reason for the money-grubbing, but even with 100K mortgage/rent and 50-100K tuition, they’ve still got a solid six figures left for everything else, and I doubt they’re spending it all on math tutors.
This seems like such a joyless existence.
It really does and for WHAT? I got such anxiety just reading this article. My kid goes to public school and is thriving. I worry about paying for college and I also worry about what she will go to college FOR. I want her to be able to afford to live and maybe enjoy her job to some extent. The good news is, I am on the road to a divorce and if I am able to afford a home (jury is out on that) she can live with me for as long as she wants.
I was one of these kids growing up in upper middle class CT. Dad worked in the city/abroad and my mom stayed home with us. Life was exhausting. My brother was a high achiever who burned out somewhat in college and because I wasn’t extraordinary I got constantly overlooked.
The biggest thing I took away was how sad/terrify the moms around me were. They had left their careers/ambitions and were funneling all their energy/hopes into their children in a desperate attempt to capture the glory they left behind. It’s as much about the achievement as it is finding any kind of personal fulfillment.
Oh man @kiera, i know that milieu. How many of these “good” kids (ie, from rich white families) started drinking as tweens, raided parents’ valium by sophomore year and had cocaine connections by senior year?
Meanwhile the “underprivileged” kids from “bad” neighborhoods/poor families, wouldn’t dare jaywalk because they knew their parents would kill them if the cops didn’t.
“They had left their careers/ambitions and were funneling all their energy/hopes into their children in a desperate attempt to capture the glory they left behind.” This is really insightful. I think it’s pretty much always an unhealthy thing when parents try to live vicariously through their children.
Most of my husband’s family live in downstate NY with a handful in the city and I met my best friend while I was living in Brooklyn. I was too young I think at the time to fully understand the mentality but my best friend had stayed and recently married into STUPID money. And with that I’ve been meeting this whole new world of New Yorkers I was only peripherally aware of where this is absolutely the expectation and the norm for upper class. Most of the people I knew and my husband knew there was some competition, but never to this degree. It’s like the more money, the more scarce “they” make the resources in some kind of artificial race to the top. I actually witnessed a minor breakdown of a PREGNANT woman (who grew up with private jets, went to boarding schools, father is a legit billionaire) saying the nursery school dictates the next school and the next, and that school dictates the college and one wrong step and it’s all gone. All the while I’m thinking, you’re RICH, RICH. kiddo will be fine. But they actually believe this, plus the status of getting in. Meanwhile, I take issue with the suburbs being pods – I love being in a burb close enough to a major city where I have grass, kids can play, public schools are fine, and I have a life outside of work. It takes effort, but I’m happy to put that effort in than sacrifice any kind of life that will undoubtedly affect my child’s mental health. Some of the people I’ve met who went through this rat race as kids are far from ok.
I have a serious question about this environment. What happens if you are – like you I presume – moving in those circles but see it for what it is? Insane. What if you truly simply don’t care? I would have looked at that woman and said “You’re unhinged, get help.” I can’t take this seriously. Do they just not believe you? Look down on you? Because that only has an effect if you do care.
My sister went to a private university for her postgrad here in Germany and at the time none of us understood what that meant. We didn’t move in private school/boarding school circles. It meant that now she has the children (adults of course) of CEOs and family money in her circle of friends. You can’t move without being hit by a Chanel bag. And at first it made me uncomfortable even though these are genuinely nice people. But some of their conversations … dude, too many damn real estate holdings aren’t a problem! This isn’t uber rich NYC money but it’s definitely not a world I knew about growing up.
Honestly, what she’s saying is that unless they go to the same school as the other influential people/ influential people’s kids, they won’t succeed because success is based on who you know and not your own merit. This is how we have such a corrupt Tory government in the UK – all the people in power are friends of CEOs, oligarchs and sheiks and then the same people run the media and the same people are in the Royal Households… it just is all about consolidating power to not change the status quo. Institutions like private schools (and I went to one in both the US and the UK) need to be abolished.
I mostly feel sorry for their kids. That’s an enormous weight placed on their small shoulders. God forbid these kids don’t measure up. What these moms need to do is lower their expectations and give everyone, including themselves, a break. Being in a constant treadmill isn’t healthy, and eventually you are going to stumble.
I’m black, and I teach at a private school that is now majority-minority in Atlanta (we’re seeing white flight in a significant way, and this is at an expensive private school, so everyone who says that class is the issue and not race can have a seat). We have made a strong effort to increase our black academic faculty (I went from being the only black member of faculty in the upper school to sharing a grade level cohort in my department with another black teacher. Yay!) We have students with parents like you–middle income who want their black children to be high achieving and to see what high achievement looks like. It’s a worthy sacrifice for the families that make it.
What annoys me to no end about the type of women on this show (and why I hesitate to watch/read it–I have low bandwidth for the problems of the white upper class who have the power to change their circumstances simply by making different choices) is that their problems are so self-inflicted. Will the 3 year old really give a shit about the special preschool? 3 year olds need to learn the same thing everywhere–how to start learning to regulate your emotions, to share, to practice motor skills, to obtain language, practice empathy. You don’t need to spend 50,000 a year to learn that. They can put their kids in a perfectly good day care, and live in a neighborhood with decent public schools for elementary. What are their children gaining from all of their “everything must be the best” parenting? A bunch of anxiety-riddled, resentful kids who may very well not be able to function without their parents helicoptering. How many of those kids get into ivy league schools and then crash out from their inability to cope?
Those parents have to stop seeing their children as vehicles for competition with other parents. No one gets a prize for having the bestest kids. I think a lot of those children will choose to parent their own children a lot differently, and I think a lot of these parents will regret their choices.
But then I step off my high horse and I realize that these women have bought into the “I must be a perfect mother to be valued as a human being” mindset that was swirling around the past few decades. We keep holding to mothers to standards they can never meet in every level of society, so that all mothers collectively feel bad–poor women are demonized for their poverty, rich mothers are demonized for not being perfect. We have to communicate a way, collectively, to turn our back on these impossible standards, which again, are the goal of the patriarchy–women competing with each other, and trying to fill impossible standards, cannot fully take their places as equal members of society.
I’ve come full curcle in my comment, from condemnation to sympathy. But the bigger picture, to me, is that women have to start turning their backs on these ridiculous standards. Stop buying into the media promoting them, critiquing those standards, choosing not to follow them. These moms should start looking deeply at their local public schools–schools are as good as the parent involvement anyway. Be happy that your kid goes to SUNY instead of Princeton. If a mom can’t be happy with those choices, is that a reflection of her own need for validation and if so, is it fair to place that burden on children?
So well said, Ianne. Your students are lucky to have you as a teacher! And yep, moms need to reject the “must be perfect” narrative.
You have a lot of insightful comments here. So many women are blindly bought-into the patriarchy. But the older I get, the sadder I get that a good percent of humans need to feel secure about themselves by competing whether by getting more ‘status’ stuff (hasn’t any one noticed the declining quality of ‘luxury’ goods btw) to display over others or using kids as another venue to pursue status in. They won’t turn their backs on impossible standards bc women created them for themselves in an arms race to compete w each other and make motherhood a full time job (let’s be honest once all the kids are in grade school we could start a meaningful part time paid job if the work world was built for women in mind).
Thank you @lanne for your insightful post. I think your students are lucky to have you!
Where’s the dad in that woman in the suburbs life? It sounds like everything but his $200k income is absent in that household. Doesn’t surprise me at all but still. No one’s talking about absent fathers for the wealthy, are they?
These people could also choose not to have kids and stay in the city or wherever else they want. Every choice you make involves some kind of sacrifice, and these people are making lighter sacrifices than most, and are still unhappy. I don’t want to be one of the “this is capitalism” people, but…this is what happens when you think you can buy happiness.
I’m a life long New Yorker. I own a Brownstone in Brooklyn. I’m Black so my mindset is different. I found the best public schools in Brooklyn and made it my business to get my kids into one of them. I found the best HS for each child and made it my business to get my kids into them. My son was accepted into every college he applied to and got scholarship money to all. He ended up at Cuny because of the pandemic. My other son just got his first acceptance letter yesterday. Our mindset was about doing the best for them, not competing with other people which is the mindset here. I’m also not going to put myself in an early grave , live a generally miserable life and probably make my kids hate me because of these behaviors. These are the people who cheat their kids through life and their kids are never quite happy with them or anything else. These are the people who when they’re old and no one bothers with them, they wonder why. “I did so much for you!!” is there mantra , and their kids are “Did you really though?”
I love this comment. How many of these women’s kids who are forced to learn Russian math (nothing wrong with that but for a 5 year old’s “resume” it’s a bit much) and forced to have consultants for kindergarten are actually going to feel like their skills and minds are taken care of? Precious few I would say. These women are going to end up with teenagers and young adults with burnout.
Atlanta is a lot different from NYC, but I’ve taught a whole bunch of kids whose parents have that mindset. To a one, those kids have had serious anxiety issues. Every. Single. One. It’s just a matter of degree. I also have seen a lot of self-destructive behaviour from those kids–substance abuse, self harm, eating disorders. How many times have I sat with a high achieving kid at the end of the school day who’s crying in my classroom–crying from exhaustion, crying because they didn’t get into their parents’ dream school (literally had a girl say she didn’t get into her dad’s dream school for her–not her dream school), crying because they want to quit X activity/sport but parents won’t let them, crying from an overuse injury from playing X sport year round on travelling teams. Now that I’m parenting an infant myself, it’s really made me see the consequences of that style of parenting, and it really turns me off. Kids just want to be loved, valued, and paid attention to. They don’t need the best of everything. God help the kid who’s parents insist on giving them the best of everything. I don’t envy them, nor do I envy their parents who live in much nicer homes than I do, and drive much nicer cars. I feel deeply, deeply sorry for them.
My neighborhood is very mixed and I’m happy to say none of the parents seem to be crazed like this.
I heard about Russian Math when 2 of my daughter’s 2nd grade classmates were going to class on Saturdays. I am not going to say I am judging those parents exactly… These kids were all in public school in the burbs, it’s not comparable to the parents in the article. But I did feel sorry for the kids because Russian Math every Saturday sounds AWFUL.
What really resonated with me was the comment about trying to live like the .1% on a 1.5% salary. My husband and I run in these circles but I definitely had tiger parents and I don’t want that for my kids. In fact, I taught at one of the fancy prep boarding schools and also one of the top state charters and frankly, I’ve met plenty of public school teachers just as good and just as bad.
You have to draw a line at the nonstop excessive luxury services because people are making whole livings because you are convinced you think you need them. Like Russian math? I promise it wasn’t the teaching method that made it successful, it was because they probably got beat if they got the question wrong.
it was because they probably got beat if they got the question wrong.– This is also the Caribbean parents training method. So many people buy into doing this method or that method and don’t seem to get that the success is usually fear based. Fear of being hit, fear of your parents anger/disappointment.
“The problem isn’t that women in their 40s are experiencing some new dilemma of work-life-hustle-competitive-parenting, it’s that they fell into the exact same f–king traps as several generations of women before them.”
THIS. THIS is it. The article is the same story that we have seen the last 40 years, and longer if you focus only on middle class anxiety, not specifically women struggling against the “having it all” myth and responding to the Second Shift.
FWIW women of much less privileged backgrounds also experience these pitfalls, with much fewer resources. We should call out how this article is STILL extremely aspirational– these are upper middle class problems. …I am extremely lucky to have the job that I have (teaching in higher ed, having a PhD, being able to afford daycare for my kids) but I make LESS than what an average teacher makes in New England, teaching (probably, given my university) the children of these types of women. And I have the same schedule, where I have to go back to work after my kids go to sleep. What I don’t have is nannies or consultants or anything that allows for more convenience.
“FWIW women of much less privileged backgrounds also experience these pitfalls, with much fewer resources. We should call out how this article is STILL extremely aspirational”
Very true. The striving is echoed in different ways at different class bands. I’ve seen this in different areas of my (widely varied socioeconomically) family
This article gives a lot of good for thought. In what ways am I/are we all buying into some crazy rat race that isn’t necessary. What would happen if I let go just a little bit.
I really liked the FIIT series and think that it portrayed well the challenges of working moms, the pressure on the primary household earner, the precarity of mental health, and the anxiety of those that move up in social class. That being said, the very specific anxieties being discussed in the Cut article and shown in the series about maintaining that class position in NY is something I really cannot sympathize or empathize with.
Let’s get real – the core of anxiety over getting into the right school and living in the right neighborhood is about not wanting to be a poor or an average that goes to public school and *gasp* a SUNY or other state school for college. It’s about wanting your kid to be rich too. It’s reproducing social class and economic privilege on a personal level, but in aggregate the behavior reproduces social and economic inequality in our society.
But what do I know? I only come from a long line of firefighters, teachers, and other NYC public sector and health care workers that attended public schools, city/state college, and work and raise kids in NYC and other big cities without needing to do any of that bullshit.
Also – white women love to cry foul on situations they actively perpetuate.
THIS.
I read that article this morning while getting ready to go to my job that pays 1/10th of what they’re deriding as “not enough” and I couldn’t help but think… none of this is an actual problem. Do they know there’s a world outside NYC? I have zero sympathy for people like this. Whining and whining and whining about how hard their life is because they are choosing to participate in this insane one-upmanship, just for the hell of it. Did their mothers never give them the “if your friends jumped off a cliff, would you go too” speech? Come on. Feeling pressure to be “the perfect mother” is completely different from putting this pressure on themselves just for funsies. How many students graduate from these elite preschools each year? And how many million more graduate from just regular preschools and do perfectly fine the rest of their life? The kicker is they seem to intellectually know that this is insane, that they’re being crazy doing this… and still they persist. Being rich really breaks people’s brains.
Completely agree
From someone whose mental health dropped me out of this world, in so many ways I don’t regret it. But I think people here aren’t realizing the degree to which the public vs private question is about which social circles the parents will be welcome in. People really will drop “friends” whose kids are in public schools. Not invite the kids to playgroups or birthday parties, even though they live a few doors down. And the parents don’t get party invitations. If you’re in a career where connections matter, and at this level, they pretty much all do, not having access to the parents network at a private school could be damaging to your career potential. You’re not seen as “reliable.”
I get this, but I think that people do understand this and are pointing out why it’s a toxic setup. It’s a cycle that will only make people miserable in the end. Your relationships are built on networking, not real connections, and your life is measured by that barometer. We already know many workplaces in these industries are very toxic, and this is just another manifestation.
I hear you. I am not a “native” to the city/state we’ve lived in for 11 years, so that’s a barrier socially. Until right before the pandemic, we were REALLY poor. And also right before the pandemic, I lost my grandmother and a lot of people I thought were my friends from the social circle at my kids’ elementary school. When I tried to talk about how I was feeling with one of them, she blamed everything on me – how we were too poor to invite anywhere, how I didn’t know when to stop making trouble (by reminding others that our school was Title I and we needed to work with that in mind – I was advocacy liaison for the PTA), that people were scared of me (bc I stood up to a woman who screamed at me and called me a bad mom in front of my kids because I asked her to correct something on some paperwork before the deadline). Basically after that I had already pulled our kids out of that school and had put them in the OTHER neighborhood elementary school (we have two of them). Because the whole thing was toxic asf and none of those women were interested in learning anything – all white savior complexes. They looked down on us because we WERE on free/reduced lunch, we WERE the reason the school was Title I, they didn’t want us to speak, they wanted blind gratitude. And when they realized I wouldn’t kiss their asses they shunned us. Anyway, the pandemic solidified my choice to stop talking to them. Now they see us – we’ve surpassed many of them in income, we are happy and healthy, and some of them are desperate to reconnect – but I won’t allow for it. I’ve moved on. My kids’ education is why my kids go to school. I don’t try to make friends or get invested. I don’t volunteer. I advocate for my kids. I get my work done. I rest and play on the weekends. Let these miserable people keep infighting and backstabbing. I’m done. And this was at a PUBLIC school – I can’t imagine what it’s like in private schools, but I do remember as a kid in private school I didn’t “fit in” either – because the other students’ parents excluded mine, so I too was excluded socially.
$500K a year income and still struggling?
OMG, move!
All of the comments are so on the mark!
Get to your own level of happiness, enjoy your family and friends.
Those kids are getting so much pressure in kindergarten, in private schools.
They don’t have to move, they have to stop competing with others. Their problem is that if they make 500k a year, they’re trying to do what people who make 1million a year do and if they ever crack that 1 million they’re going to start competing with people who make 5million a year. This is about them and their insecurities, it’s not even about ambition, it’s insecurities and they’re using their kids to fill their holes. Nothing will EVER be enough for people like this.
I don’t disagree! I just think there needs to be some honesty around how this could mean rebuilding your life. Some people have the capacity to find a happier life off the rat race, some don’t. We only hear the stories and see the Instagrams of the people who succeed at it.
One thing I’ve learned in my mental health journey is that the most difficult thing to overcome isn’t the mental health issues themselves, but not meeting the expected life milestones of your cohort. It really fucks with people. Hard.
I get what you’re saying but until these people face and deal with what’s broken inside of them, they will just carry their BS with them like luggage from one place to the next. I have a friend who’s like this. She’s competing with people who aren’t paying attention to her. If you tell her that you’re thinking about or want to do something, she races out to do it before you do. Anyway, she has a weekend home, she’s made good money but she’s surrounded by old money people where her weekend home is. I’ve been there a few times, every time she talks about a neighbor, she never tells me if they’re a nice person or whatever, I get their net worth and what they do for a living and how much of the land they own in the area. Seriously, I don’t care and that doesn’t mean that they’re people I want to spend my time with, but she is OBSESSED with it.
This friend also had to make sure that her kid was in the “right” Girl Scout Troop because some SAHM decided to make Girl Scouts a competitive thing. I just shook my head, changed the subject and was thankful I wasn’t so ridiculously insecure that I had to behave like this.
I’m sorry they treated you like that Sass. Totally unacceptable.
We were (eventually) pretty well off growing up (and we’re white) but my parents grew up very poor and clawed out. Even just that little difference in class background created a barrier with people “above” and “below” us in income. Made for odd social things. It’s tricky.
There is a good podcast about this topic called Nice White Parents. I highly recommend it. It’s literally about school gentrification in NYC.
My kids are in the final years of middle school. Oldest is off to high school next year. They’ve gone to public school their entire education. I attended private school until high school where I went to the neighborhood public and was immediately lost in the shuffle. I will say as our kids approach high school I have noticed the older they get, the less the schools seem to care about education. One teacher told my son he didn’t have to go to college which to me is antithetical to you know, the job of educating. I say this as someone with career long experience in the education field – from babysitting at age 11, to volunteer child advocacy, to teaching, to mothering. I’ve even worked at an educational nonprofit for Title I schools. My point is that the public school system does need an overhaul especially after the past 2 years. My kids both gets As and Bs, but that has been a constant struggle to get them there. We have had to teach them handwriting skills at home because the teachers complain about their handwriting but the school doesn’t teach penmanship. Everything is done on computers- everything, which is problematic as middle schoolers cannot regulate usage very well and the provided school computers don’t block YouTube because the teachers use YouTube in their curriculum because there’s no budget for textbooks. Our neighborhood schools have had a long reputation for being really great and kids get bussed in to attend. The issue is that now we have 6 schools closing down because of low attendance so we will see overcrowded schools that are already overcrowded – the district talks about lowering class sizes, then they do this. Now at my kids’ school, there’s a fight once a week. Students can’t concentrate and get forgotten because teachers are too focused on handling disruptive students who do not want to be there (to be fair most kids don’t lol) but decide to make it everyone’s problem. My daughter might have ADD, but the school refuses to cooperate in evaluation for an IEP, because she is so well behaved and is on the honor roll that nobody sees her lack of executive functioning as a problem and that’s down to the fact that they’re drowning in major behavioral problems from other kids that present in chair throwing, sht smearing, and even sexual assault on the playground.
Where I grew up in the south the public schools had such a bad reputation that people would go into debt sending their kids to private or parochial school. The district where I grew up is still bad. Worse than it was. I actually am a huge proponent of public schools having worked in, with, and enrolled my own children in them intentionally. But this is a nationwide trend and something needs to change. I can’t pretend to know what needs to change, but I think for our district removing school choice would be a start, because it’s important to invest in your community and part of that is sending your kids to the neighborhood school. But guess who won’t let that happen? Alllllll the suburban white moms who don’t want their precious snowflakes attending the local because while they LOVE their quaint postwar bungalow, it’s just not gentrified enough to send their kids with the “Gen pop”.
I loved that podcast.
The point of the “perfect school” isn’t so much about the education as it is about socializing with a certain set of parents. You have to get into the private school so you can socialize with the other families in that school (i.e. the parents) so you can advance socially and derive economic benefits from that circle of influence. If one sends their kid to public school, one must (gasp!) socialize with public school families. It’s circular logic, but it’s really about the connections… and “advancing” from the 1.5% to the 1%. The kids are just along for the ride.
This is fascinating-but not new. I’m in my late 50s, my oldest kids are in their early 20s, and this was what I encountered back in the early 2000s. Mr. Contrary is in finance and had many opportunities to work in NYC-we could not do it. I could not handle those women and their world-they stressed me out to no end. I did not want to be living in some small place and paying $$$ and “struggling” to get out kid into the perfect preschool. I remember an acquaintance (as we stayed at their Hamptons home for a weekend) explaining how her 2 year old’s OT was insisting on specific fine motor exercises that would help her get into preschool, and the coaching required for the school interviews. My husband and I are the product of regular old suburban public schools-and that’s what we wanted for our kids. Not the crazy, rarefied existence that these people miserably endured. There was one job that Mr. Contrary turned down and would have made us $$$$. But everyone of the senior partners ended up divorced. It was a hotbed of infidelity and partying. Most of their kids are totally screwed up. No thank you.
Just the worst. Public schools are amazing. There are lots of fabulous colleges you can go to that don’t cost an arm and a leg and all of your sanity to get into.
My sister is a writer in New York and she has made a real niche for herself helping rich kids write their college essays and strategize their applications. She’s great at it and gets paid bank. She also got a one year grad degree in school counseling so she could help public school students with the same thing (the public school system wouldn’t take her without the degree, despite all of her experience), but it doesn’t pay nearly as well as the rich kid gig does, so she juggles both.
It is literally f**knuts in that city. Parents paying $350 an hour for tutoring and college application assistance, all to get their kids into a college with a “good name.” One at which many of these kids will probably spend half their time partying. It all starts in nursery school, which are the “feeder schools” for the feeder school elementary, middle and high schools. Vicious, crazy cycle.
Here in Houston, we chose a neighborhood with good public schools and sent our kids there. They switched for middle and high school, which wasn’t what I would have wanted but what was best for them. They both had to do Hebrew for their B’Nai Mitzvah, and in their Jewish private school they got the Hebrew there so they didn’t have to do it after school and miss out on sports and theater, etc.
Someone mentioned the “Gen Pop” thing in the South. Both my kids were very bright. My son was the best reader in his grade of 120+ kids in his public elementary school. My daughter was a whiz at English and exceptionally mature. The teachers really liked both of them. But they are not visual so they didn’t do well on the test they use to determine G&T here. It’s pretty much a non-verbal test, or at least it was at the time.
We were lucky to have a private school that was nearby, not wildly expensive, and suited their needs.
But even in public schools, the snobbery of some people was off the charts. The way I would overhear some parents talking about how they didn’t want their kids in classrooms with kids who were “not as bright” or “not reading at the same level” made me sick. The teachers were doing a great job making the kids feel solidarity with their classmates, making sure each kid felt special and smart and capable for what their gifts were and what they could do, and these snooty cows were souring things with their high school Karen attitudes.
I don’t know what the solution is. It’s gotten harder everywhere. My daughter says she wants to go live in Copenhagen, lol. Who knows if it’s better there? I have no clue. She’s in nursing school so maybe she can do it once she has her degree.
I have to laugh. One of my points in getting hired these days is that I went to white minority public schools. I certainly am not perfect on racial issues, but I sure as hell know that whether someone is a decent human being or not has nothing to do with race or ethnicity.
Yep in Public Schools, it’s all about getting your child in the “advanced/enrichment groups” and honor roll. They compete over how many advanced classes their child is in by HS and they don’t want their child in lower level non-AP/honor classes because of the distractions. I also hate how we place kiddos in the Academically Gifted program. Basically, they have to be a great state test taker in the 3rd grade to receive top %itle score. That’s the only way they are guaranteed a spot in those classes and provided a separate Academic Gifted plan. In some districts (one’s with money), they can exclude no one but the top 10% in those classes, and best believe that if your child gets in these courses in the 4th grade they are set until senior year. Charter schools are catching on in my area and state because it gives the options you would typically see in private schools but for free.
I always laugh because schools have literally FOUGHT over having my GT son on their roster but waitlist our daughter every time because she’s not GT. Now, I’m open enough to admit that we absolutely did try a couple times with choice enrollment pre Covid but I no longer bother because it’s exhausting and I truly believe that sticking with the local PS is the best bet. But it’s ironic to me because my daughter is a hard worker, bright, curious and her worst ever grade was a C in science. This is the kid who gets waitlisted. Her brother, the GT kid everyone wants, slacks off and has a 2.5 GPA because he just doesn’t do his work. Something finally changed this quarter, and he’s all As and Bs, but it took him three years and a crapload of intervention to get him here. I have no doubt he is going to be fine, but he is too smart for his own good. The reason schools compete for GT kids no matter their GPA or behavioral problems is because they receive funding for every GT or IEP/504 kid enrolled. The kid doesn’t get more advanced work or special classes. My kid is actually in a remedial glorified study hall this year because his grades were so abysmal from not doing homework. Bottom line is yes tracking is a real thing in high school but none of that will matter until next school year for him. No college is actually looking at preschool attendance. If someone tells you that and you pay them I’ve got some lovely oceanfront property in Arizona I could let go at a discount…
@Sass in my area, we lack the resources to fund our EC students properly. We have to do workarounds to make sure each child receives their EC services sufficiently, but it’s hard. My understanding was that each student is the same amount of funding for the Public School, and of course, the number of EC students could justify an increase of EC staff or school coaches, but that depends on so many factors. What makes it all so pointless is that schools don’t receive anything extra for having more Academically Gifted students (it adds to the diversity profile but no additional funding), so it’s more like bragging rights for parents. Parents love one-upping one another.
My kids have always been in public schools. Even after our levy failed and people were pulling out their kids in our supposedly affluent suburb, we thought it was important for them to be in public school. I’m on FB page about laying for college and there are some doozies of people posting anonymously “we make $500k – can we still get aid at XYZ school?” And the slap down is hard when these folks are told: 1) no you’re not getting any kind of aid and 2) do you understand that your kid is likely not getting in?
These women’s lives sound absolutely miserable….. wtf did I just read?? Literal capitalist, brain washed slaves to money. I’ve never been so glad to not live in or around NYC (I’m sure there are tons of lovely and awesome people though but these people make it sound horrible). I live in an area with the worst public schools in the country pretty much but there are tons of free charter schools that are part of the public system so when my kids are old enough I will try to get them into a good charter. I know some public school fans don’t like charters but unfortunately due to social/economic issues our public schools aren’t a good option for us so I’m happy to have access to good, free high quality schools that still get state funding for students. I can’t imagine having a household income of $500,000 a year and being that miserable and just wanting a bath to have some joy. If you’d aren’t happy on half $1 million than you need to drastically change your life because this is just sad.
The big moves my household could make on 500K makes me weep. I mean even if I could afford to send my 5-year-old to the Montessori Private school, I wish I could; I wouldn’t because it’s so expensive. It’s 20k a year for Pk-K. I cried tears when I sent him to our neighborhood charter school because I still believe Montessori would be a better set-up, but I’m happy he’s at a STEM-focused school. I wouldn’t mind sending him to our district-assigned public school, but I saw the class size numbers and just…I couldn’t justify my Black son becoming another number in such a big space. I already know how public school works those numbers; unfortunately, he would have gotten lost in the shuffle. Reading the write-up on this article, I want to roll my eyes hard. Whining about not being able to re-do your attic for a live-in suite. Try being 40 and not owning a home because the prices are so absorbent now; tub, we have mostly standing showers in our rented townhouse. I wish we had a 1/5 of what’s considered a luxury bathroom amenity. Worrying about a 300k private school, try working around an overcrowded public school with state-test over saturation. I knew there was a reason I never got into this show 😀
My kids have always been in public schools. Even after our levy failed and people were pulling out their kids in our supposedly affluent suburb, we thought it was important for them to be in public school. I’m on FB page about paying for college and there are some doozies of people posting anonymously “we make $500k – can we still get aid at XYZ school?” And the slap down is hard when these folks are told: 1) no you’re not getting any kind of aid and 2) do you understand that your kid is likely not getting in?
I live in Manhattan with my husband and young kid. We have opted out of the lifestyle discussed in The NY Mag article, but I want to share my two cents. About a year ago, I chose to leave a large, “prestigious” law firm rather than staying and trying to make partner. The work was very interesting, I liked most of my colleagues, but I couldn’t handle the hours and the stress anymore, particularly after having a kid. I moved to a different job that still pays well by any reasonable measure, but it’s 40% of what I used to earn. The work is not as interesting, and I miss that, but it’s “only” 40 hours a week, and I’m much happier and healthier for it. I know a lot of women with young kids who have made similar decisions. While I don’t regret leaving my big firm, it was hard to walk away from that kind of stereotypical professional “success.” And it makes me sad that other smart, hardworking, and ambitious women have also done so for the sake of their (and their kids’) emotional and physical health. I want these women to kick ass in their careers and stop making professions like big law such a white boys’ club. Progress is being made, but it’s slow and hard. For the women who stay and do achieve that kind of professional success, I don’t think many of them do it just because they want to send their kids to the elite private schools, etc. You have to be genuinely interested and invested in your career to work that hard for it. But I think these women often see their ability to afford those schools and the big apartments, etc. as the rewards of their professional success, how they contribute to their families, and how they rationalize/justify their long hours and stress. That lifestyle quickly becomes a trap and gives you a very distorted view of reality. And I can imagine how once you get on that hamster wheel, it would feel very difficult to get off without upending your kids’ lives and your own. I’m not saying that these women deserve sympathy, but I think Fleishman made a lot of wealthy but burned-out moms question their choices and wonder if they are also going to hit a breaking point. It re-energized an ongoing discussion about what it means to “have it all,” which raises a lot of questions about professional culture in the US, power in the private sector, feminism, and the disproportionate mental load that women carry for their families. Are these the most pressing issues of our time? No. But I think discussing them has value.
Not in NYC but San Francisco that has massive disparities between public and private schools. Want to see where most of the white kids over 12 are, they’re mostly in 40k plus private schools. We’re doing the rounds for high school, and it’s the public’s, big Catholics (@$25-30k) and the smaller private high schools that range from $45-60k. The stark differences in resources is obvious and depressing , the smugness and self congratulatory tone beyond irritating. Meanwhile our public’s have had embarrassing and ineffective recalls, and they’re censoring books nationwide. Started watching this series because of the article and not quite on board with the whole take on it. The thing that is accurate is if you enter that world with people with real money, big money and assets, while you’re a regular middle class or professional family, they really will either ignore you or do the one -sided play dates where your kid goes to their house but they never go to yours. It’s a different world, very competitive with catch up and constant comparisons, and they take it very seriously.
I’m Sorry are we supposed to be feel sorry for this wealthy white privileged woman they make more money than most people will see in their lifetime. But we’re supposed to feel sorry for someone like Beth because she can’t get her daughter into a private school meanwhile people are struggling to pay for groceries . This is peak white woman problems this woman are literally making millions and millions of dollars a year and their complaining about not getting their kids into a fancy school not being able to live in New York while having a nice home .
Oh my God people, juts move out of the US. I promise all your problems will be solved.
“or you can move to the suburbs and be like, Who the f–k are these pod people?”
Possibly the least self-aware comment I have EVER seen, and pretty disgusting. SHE is the pod people. I can guarantee that once she steps out of her “$500,000 household income, grindcore mommy” bubble 99.99 percent of the people surrounding her in the suburbs or literally everywhere else she goes are leading lives that are all too real. Someone who does nothing but stare at a screen from 6am to midnight day in day out in order to accumulate more and more bougie life trappings has zero standing to call ANYONE else “pod people.”
That stuck out to me too. By her definition I’m a pod person, but by mine she is the exceptionally sad pod person.
THIS was my favorite part. Because anyone from the NY-metro area knows what these people refer to as the ‘burbs are likely places like Greenwich, Old Westbury, Chappaqua, Saddle River, etc. Where the houses cost well into the millions and the taxes alone are more than the average nat’l household income!
The school thing- is not about education, but about connections and contacts – there is an upper class- the 1% and their hangers on- who intermarry and keep all the money and connections for their own, who hire each others kids, – this is about setting up those kids so they cannot fail no matter who mediocre they are. You think the trump kids got into colleges because they are smart? Being in nursery school is a funnel to prep school is a funnel to an ivy league college, and then wealthy people who have known your kid their whole lives will hire them into 6 figure salaries and all will live a “comfortable” life- it does not sound all that happy a life- but they are looking for status and creature comforts and this gets them there.
These people desperately need some perspective. They should go volunteer with refugees who have nothing and are fleeing from terrible danger. Then see how irrelevant these ‘rich people’ struggles are. You can have a joyful life without so much stress and pressure.
you need a minimum of 500k per year to live a reasonably ok life in Manhattan/Brooklyn and send your kid (just one!) to public school.
taxes are 50% off the top.
if you’re self employed (like so many in NYC) take out 36,000 to 48,000 per year for you health insurance premium (which is tax deductible).
depending on where/how you live your housing will be anywhere between 4000-8000 per month.
not a lot left for nannies (4k a month), cleaners, food, insurance, transport, clothing, etc.
years ago I ran into a boarding school friend who lived in a huge loft in Tribeca, house in the hamptoms, 2 kids at the most expensive school and when she asked if I was having another child and answered hell now, she said, “Oh you’re going to have a very nice life.”
these are facts based on the cost of living there. just because the salaries are relatively higher than other places doesn’t mean New Yorkers don’t deserve some amount of empathy- unless they’re a holes of course!
my point is, yes other people have it worse but the reality is that the capitalist, top 20 university, get a good job, you can have everything and you too can have a good life bill of goods that we have been sold as women is crumbling. and that is worthy of examination and yes empathy regardless of how many commas are on your paystub
Exactly and this is the truth in other medium to large cities everywhere else right now, just scaled down a few thousand dollars monthly. The cost of living has risen exponentially and mocking anyone is honestly such a waste of energy right now, especially any working mom period. Empathy is definitely one of the top words of 2023 in my eyes.
Not true. We live just fine and make nowhere near that. If you’re interested in being a climber and you’re trying to keep up with people, yeah.
The median household income for homeowners in Manhattan was $193K in 2021. It was $111K in Brooklyn. What’s your definition of “reasonably ok?” $500K a year translates to roughly $25K a month after taxes.
right but 25k a month goes fast- 5k to rent/mortgage, 1k to building maintenance, 3k to day care, 3-4k to health insurance premiums. it’s bonkers out there.
I’m curious as to how many of the Manhattan homeowners bought after 2008? and what’s the median age of homeowners? surely the older homeowners who are retired/inherited are dragging down that median income.
my point is what “normal” teacher/nurse whatever in Manhattan can buy a 2 bedroom condo or coop? I’m 42. my cohort who own in Manhattan and Brooklyn had significant (like 500k plus) help from mom and dad, are generationally wealthy, and/or have a spouse who works in law or finance. everyone else rents and makes do.
this issue (rising cost of living, stagnating wages, and inability to get on the property ladder) is EVERYwhere in the US and the world for that matter but it’s magnified in Manhattan and somehow deemed distasteful because they have more zeroes.
people trying to de-condition themselves from the capitalist pipe dream tho is always worthy of discussion without judgment.
I feel like nobody actually watched Fleishman. It was about how nobody knows what anyone is truly going through not even (or mostly) the “saintly unmaterialistic doctor ex husband co parent” of the children. It definitely was leaning into all our prejudices against highly striving career women as moms and wives.
Let’s not dare think of blaming the private vs public school issue on treasonous paid-appointees like Betsy DeVos or the long line of GOP legislators and politicians that campaign for privatizing education…I.e. sabotaging poor families and families of color and widening about every societal achievement and economic gap we have. Let’s instead blame white women. Instead of distilling this down to the truth that most moms reading this are feeling pressed in ways that seem to keep increasing and increasing to simply maintain, not ascend, or have sympathy for all women at a time when we all learn we are hated or being discredited in brand new ways daily, let’s continue with this divisive bs and not lay blame where blame is due or work together to change anything.
But who is electing those GOP politicians and legislators? Who voted for Trump over Clinton? It’s hard to sympathize with ALL women when some women are consciously and selfishly making choices that hurt other women and their children.
But not all white women voted for Trump. A lot of us didn’t. A lot of us hated him and his administration, worked for and donated to candidates who opposed and ran against him/them.
In watching “Fleishman,” I got the impression that couple would have both been Democrats. They were New Yorkers, Jewish, professional. Most, though by no means all, people who fit that description are more progressive and tend to vote Dem. Certainly when Trump is on the other side!
As for Lizzy Caplan’s character, I swear she and her family were supposed to be living in my home town in New Jersey or one very much like it. It’s the kind of place people go to when they want/need to leave New York but don’t want to live in a gated community or all white, WASPy suburb. They didn’t strike me as Trump voters at all.
I know that many White women did not vote for Trump (though he did win that voting block). I haven’t seen the show so I can’t comment on the characters but there are also plenty of people of people who vote for Democrats but are not really progressive. I was just responding to the comment that White women should not be blamed for what Republicans are doing, when it’s clear that many (but not all) White women are to blame. But since you are now bringing up Democrats, there are many Democratic voters who are still classist and racist. If you are going out of your way to prevent your kids from having contact with people who are outside of your socioeconomic group and you don’t think your tax dollars should go towards making ALL public schools better, then I’m not sure that you can rightly call yourself “progressive.”
@Annel – To be clear, I am using “you” generally. I am not making assumptions about you, @Jen, or anyone else on this thread, as I don’t know any of you. My comments are based on people that I do know. (And I have lived in New York.)
The stats show that a majority of white women have consistently voted for Republican candidates since 2000. 56% of white women voters voted for Trump. That’s not all, but it’s a solid majority. The progressive women’s vote has historically (and at present is still) carried by Black and Latinx women in the US. That fact stands apart from the pressures of motherhood – these are two separate issues. This is why understanding intersectionality is important. Complaining that we’re blaming white women because “not all white women” is akin to “all lives matter”. Enough white women ARE doing this. It is an issue. If you’re not that type of white woman, cool – but advocating for people to ignore what the data is telling us (white women often uphold an oppressive patriarchy) is not how we get to equity.
This is an exaggerated example but indicative of what is happening in white suburbia (can’t speak for anyone else) in a LOT of places at different “levels” of the social strata. We live in a sleepy little college town in the valley of Virginia and I see it every day. My husband and I have—like a lot of people—improved our financial situation as we’ve aged. If I had a dollar for every time someone said to me, “Why don’t you move to a bigger house?” “Why don’t you …(insert sign of wealth here)” I could buy those people out. It’s capitalism. Isn’t there an old metaphor, the snake eating its tail?
I agree, in my sleepy little suburban town in NC we have the same situation. People moved out of our neighborhood to a “better” one because our neighborhood is zoned for the “ghetto” (literally what a former neighbor said) public high school. This gave them the school assignment to a better public high school. Or they went private. Our neighborhood is above average in income and education level and a good mix of democratic and republican.
The ghetto high school is now a Magnet high school which means it receives special funding and has a specialization. Parents are now trying to get in. It’s ridiculous. My kids did just fine and still got in the most prestigious universities.
Are women the only ones involved in education decisions and living decisions?
I’m a pensioner who never earned more than 30k. This world is laughable to me. But I get the desire to meet the ‘right’ people. However, even going to the best schools /universities doesn’t guarantee you won’t be an outcast, that the ‘right’ people won’t reject you, that you won’t do poorly etc. That’s the bs story they tell to encourage people who can’t afford those schools to attend to keep their numbers up and people fall for it. I know a number of people who went to posh schools – zero contacts.
Does everyone commenting about how public schools are the answer live in places where the public schools are safe and well-funded? I definitely don’t – and I’m a former teacher in this district. I cannot in good faith put my kids in the public school system in my area, and honestly, the private schools are no better. You’re paying for prestige and access to social capital – teachers at private schools in my state aren’t even required to be licensed. We homeschool our kids because that was the only realistic option. I work two jobs, partner stays home and handles most of the traditional educational stuff. If I could send my kids to public school and know that they are safe and that the people running the school and district weren’t DEI-denying anti-vax anti-mask looney tunes, I absolutely would. Decent public schools are borne of the same privilege as private schools these days.