Would you be bothered? Extravagant friends

[Sandwalker]

Oh goodness, this idea that family isn't as important to the upper class isn't my notion, it's sociologist Paul Fussel's, and I learned it at a highly selective New England University. I thought it was ridiculous too, until I spent more time with the families of my friends that WERE boarding school educated trust fund babies, and saw that it did seem to be an entirely different dynamic than even that of my upper middle class friends. Then I got engaged to the child of investment bankers and after the round of parties and dinners and everything slowly figured out that they DID have completely different and off-putting values. Now Fussell would say this is because my family was varying shades of middle class and the guy I was engaged to was clearly upper. I would shade that with the idea that Fussell was focused on the differences between New England upper class and that the Civil War changed the class indicators in the South to some degree (I think family is more important in the South).

 

I don't know what's happened on the board this week, perhaps holiday stress is making everyone a bit petulant. I don't agree with Quill but I think several people here aren't being their normally diplomatic selves or recognizing that anyone who's been here for longer than two months KNOWS that Quill is an amazing woman who is just venting and you can all stop judging her. Just stop.

I went to a top boarding school in New England, and went on many cool trips and activities with the families of the very rich (my family was middle class). Many of the families were very close. Bigger houses, so more space, and more opportunities but aside from that, people are people. I'm so glad my parents let me go on the trips with friends, I learned so much and am comfortable in most social situations even though I'm pretty introverted. I went to Europe before my mom even had a passport, and she was thrilled for me.

[SKL]

My mom would have been upset over the eggs thing, too. I'm not sure how much was jealousy (I'm sure there's that - especially when it came to my father), a single working mother already missing a ton of important moments in her kids' lives, and how much is spectrum-ish rigidity in This Is How Things Are Done At Holidays. She really tries to be understanding when people get sick or have to work on actual holidays, but I can tell she's fighting back almost an anxiety attack when Thanksgiving isn't Turkey Dinner at Two, or someone's missing from Christmas Eve dinner, or something gets unwrapped out of order or forgotten. I can see her suppressing the inner-child tantrum.

 

So with the eggs, she'd have the picture in her head of how the coloring would go, and then someone else came along and turned her picture all topsy turvy. It's really taken 55+ years to figure out coping skills to deal with these things appropriately 90% of the time.

 

As a child, I would have never told her we colored eggs at someone else's house. As an adult, I let her do eggs with my kids because I don't want to!

 

I have these tendencies too, and I suspect I'm on the ASD spectrum, so that is an interesting observation.  I did learn pretty quickly that what I want for my kids to experience depends on too many things for it to actually happen most of the time.  I do remember getting kinda mad though ... when the preschool started pushing Christmas themes before Thanksgiving ... when our Thanksgiving was jacked up by illness and clueless siblings ... when I was trying to have a "simple" Christmas / Easter but other people way over-bought for my kids ... when we had non-Christian visitors at Easter and it was decided "for me" that we wouldn't be coloring eggs the day before Easter!  "Gruff, gruff" as my mom would say.  But I'm getting better at going with the flow.  My kids seem none the worse for it.

[QueenCat]

Maybe.

 

I still think spending 100k on someone's birthday is a level of consumerism I don't want to be around, nor do I want my kids to be around it.

 

Or you could think of all the jobs it creates, the families that are fed by it.