Actually, I have some horrible nanny stories of theft and other oddness. My first nanny cared for me (and my younger brother, the youngest wasn’t born yet) from the time I was six weeks old till I was 6 1/2. She was an angel, I love her like a grandmother (she was 60 when she began caring for me). She was in and out of the hospital for a 12, maybe 18 months after that, until she fully retired. In the interim periods when my original nanny was in the hospital or recovering, I had a nanny who, months into caring for us, didn’t bathe me every day (it took my mom two weeks to notice, since little kids don’t sweat much), stole her credit card and slowly began charging her small items (like a few groceries) for a few months, exploding with her charging several thousands of dollars in random home good (bed sheets, towels, random decorations) that she strategically washed and put in our home, and justified to my mother as “gifts she couldn’t use”. Another interim one hit my brother repeatedly for having a potty training accident. Really insane.
I thought about the dating thing in high school last night, not responding till I’d thought it through. My initial reaction was no, I didn’t notice any oddness or discomfort in the two boyfriends I’d had (there was a third, but he lasted all of 6 weeks, so there’s not much worth mentioning). My first boyfriend, we’ll call him Sam, I dated from the fall of my sophomore year to the fall of my junior year. Sam was a freshman, newly transplanted to our town, going to a different high school. We met on the same sports club team. His father was the police chief, ex Navy SEAL, and his family had college degrees. His mother was a wonderful woman, someone I still talk to if I run into her while in my hometown. She is an optician or an optometrist, I’m not sure which. Money never come up with the two of us; we went to movies and largely hung out in our group of friends. He treated on my birthday or a holiday, we split the rest of the time (IIRC). We broke up after the novelty wore off, no hard feelings whatsoever. We remain good friends to this day - catch up on facebook, text each other on our birthdays. When we see each other in our hometown, we hug.
Boyfriend 2 was just a 6 or 8 week relationship. Nothing worth mentioning, at least on the money front. On the crazy and psychological issue front, there’s tons to tell.
Boyfriend 3 I dated from the beginning of senior year through the middle of my junior year of college, so 3 1/2 years. We thought we would get married eventually. He was a year ahead of me. He graduated first in his class, and “pinned” me into NHS. We’ll call him Ted. We were a dream match by the measures of our teachers and friends - both smart, both funny, both active in extracurriculars and the like. People sometimes joked they’d love to see how our kids turned out - not creepy, just good natured ribbing. His parents were both high school teachers, but both came from families that were working class (think postal workers and secretaries, etc). While Ted and I individually didn’t have many differences with money, in a larger group setting we did. I drove a brand new BMW my senior year of high school, so anytime there was a gathering of his family, I’d get teased about it when I drove up. IIRC, nothing was ever ill willed, it was always good natured. Especially after they got to know me, they made comments like “you’re two nerds in a pod”. They also ribbed me about being biracial. His extended family was certainly rough around the edges, but there was a lotta love - they were an escape from the pressure cooker of my parents’ home. Towards the end of our relationship however, there was tension because while in our little hometown there wasn’t much worth spending money on, I wanted to go to the theater and out to eat frequently when we were in college. Mind you, I didn’t want to go to steakhouses, but I did want to go to the nearby thai or indian joint a few times a week. His idea of entertainment was the half price menu after 11pm. This put strain on us because he wasn’t willing to plan other “cheap dates” - so money was a small factor in the bigger scheme. After a period of 6 or so months where we didn’t speak after breaking up, we began talking again. My goals expanded as I continued through college; I realized I wanted the lifestyle my parents have, complete with three homes and frequently eating out and lots socked in the bank. He’s going for his PHD in a hard science, and while he’ll do great things, had we gone on in our relationship money certainly would have been a touchy subject. Politically we’re now on opposite sides of the spectrum, but while dating we close to being on the same page.
The good friends I had in high school had one common theme, and that was that they came from families that valued education and were educated themselves. My two closest friends in my graduating class had parents who were professors and engineers, that sort of thing. Friends on my sports teams had parents that were attorneys or professors or software engineers. Since most were dual income and the area’s super affordable, that made them easily upper middle class. I remember once going to a friend’s house that I’d never been to (we always spent time at mine or working on after school activities) and being utterly horrified at their clutter - I think they were between Stage 1 and 2 hoarders. That’s the only time I’ve felt totally out of place and worlds apart, but that had nothing to do with money, as they were professors.
My younger brother is a freshman in college, and dated extensively throughout middle school and high school. I vividly recall a few instances of him bringing a new girl to my parents’ house and her getting bug eyed at the size of the house, the cars in the driveway, and the size of the kitchen. My mom angrily recalls some of the girls’ parents commenting on how “nice” it would be if the kids “stayed together and had kids” - when they were all of 16. Often the girls were gold diggers or their parents were. Some of the girls would drop brazen hints of wanting to visit our lake home. They expected to be financially taken care of - one girl picked out a bunch of clothes at a store at the mall, had them rung up at the register, and turned to my brother to pay for them. WTF? This made me incredibly uncomfortable, and I worried the girls would poke holes in condoms, crap like that. Some were certainly crazy enough to do things like that. My brother’s changed a bit in the past year, and he he’s now dating a girl who comes from working class family, but she’s studying to (eventually) get her masters in nursing, and my parents just love her. Looking back, their resentment (and mine) was geared moreso to the girls’ aspirations and their attitude (that they wanted to “marry” into money) rather than have a career of their own.
Hmm, interesting question. I did a little digging, and confirmed that my scholarship was from a pool that is strictly for academic scholarships. It’s not like I was taking $ away from need-based ones. If I were offered the opportunity to give my scholarship to someone need-based, I would have had to run it by my parents first, but otherwise I personally would have done so. But that wasn’t the case, and I certainly wouldn’t have given up the scholarship just to have it go to another academic scholar. I was near the top of the smartest kids at USC (assuming academic scholarships go to the brightest, of course, there were those who had full tuition scholarships ahead of me).
I see you’re still struggling with your English, China Guy. You should really spend more time on Rosetta Stone and less on the 'dope. Here’s what I said many posts ago in post #61:
So I would have been a manual laborer. If you want to know where I’d be if I were middle class, you’ll have to define the parameters first.
