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> His father lost his job, and in 2012 their family home was foreclosed on. > They had to move into a much smaller apartment, and at the age of 16, Sayman foun

> His father lost his job, and in 2012 their family home was foreclosed on. > They had to move into a much smaller apartment, and at the age of 16, Sayman found himself in the strange situation of helping his parents make the mortgage payments on the new place. This part sounds strange to me.

windsurfer 12y ago
You missed the phrase "He also started pitching in for his and his sister’s private school tuition." What kind of family, so obviously down in luck, would pay to have a member of their family go to a private school?
- jnbiche 12y ago
  A family zoned for a very low-performing school -- not uncommon in South Florida.
  - windsurfer 12y ago
    I am from Canada, where such a thing is almost unheard of. Private school is considered a luxury. This is a culture I'm very much unfamiliar with. Thank you.
    - shabadoop 12y ago
      And really, I've only ever seen rich kids with minor substance abuse problems get sent to private school.
      - jnbiche 12y ago
        That just tells me that you've never lived in a city with truly atrocious public schools like Detroit, Newark, or New Orleans. In those cities, any caring family who can beg, scrape or borrow the funds sends their kids to private schools, including most middle class families, and many poor families (off a combination of scholarship money and extended family contributions).
  - brianbreslin 12y ago
    In Miami there are also charter schools and magnet programs too. His school, costs $15k/year http://www.belenjesuit.org/page.aspx?pid=614 http://www.belenjesuit.org/page.aspx?pid=614
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- yebyen 12y ago
  There is a great "opportunity cost" for a kid, or maybe that's not the right expression, of leaving one school and going to another. For me, I moved and changed schools my senior year of high school. I was happy to do it. I had lots of friends at my old high school, my parents bought a business that was located an hour from our residence, and they pitched the idea of buying a house and moving. I was in a private school, Catholic, but professed atheist so not very popular with my religion teacher, among other religious teachers, and it was causing my overall GPA to suffer when I had long been a Straight-A student. I switched to a public school more local to the business, graduated third in my class (better than my previous rank in about equal class size), and wound up being able to go to RIT (Rochester, NY) on a decent set of scholarships, with lots of help from my parents. But more importantly I had just recently gotten really good at making friends, and recognized that taking a year to make some new friends before going off to college was going to be good practice for later. Anyway, there was no end to the line of people ready to tell me how good it was of me to go along with the idea in my last year of high school, and to not throw tantrums or put up a zillion roadblocks, tell my parents they were ruining my social life by making me change schools, or feeling any of the thousand other ways that a teenage kid can feel gravely slighted by their parents or family when they need to move or make some other major change for some reason, when they are just trying to go on living their lives and do what's best. A lot of my friends would not have been nearly so happy to move and change schools, I'll admit that. I mentioned enough things that went well, so it's also easy to recognize that any of those things could have turned out differently.
- Crito 12y ago
  Parents optimizing for the long-term benefit of their children over current comforts for themselves isn't exactly unheard of. It is apparent that this is a family which believes that it is important for their children to receive an education from that school. Maybe they know the kids are technically/scientifically inclined so they are sending them to a school with a better science program than the local schools. Maybe they are religious and believe that their children need a religious education. Whatever it is, it's because how their children are educated is more important to them than owning a home.
- reverend_gonzo 12y ago
  My family was very much working class, probably around the same income as this family, in central Florida, and both my brother and I went to a fairly expensive private school. Why? The public school system in Florida is known to be very bad. My parents felt it was more important for their children to get a good education than it was for them to eat out, go on vacation, drive a nice car, etc. I am eternally thankful to them for that, and, in my opinion, since they were never able to save for retirement or have an emergency, my brother and I are just that. My guess is that this kid's parents also felt the same way. Obviously, they made the right decision.
- PhasmaFelis 12y ago
  A family that wants the kids to have a better chance than their parents did.
jnbiche 12y ago
In poor and lower-middle class families, it is quite common for a teenage son or daughter to contribute to the rent or power/telephone bill out of the money they make working minimum wage jobs. If Mom and/or Dad are also working minimum wage jobs, it's impossible to pay mortgage payments in even relatively-inexpensive large cities. As a personal anecdote, my grandmother helped her family pay the rent when she was a teenager by working as a waitress. Her father had died at a young age. My parent's and my generation were both fortunate enough to not have to worry about this. Unfortunately, here in the US, this type of family arrangement will only increase in the future, given the fact that this generation is the first generation in modern US economic history where the a generation is worse off financially than their parents were at the same age.
- differentView 12y ago
  The part I found strange was the mortgage they're paying on a new place, meaning they purchased another home. If the family was struggling financially, how could they have qualified for a loan to purchase another place so soon after having their previous home foreclosed?
  - jnbiche 12y ago
    I'm guessing that was a journalist error, and he/she should have written "rent" in lieu of mortgage.
andrewfong 12y ago
Yeah, I found it weird too. Why are they paying mortgage on an apartment? Maybe they meant he's paying rent? Or maybe it's really a condo?
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  Yes, technically an apartment is rented and a condo is owned, but I have met plenty of people who use the terms interchangeably. Which does kind of make sense, considering they are in all other regards the exact same thing.
  - danielweber 12y ago
    In New York, it's standard to "buy an apartment." The NYT uses that construction all the time in its real estate articles.
    - lostlogin 12y ago
      I have been following this thread with interest (accidental pun). Where I am (New Zealand) the term apartment doesn't mean anything in relationship to ownership either. It could be leased, owned, rented or whatever. Edit: using everyone's favourite source the world apartment has different meaning in different regions - broadly the term 'flat' is a better fit with British (maybe even non-US?) readers, though with NZ being an exception, despite our usual English centric approach to language. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartment
- differentView 12y ago
  A condo would be strange as well, why would (how could) they have purchased another place so soon after having their previous place foreclosed upon.
  - velazcod 12y ago
    I thought so too, but it's possible they were living in an expensive house and they got some money back from it and bought a cheaper place. Maybe, I don't know that much about the whole foreclosure process but I know of someone that did something similar.
brianbreslin 12y ago
Interesting he goes to private school which runs about $14-18k/year. Belen Jesuit prep in Miami

windsurfer 12y ago

You missed the phrase "He also started pitching in for his and his sister’s private school tuition." What kind of family, so obviously down in luck, would pay to have a member of their family go to a private school?

jnbiche 12y ago
A family zoned for a very low-performing school -- not uncommon in South Florida.
- windsurfer 12y ago
  I am from Canada, where such a thing is almost unheard of. Private school is considered a luxury. This is a culture I'm very much unfamiliar with. Thank you.
  - shabadoop 12y ago
    And really, I've only ever seen rich kids with minor substance abuse problems get sent to private school.
    - jnbiche 12y ago
      That just tells me that you've never lived in a city with truly atrocious public schools like Detroit, Newark, or New Orleans. In those cities, any caring family who can beg, scrape or borrow the funds sends their kids to private schools, including most middle class families, and many poor families (off a combination of scholarship money and extended family contributions).
- brianbreslin 12y ago
  In Miami there are also charter schools and magnet programs too. His school, costs $15k/year http://www.belenjesuit.org/page.aspx?pid=614 http://www.belenjesuit.org/page.aspx?pid=614
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
yebyen 12y ago
There is a great "opportunity cost" for a kid, or maybe that's not the right expression, of leaving one school and going to another. For me, I moved and changed schools my senior year of high school. I was happy to do it. I had lots of friends at my old high school, my parents bought a business that was located an hour from our residence, and they pitched the idea of buying a house and moving. I was in a private school, Catholic, but professed atheist so not very popular with my religion teacher, among other religious teachers, and it was causing my overall GPA to suffer when I had long been a Straight-A student. I switched to a public school more local to the business, graduated third in my class (better than my previous rank in about equal class size), and wound up being able to go to RIT (Rochester, NY) on a decent set of scholarships, with lots of help from my parents. But more importantly I had just recently gotten really good at making friends, and recognized that taking a year to make some new friends before going off to college was going to be good practice for later. Anyway, there was no end to the line of people ready to tell me how good it was of me to go along with the idea in my last year of high school, and to not throw tantrums or put up a zillion roadblocks, tell my parents they were ruining my social life by making me change schools, or feeling any of the thousand other ways that a teenage kid can feel gravely slighted by their parents or family when they need to move or make some other major change for some reason, when they are just trying to go on living their lives and do what's best. A lot of my friends would not have been nearly so happy to move and change schools, I'll admit that. I mentioned enough things that went well, so it's also easy to recognize that any of those things could have turned out differently.
Crito 12y ago
Parents optimizing for the long-term benefit of their children over current comforts for themselves isn't exactly unheard of. It is apparent that this is a family which believes that it is important for their children to receive an education from that school. Maybe they know the kids are technically/scientifically inclined so they are sending them to a school with a better science program than the local schools. Maybe they are religious and believe that their children need a religious education. Whatever it is, it's because how their children are educated is more important to them than owning a home.
reverend_gonzo 12y ago
My family was very much working class, probably around the same income as this family, in central Florida, and both my brother and I went to a fairly expensive private school. Why? The public school system in Florida is known to be very bad. My parents felt it was more important for their children to get a good education than it was for them to eat out, go on vacation, drive a nice car, etc. I am eternally thankful to them for that, and, in my opinion, since they were never able to save for retirement or have an emergency, my brother and I are just that. My guess is that this kid's parents also felt the same way. Obviously, they made the right decision.
PhasmaFelis 12y ago
A family that wants the kids to have a better chance than their parents did.

jnbiche 12y ago

In poor and lower-middle class families, it is quite common for a teenage son or daughter to contribute to the rent or power/telephone bill out of the money they make working minimum wage jobs. If Mom and/or Dad are also working minimum wage jobs, it's impossible to pay mortgage payments in even relatively-inexpensive large cities. As a personal anecdote, my grandmother helped her family pay the rent when she was a teenager by working as a waitress. Her father had died at a young age. My parent's and my generation were both fortunate enough to not have to worry about this. Unfortunately, here in the US, this type of family arrangement will only increase in the future, given the fact that this generation is the first generation in modern US economic history where the a generation is worse off financially than their parents were at the same age.

differentView 12y ago
The part I found strange was the mortgage they're paying on a new place, meaning they purchased another home. If the family was struggling financially, how could they have qualified for a loan to purchase another place so soon after having their previous home foreclosed?
- jnbiche 12y ago
  I'm guessing that was a journalist error, and he/she should have written "rent" in lieu of mortgage.

andrewfong 12y ago

Yeah, I found it weird too. Why are they paying mortgage on an apartment? Maybe they meant he's paying rent? Or maybe it's really a condo?

sliverstorm 12y ago
Yes, technically an apartment is rented and a condo is owned, but I have met plenty of people who use the terms interchangeably. Which does kind of make sense, considering they are in all other regards the exact same thing.
- danielweber 12y ago
  In New York, it's standard to "buy an apartment." The NYT uses that construction all the time in its real estate articles.
  - lostlogin 12y ago
    I have been following this thread with interest (accidental pun). Where I am (New Zealand) the term apartment doesn't mean anything in relationship to ownership either. It could be leased, owned, rented or whatever. Edit: using everyone's favourite source the world apartment has different meaning in different regions - broadly the term 'flat' is a better fit with British (maybe even non-US?) readers, though with NZ being an exception, despite our usual English centric approach to language. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartment
differentView 12y ago
A condo would be strange as well, why would (how could) they have purchased another place so soon after having their previous place foreclosed upon.
- velazcod 12y ago
  I thought so too, but it's possible they were living in an expensive house and they got some money back from it and bought a cheaper place. Maybe, I don't know that much about the whole foreclosure process but I know of someone that did something similar.

brianbreslin 12y ago

Interesting he goes to private school which runs about $14-18k/year. Belen Jesuit prep in Miami