Spoiled, privileged, upper-class
The comments on my post about the "spoiled?" meme have been really interesting, and there’s also a good follow-up discussion going on over at Phantom Scribbler.
I do agree with Phantom Scribbler that if you re-frame the meme as "privileged" instead of "spoiled," I’d have no problem with the label. At least some of the frustration with the meme is because a good part of what I associate with being "spoiled" is a lack of awareness of privilege.
Andrea (Beanie Baby) commented on how this meme has created controversy, and no one argues with the results of what Greek Goddess are you. I think that’s because people don’t have an intuitive sense of what makes someone Hera, or a knee-jerk reaction against being Aphrodite. "Spoiled" or even "upper-class" have every-day meanings, and so people are arguing when the results aren’t what they expect.
The NY Times today has an article about how unequal wealth can affect friendships. Nothing terribly profound, but it reinforces the idea that people feel rich or poor compared to the people around them — in their workplace, in their neighborhoods — not to the world as a large.
Last week, we were having dinner with some acquaintances, and the topic turned to houses, specifically the McMansions that are being built all over the place in the DC area. A couple of people starting singing the praises of smaller houses, and how much more usable and friendly they were. I had to bite my tongue not to say anything inappropriate, because one of the people making this case was our host — and I would guess that the house we were sitting in had approximately 3 times the square footage of ours. What’s big and what’s small is all a question of what your comparisons are.
May 7th, 2006 at 10:22 pm
When I moved here was the first time I ever felt downwardly mobile. Suddenly, I was in a place where my husband’s single income plus a small part-time contribution from me didn’t allow us to live according to the same comfort level as those around us. In the south and midwest where we’d come from, our combined salaries would garner us a sizeable house (maybe even with guest room) and we could travel often without scraping pennies.
I feel comfortable in my current neighborhood, but still long for a slighly better material life sometimes.
May 7th, 2006 at 11:01 pm
It is odd, the kinds of tensions that can occur between those who have money and those who don’t. A couple of years ago, I was doing some organizing with women who were moving from welfare to work, most of whom had jobs that paid the minimum wage (still only $5.15 an hour). The dh and I went out to dinner with one of his cousins and her husband, a corporate lawyer, who spent the entire time complaining, “of course, I’ll never really be rich.” This from a guy who was earning along the lines of $500,000 a year.
It was all I could do not to stab him with a fork.
May 8th, 2006 at 5:57 am
That’s a really interesting article – I imagine NY is an extreme example, but only because the top end is much more stretched out than it used to be.
I’ve thought for a while that I’m really lucky that I’ve generally had more money than my friends all the way through my working life – much easier to be at the top end of money issues (even though there is “awkwardness”, it’s much harder to be the one going into debt to have a holiday together).
I’ve got a friend who has little enough money that she couldn’t afford to take her son to a dentist when he really needed it, and we are sometimes thoughtless in our suggestions for where we should go for a day out with the kids on the weekends. It must be so tough to be constantly suggesting cheaper options.
May 8th, 2006 at 9:27 am
Elizabeth, what square footage counts as a small house, in your book? We live in Chicago in a house that’s 1500 SF, and I consider that a small house, but former New Yorkers have told me our house feels like the suburbs.
Also, we have no separation between kid space and grown-up space — just the living room/dining room, with toys strewn everywhere — and this to me contributes greatly to the feeling of having a small house.
May 8th, 2006 at 9:38 am
This is a constant emotional struggle for me. I didn’t grow up in a privileged household, but two degrees from great schools, several overpaid corporate jobs, and a marriage to a lawyer have brought me privilege. My sister, however, chose a different path. She too has two degrees (well, she’ll have the 2nd on Thursday), but she makes less than half of what I do as a third grade teacher. She’s one of those terrific, life-altering teachers and I fully believe that the work that she does has more value to the world than mine, but I can’t escape my tremendous feelings of guilt for the great disparity in our wages.
May 8th, 2006 at 10:13 am
Ooo, that’s exactly it for me, too, Jen. Our house is 1600 feet, and we have no grown-up space. The kids’ toys are everywhere, and we still don’t have the space for many of the items that their peers (in playgroups and preschool) take for granted. It’s silly, but what really makes me resentful is when well-meaning friends and relatives give the kids big gifts — not expensive things, just LARGE. I try to remember how incredibly privileged we are, but when I’m tripping over some enormous birthday gift (that the kid is still too attached to for me to be able to quietly disappear it) I find myself muttering about how nice it must be to not weigh every purchase based on the size of the object involved.
But it’s all perspective. One day a few years ago I was feeling sorry for my kid because he didn’t have his own indoor playground set, like the child we had visited the previous day. I made some deprecating comment about the size of our house to our babysitter, who was originally from Nepal. She just blinked at me a couple of times, and mentioned how we had a whole room that nobody used (now a bedroom for our second child). That was more than enough to make me realize just how privileged we really are.
May 8th, 2006 at 10:16 am
This is such a hot topic for me since recently opportunities have slipped through my hands since my spouse earns a very good living. I sense alot of tension in the workplace and friendships over differing financial situations. I have witnessed job opportunities offered to people who need benefits without having the proper credentials. I continue to work to keep up with technology and industry so I may be able to support my family in case of an emergency. There are no guarantees in life today. Plus with rising taxes in my town every penny counts. Many friends and coworkers, I am sure, view me as a spoiled, advantaged wife, which is a misjudgement since I grew up in a middle class household that worried about money. I still can’t shake worrying about money and shopping the sale racks. Even if I won the lottery I would never feel comfortable in certain upper-class spheres. Perspective is a major part of judgement. I live relatively comfortably, but my husband and I work like dogs at work and home. We did not inherit our comfort, but made decisions on where we wanted to be in life, such as cheaper colleges vs. private, apartments vs. buying a home, saving vs. spending, staying home vs. traveling. It just amazes me that people judge others before examining their own life choices. There are exceptions for people who have little opportunity due to extreme poverty and discrimination. However, many people I know graduated college, but made poor choices in their career.
May 8th, 2006 at 10:25 am
I just looked it up online, and the city real estate department says that our house is 1575 sq feet. And yes, it feels small compared to pretty much all of our friends with kids. And yes, it is larger (and has one more bathroom) than the NYC apartment that my parents raised 3 kids to adulthood in.
It definitely feels suburban to me, but that’s not becuase of size. It feels suburban because it’s a rowhouse not an apartment and has a yard.
We’re in the same “kids stuff everywhere” stage. A huge part of the issue is that we don’t have a basement, garage, or attic, so there’s no place but the living room to park strollers, trikes, etc. My parents’ apartment building at least had a communal bike room on the ground floor where such things could be stored.
May 8th, 2006 at 11:57 am
Although my family is downwardly mobile since I stopped working, I fully recognize how privileged I am (and this causes me immense guilt since I escaped an underprivileged background). Yet most of the other SAHMs I know have much more comfortable financial situations than my family so I occasionally feel underprivileged in comparison. I definitely feel a little odd going to visit friends in 3000 sq. ft. homes (my apartment is 1500 sq. ft.) or worrying about spending money on playdates for my daughter when no one else seems to. Of course, it’s especially strange when one (more affluent) friend mentioned that they don’t have a whole lot of money; I’m sure they did have to make financial sacrifices for one parent to stay home, but as many other commenters have noted, it’s all a matter of perspective.
May 8th, 2006 at 12:56 pm
So much of this housing stuff is dependent upon generational stuff! Among our friends of our age, we are considered unusual for owning our own single-family house (as opposed to a condo). But my big sister’s peer group is uniformly in their own single-family house. And my parents consider anything with less than 3 bathrooms to be just scraping by. I guess it shows what year people were buying their property.
May 8th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
This subject was on my mind a little over a year ago (http://elevatedumbrella.blogspot.com/2005/02/theres-something-about-money.html) when we bought a new house. We went from about 1200 sq feet to 2100 sq feet and gained a garage. We were the first of our friends to ‘trade up’ in the house department, and I do think there was some awkwardness for awhile. There may still be some, as friends of ours who live in a house very similar to our old 1200 sq foot house are still there – and expecting a second child.
I don’t think of us as being affluent, but I recognize that we’re certainly privileged – owning a home, saving for retirement and college. Of course, we’re also still paying off grad school loans and one car loan.
May 8th, 2006 at 3:05 pm
Really, anyone who is blessed enough to be reading this on their own computer screen is privalaged compared to 99.99% of people alive today. It’s amazing how quickly we forget that.
Even people who have identical incomes have different priorities. I have a co-worker who travels abroad 3-4 times a year and can hardly believe that the rest of us go camping or to the Outer Banks. Another friend spends lots of money on fancy resturants and is appalled at my cheap diet. I question why they do without high-speed internet and put so little into savings.
I’m sure that age has a lot to do with your score on the “spoiled” test as well. I’m 23, and I scored a 29. Three years ago I would have scored maybe a 20, and then only if I counted things my parent’s owned. But I’m sure that in 10 years when I’ve moved on to an actual house, taken a few more trips, etc. I’ll score higher.
May 8th, 2006 at 5:18 pm
New reader to your blog — love it! AND I think I must live very very close to you geographically (I live in the south end of Old Town). Also, interesting timing on this post. I am 28 weeks pregnant with our first child and trying to evaluate how much maternity/paternity leave my DH and I can afford to take, since neither of our jobs give paid leave and the DC area does NOT provide a cost of living where one of us can stay home. We live in a 1260 sq ft end townhouse. I think as an older soon-to-be parent, I have gotten used to having a guest room. Now, we will have a guest room/office..but I’m not sure what will happen when/if we have a second child!
May 8th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
Another thing that crossed my mind is how many people are living beyond their means via credit. I see so many family, friends and colleagues living on credit and home equity loans to keep up with the Jones. The sad thing is that they are all highly educated, but succumb to the social/peer pressure. How many people today are house poor. Alot of people can score high on that list, but how many without loans or credit.
May 8th, 2006 at 9:28 pm
Ah. Well, I am a geek; and I did take my name after a greek goddess; but I do have knee-jerk reactions when someone takes superficial stereotypes of various pantheons as personality types. But I’m weird. I think we’ll all buy that.
What happens if we call it “lucky”?
Which I think is what I had in the back of my mind when I took it anyway–I figured I would be spoiled (I wasn’t–score of 26 I think) because I feel very lucky in my material circumstances. And I am. But I think calling it “privileged” opens up a new can of worms for the majority of folks who would have no idea what that means (ironically, discussions about privilege tend to take place among privileged people).
It’s funny, our last house was 1650 square feet, and it always felt big to me. When we moved it was to be closer to work; but we could not find detached houses less than 2200 square feet in the neighbourhood. Nuts. It’s like the builders decided that no one would want to buy one, so why bother building it? (Our last house was a semi and due to a very bad neighbour situation we weren’t eager to repeat it.) So now we live in a 2600 square foot house, which is embarassing. Seriously. People come over and I start blushing and have to fight hte urge to say, “it’s silly, isn’t it? It’s way too big. But we looked for a smaller house, honest, and this was the smallest we could find here! It’s so big. Would you like part of it? Maybe we can detach part and you can bring it home. Would you like part of my house? Take it, please!”
It isn’t my background. It’s still much smaller than the house I grew up in.
Maybe it was my education? Taking several years to study environmental degradation and international social justice issues can give one a different outlook on these things. If I ever do start feeling envious of things that others have (definitely not the wealthiest people in our new neighbourhood, not by a long shot) a little voice pops up and says, “Yeah but you’ve flown in an airplane! You are SO RICH.” Which tends to shut down the internal dialogue, and probably makes me sound like I have mental health problems to boot.
May 8th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
I wanted to quote Rana at Frogs and Ravens’ take on this:
“If I’m spoiled, it’s because I want to discount my relative privileges compared to people with fewer of them, while resenting my lack of items relative to those above me.”
http://palimpsest.typepad.com/frogsandravens/2006/05/spoiled_privile.html
Exactly.
May 9th, 2006 at 8:37 am
I found this discussion–amusing. I tend to forget how much more some people have than I, because I think I am doing really well. Of course, sometimes I see something and feel jealous, but usually I feel very fortunate. I was telling my wife last weekend that she has an unusual distinction in our group of friends; she’s one of the few who has never lived in a trailer (I have).
May 9th, 2006 at 10:17 am
I like the quote: spoiled if you don’t know how priveleged you are, though mind you, just having stuff can make you spoiled. My definition of not being spoiled is being able to do without what you’ve been priveleged enough to enjoy. But, that’s a hard rule to apply, while still allowing yourself the enjoyment of luxuries (like a big house — it’s hard, I think to go back to a smaller house); And, it’s even harder with your children, who may grow up not understanding what it’s like not to have something, like regular trips to Hawaii (which was oddly missing from the spoiled list — or was it there?). That’s what we try to do, personally, to enjoy, but recognize that we need to be able to do without.
bj