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NYC toddlers go through the same thing, and I hear parents here complaining about getting their kids into a good kindergarten all the time. There is a funnel fr
by rquantz 11y ago
NYC toddlers go through the same thing, and I hear parents here complaining about getting their kids into a good kindergarten all the time. There is a funnel from the best kindergartens to the best private schools, to the Ivy League schools, to the top law firms and medical schools, and for some of very best schools, the rate of acceptance into Ivy League schools is so high that by getting your kid into the right kindergarten they are essentially set for life. It is absolute madness that an interview at the age of four could be so determinative of one's entire life. Yet another way that privilege tends to compound.
- Red_Tarsius 11y agoimho it's not privilege, but wishful thinking: the snake oil of modern education.
- Zikes 11y agoIt's not the education that matters, it's the relationships and prestige.
- ovulator 11y agoHere is the thing, the kid that makes it into this kindergarten does so because their parent is both connected and wealthy no? That means that the rejects are also connected and wealthy, yes? Those rejects then mix in with the plebs at a normal school. That normal school has a much lower acceptance rate into the Ivys, but who from those schools is making it in. Probably the wealthy and connected rejects. So did the elite kindergarten matter at all? This of course is all conjecture, and I would love to see actual data on the subject.
- mrev19 11y agoA person who follows a path laid out for them by others from the age of four without veering will encounter challenges later in life involving self-direction and identity. 'Set for life' is a dangerous delusion.
- Zikes 11y agoI'm not saying you're wrong, but 'set for life' money can pay for a lot of therapy.
- mrev19 11y agoUnfortunately, if you get there, there's not enough therapy in the world that will help. You can never pay someone to teach you to love yourself, or to decide for you who exactly you are, or decide for you what you want. You have to claim it for yourself, and if you walk the path laid out for you by others you will not have the tools to do this. After pair bonding with the mother, the foundation is laid as a toddler, parents praising effort, not outcome, and teaching kids to learn and explore and create for the sake of their own curiosity, not tying that process to external judgements and motivators and robbing them of their agency. The goal of parenting should be to teach self reliance. Parents and our current scholastic environment are raising children that are so tightly coupled to the system that they are extremely brittle in the face of adversity, they fall apart. Their reference points are external. They have no compass. You might 'make it' by society's standards with no internal compass, but this 'making it' is incredibly deceptive. You've acquired a debt working against self realization and direction that is incredibly difficult, sometimes impossible, to pay. Countless broken homes and shattered lives result from the inevitable reckoning. Everyone will become accountable to the amount of responsibility they've taken for their life at some point, and it can be equally liberating and devastating.
- Zikes 11y agoI think you're vastly overstating the difference between the psychological stresses put upon affluent children versus those in middle class or poverty. Everybody has to deal with living up to their parents' hopes and dreams, and we all manage somehow. Certainly there's plenty of room for improvement on all sides, but if you're looking for a special sympathy for the upper class, you'll not get it from me.