My dad was a Queenstown adult who succeeded at class ascension but did not know how to raise us other than with the same information he had been given which was “you can do whatever you want, but you’d be able to take care of yourself”. I would really emphasize that for people who grew up extremely poor, and especially poor and brown in …
My dad was a Queenstown adult who succeeded at class ascension but did not know how to raise us other than with the same information he had been given which was “you can do whatever you want, but you’d be able to take care of yourself”. I would really emphasize that for people who grew up extremely poor, and especially poor and brown in America - preparing kids with that ethos is a form of love and responsibility, not neglect and uncaring (as it could be seen from the outside).
Observing (city) upper middle class parents of this era, there is definitely a visage of “explore your individual interests”, but only *certain* interests and only so much as they will add to your prep or college resume, and parents will manipulate and bully on their child’s behalf to be sure that they are as high up in the crab barrel as possible. Which is interesting, because it’s a very modern subthread of the fake individualism that has prevailed in American culture. Like, parents are *aware* they are socially expected to encourage their kids interests in order to effectively class signal, so they pantomime encouragement, but they are manipulating those hobbies to an extent that they might as well go the more rugged straightforward route.
Not saying I’m doing it any better, just an observation!
My dad was a Queenstown adult who succeeded at class ascension but did not know how to raise us other than with the same information he had been given which was “you can do whatever you want, but you’d be able to take care of yourself”. I would really emphasize that for people who grew up extremely poor, and especially poor and brown in America - preparing kids with that ethos is a form of love and responsibility, not neglect and uncaring (as it could be seen from the outside).
Observing (city) upper middle class parents of this era, there is definitely a visage of “explore your individual interests”, but only *certain* interests and only so much as they will add to your prep or college resume, and parents will manipulate and bully on their child’s behalf to be sure that they are as high up in the crab barrel as possible. Which is interesting, because it’s a very modern subthread of the fake individualism that has prevailed in American culture. Like, parents are *aware* they are socially expected to encourage their kids interests in order to effectively class signal, so they pantomime encouragement, but they are manipulating those hobbies to an extent that they might as well go the more rugged straightforward route.
Not saying I’m doing it any better, just an observation!