Okay, in my case it’s been me merely saying that I don’t watch Jerry Springer and don’t particularly like him. (I didn’t go on to rant and rave about crappy television. I watch my fair share of crappy televsion.)
Without going into gruesome detail about these type of people, it’s gotten to a point where I can be reluctant to talk about most of my interests because they are too strange and high falutin’. If I didn’t like exactly the same things that these people did, I was suspect. I didn’t have to say anything disparaging about anything else to set them off. (I certainly didn’t say anything mean about Country music, since I kind of like it in an abstract sort of way. It’s just that my favorite type of music is Classical, which apparently is an affront.) I also don’t consider myself high falutin’ (if you saw how I dress and the car I drive, you’d believe me), but I have eclectic tastes and “eclectic” or “different” automatically translates “putting on airs” with some people. I mean, if reading a book about Adobe Photoshop is enough to tick some people off, then I give up.
Actually, Chickie, I wouldn’t let what people here say sway you one way or another. You’re growing up and that takes some getting used to. You’re growing up smart and in a smart environment and that takes MORE getting used to. Listen to others and try to learn from them, even when they feed you BS. And have some fun without feeling guilty. There will be plenty of time for that later.
No, the simple fact of the matter is that although you may be smart (“their” and “peoples” aside), what you really are – and what’s wrong with the people you mention – is that you’re immature.
You will eventually arrive at a point in life where you find yourself inteacting with these small business types and every other sort of person without making any judgements at all about their intelligence or life status. That is because you will learn that there are an infinite number of factors that come to bear on the lives that people live, modest or otherwise…and the life that they are either stuck in or have chosen has little to do with either their intelligence or their level of sophistication. And you will have more of a live and let live attitude.
But for now, you’re just a moderately intelligent college kid who thinks he knows more than he does.
Look back on this thread twenty years from now and you’ll give yourself one of these: :smack:
Well, your folks are who they are. They’re probably a little embarrassed by the fact that they can’t provide for you the same way that the parents of some of your classmates can, but I’d bet that they’re more proud of you than anything else. I’d also bet that more of your classmates than you realize are in the same boat as you.
Sure, there are people who have more than you do, and there always will be, but there are a hell of a lot more people who have less. My parents took out a second mortgage on their “nice” house to help my brother and me pay for college. While we were in college, I don’t think either one of use really understood what they were doing, but we sure do now. In ten years, you’ll be as proud of them as they are of you.
That wasn’t meant to imply that I grew up with less than you did - I was just pointing out what seems to me to be an analagous situation. It sounds like we grew up in similar environments.
Well lessee, you are working to pay for your education, you are working to pay for your car, you are working to pay for your rent, you are working to pay for your insurance…I’d say that kinda makes you “working class”.
OK, you’re saying that blue-collar workers (not exclusively, but definitely them) are stupid and irresponsible, you don’t respect them…but you claim that you don’t consider yourself better than any of them? Uh huh.
You may really want to mull that over. I can assure you that white-collar workers, the rich and the educated display just as much stupidity, irresponsibility, boozing, drug abuse and have plenty of dumb-ass kids, just like blue-collar workers. It isn’t the collar, it’s the person. If you don’t learn to judge individuals on their own merits you are going to have a truly horrible time when you leave school.
The older you get the less you will be impressed with your own intelligence, or at least I hope that that will be the case.
The problem is that all throughout school, kids are praised for academic (and athletic) prowess more or less exclusively. Little attention is paid to such virtues as “the ability to get things done,” “kindness,” “practicality,” and “common sense.”
I’m 43 now (horrifyingly enough), and it’s taken almost this long for me to appreciate that *almost * (note: only “almost”) everyone at my job has something to offer – even the idiots who watch Star Search (or whatever the hell that stupid talent show is called) obsessively and actually give a crap about who wins.
And this is the crux of the biscuit, NJ. You’re growing. Not ‘up’ or anything…just…growing.
If there’s a waystation at a bit of snobbery along the way then there is. As long as you don’t stay there you’ll be fine.
And don’t put down your dads ‘sophomoric’ jokes. You’d be amazed how many people like them. And they’ve GOT to be better than the one’s I’ve heard our elected leaders use. (I almost named one but thought better of it.)
Remember, it’s not about your intellectual ‘gifts’ or how much you know. It’s about how open you are to learning and continuing to grow all through your life. I know many people who took learning and personal growth as something one did in school. And then stopped since they weren’t in school any more. They were what they were.
But people who are always willing to challenge their assumptions (as you are here)…people who are always aware that there are new things to know…people who can decide that what they’ve believed in for 20 years (or more) was wrong and they should find something different…
I think there are two issues here, since the classist elitism is mixed up with the scholarly elitism, although it makes sense you’d experience both at your fancy pants college. Since you are reflective about both, you’ll be fine. But the scholarly elitism is much more difficult to overcome.
Oh, and Tenar. I know PhD’s who watch reality television. They aren’t idiots (some PhDs are, of course), and they don’t require the patronizing concession that they have “something to offer.”
You’re young and foolish, NinjaChick . Life will cure you of this, hopefully.
In the meantime, you might consider the fact that the reason your house is heat-wrapped and your folks buy generic is because of that $40k annual check that they are more than like footing a large portion of…
Swallowing that pill is the beginning of the cure.
Hear hear. America’s Next Top Model is an excellent show.
I am most comfortable with highly educated folks who aren’t afraid to be “Joe Schmoes”. Just the other day, I had everyone at work cracking up because they found out I had “Ain’t Nuthin’ But a G-Thang” and “Gin and Juice” on my playlist. I’m up-to-date on pop culture, and I’m not afraid to laugh at juvenile or baudy humor. But I also enjoy art museums, history documentaries, esoteric scientific writing, hiking and wilderness activities, and talking about politics. Compared to the other Ph.Ds in my lab, I feel I am the “coolest”.
My parents are embarrassing too sometimes. The only traveling they do is to casinos. They don’t read anything other than the bible. They watch too much TV, eat entirely too much, and although they often engage in intellectual debates, their positions are usually based on feelings and faith rather than facts or first-hand knowledge. But they both have advanced degrees (only ones in their families to go to college), and they aren’t doing that bad financially. Whenever I want to sit in judgement of those two, I just think of that and the fact that I’m not 100% “sophisticated” either, nor do I want to be.
My mother had a framed excerpt from a Sam Walter Foss poem on her kitchen wall. Over the years I’ve been trying to live up to the sentiment expressed in it.
Let me live in a house by the side of the road,
where the race of men go by.
The men who are good and the men who are bad,
as good and as bad as I.
I will not sit in the scorner’s seat,
or hurl the cynic’s ban.
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
and be a friend to man.
I know this, which is part of my mental anguish. But it’s also always been like this: generics, cutting corners whenever possible. We have and haven’t, depending on my father’s job, needed to, but we always have, regardless.
sigh Can I be a grown-up now? Skip the rest of this ‘maturing’ thing and automatically be ‘mature’?
Maybe it’s always been like that because they’ve been saving for your education for a long, long time.
And anyway, what is wrong with being frugal? It’s a virtue, you know. We buy generics, and cut corners, and still use some furniture we had in college, and we’re in one of the higher percentiles in income and could certainly afford a lot more. We choose to put our money where it matters most to us. Perhaps what mattered most to your parents is seeing that you got a good start in life. Instead of thinking less of them when you see generic food in the cupboard, you should be washed over with love and pride at the thought that your parents have gone to considerable sacrifice for YOU.
Don’t beat yourself up too much, NinjaChick, nor your parents. Of course you’re reacting to how your parents live. They’re your parents, the most pervasive influence on your life so far. They gave you a solid springboard, so measuring yourself in relation to it–and them–is a nifty compliment, as uniquely familial backwards compliments go. I worry a lot more about people of any age who just blindly, blandly accept ‘our way’s the best, no thinking required, matter settled.’
Generational…neccessities don’t always translate exactly, probably because the shaping forces differ. My parents grew up in the great depression, with all the dire hardships involved. Both of 'em went on to be very successful but some–not all–of the means that became second nature to them frankly drove me nuts. My mother, f’rinstance, hoarded everything to the end of her life: canned food, old clothes, margarine tubs, you name it. She wouldn’t throw anything away, clutter bedamned, because we might need it sometime. Use it up, make it over, make do or do without. She shopped for discounted, old fruit that was spotty and not very appetizing, the cheapest, nastiest bulk toilet paper that scratched and tore if you even looked at it, etc. far after she actually needed to. We would eat boiled rice and milk for dinner as kids…while she made double payments on the house mortgage because she was so terrified of debt. Going a little hungry never hurt anybody but anything you didn’t own, free and clear, could be taken away from you. Different neccessities.
Your life in relation to your parents’ lives will come into focus with some time and thought. Don’t worry overmuch about not having what some ‘more fortunate’ college kids have. That’ll come into perspective too. IME, it was great to know those possiblities existed, because they didn’t really in my parents’ view, but the people who got them too easily, too early had their perspective warped rather more perilously for the long run. Fortunate kids didn’t even know they were fortunate, much less how or why.
It sounds to me like you’re handling the process of muddling through pretty well just by being so aware. And no, unfortunately, there’s no shortcut. Damnit.
You could do what I did. Drop out of the fancy college, move across country and start life from the bottom up.
I grew up in an upper-middle class family surrounded by wealth. My parents spent a lot on my education. I decided I wanted to find out what the ‘real’ world was like and start with absolutely nothing and work my way to where I eventually wanted to be. I bitch and moan about it sometimes, but I absolutely love it. If you do something like that, you’ll appreciate the ‘rich’ things so much more and you’ll get your priorities straightened out in a hurry.
I don’t understand what’s wrong with generics, or being frugal, or buying carefully even when you don’t have to. Generics brands are, on the whole, as good or sometimes even better quality than brand names (coughDelMontecough). A lot of canned food, for example, is made at the same facility but different labels are slapped on. All that I would consider a virtue, as long as it’s not going overboard a la Veb’s mom.
I understand the problem with turning into a snob in college (though I’m pretty sure Oprah is doing a classics book club this year, and is therefore not to be scorned). Get over it as soon as you can, that’s all.
I guess I’m not familiar with the concept of being a college student and having money at the same time. I thought most college kids were fairly penniless, living in grungy apartments and all. Isn’t that, like, part of the experience? I suppose we were reverse snobs; I remember we gave one guy a hard time because his family had servants. (Well, a cleaning lady and a gardener. As far as we were concerned, that was servants.) Almost everyone I knew was on scholarships of some kind; I would have looked with suspicion on someone whose parents had paid for a car and nice stuff.
