quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

eh he's a theater performer. i've seen a good half dozen of his works and i think the apple one is the weakest because it was more polemic than theater. That the two are so mixed up is part of what makes it sort of work and also part of what makes it not work. here's hoping this kerfuffle doesn't obscure the more important issues he raised.

i don't really think this is the tbread for that issue

anyway
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/education/at-the-pta-clashes-over-cupcakes-and-culture.html?scp=4&sq=clinton%20hill&st=cse

it's hard for me to sympathize with parents when i read shit like this

a new Arab spring budding in Brooklyn:

“It’s never just about the cupcake,” said Jeffrey Henig, a professor of political science and education at Teachers College, who has written extensively about this topic. “The cupcake is the spark.”

the article itself is awful too - they could only be arsed to interview a single non gentrifier parent, whose "i didn't have time to go to the concert" comment is buried at the end of the article.

"who has written extensively about this topic"

that guy has to be taking the piss, right?

I didn't sense any pro-gentrification bias in this.

Parenting seems like a surefire way to unleash people's inner asshole

yeah, i think that only including one non-gentrifier parent was more a deliberate choice ... to show that the non-gentrifiers don't have the free time to devote to the school activities, and not to deliberately exclude them. so i may cut this article a little more slack than the usual NYT lifestyle piffle.

parents are pretty much the worst

not nyt but fuck this has to go somewhere

http://www.slate.com/slideshows/arts/pairing-up-the-heroes-of-downton-abbey-with-their-mad-men-soul-mates.html?wpisrc=msn_gallery

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/magazine/the-best-nanny-money-can-buy.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all?src=tp&smid=fb-share

A nanny can increase her marketability if she can help manage an art collection, draft correspondence, wash and fold 50 linens a day and help set up philanthropic events. Bonus points if she can do it all in Mandarin.

Rich people spending ridiculous amounts on ordinary services is like half the reason non-rich people can survive in NYC.

Michelle K
Houston, TX

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We pay our nanny a $1700.00/month salary for approximately 25 hours a week. We offer her 6 sick days a year and she gets paid vacations as she does not have to work when we go on holiday with our child (i.e., Spring Break, Easter Break, two weeks in the summer, Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays). When we have special needs, such as when my husband and I are out of town at the same time (rarely) and we need her to stay with our daughter, we always consult her schedule. Our child is in the third grade and trains in a sport five days a week so her time with her is limited (3-5 pm). She does clean our house but does not have to cook. Our child absolutely adores our nanny and we feel we are not paying for essentially a taxi/housecleaning service, we are paying for "peace of mind" and someone we respect and value as a person. It's a win-win situation for all.

Moh
NYC

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The best you can do is find a nanny or live-in Au Pair that you see eye to eye with. Otherwise, some nannies will just constantly ask for more pay, a car, more spending money, more food money, more credit cards, a computer, etc. Some basically go to the park, compare perks and then try to hold the family hostage.
Fortunately we don't have that petty of a nanny where this conversation takes place every 6 mos. Our neighbors do, and after she asked for 3 paid (flight included) vacations a year (on top of the above), they had enough and found a more reasonable nanny without an attitude.

Damn nannies.

they all look like Scarlett Johansson, right?

I can't take this fucking city anymore

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/some-relatively-recent-college-grads-discuss-their-maids

http://www.economist.com/node/21541717

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/world/americas/20brazil.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

brazilian nannies gettin' uppity

How does a nanny earn more than the average pediatrician?

Um... by being the highest-paid nanny he could find for this article? I'm sure the highest-paid plumber in New York makes more than the average lawyer, and the highest-paid bus driver more than the average dentist. The tallest Asian woman in New York is taller than the average man. What of it?

acuallly all of those people are the same person, and it's the highest paid nanny

that's why she's worth it tho

hope she has a tall bus!

lol

Nannies With Attitudes

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/nyregion/bloomberg-says-social-media-can-hurt-governing.html
http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/ristretto-we-are-the-5-percent/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/dining/must-have-gadgets-for-the-kitchen-think-again.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/garden/how-to-turn-abandoned-bicycles-into-hanging-lamps.html

Call it the Upcycle Bicycle lamp.

no. do not do this.

how is that bike lamp thing a "ruling class" agony

Michelle K
Houston, TX

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We pay our nanny a $1700.00/month salary for approximately 25 hours a week. We offer her 6 sick days a year and she gets paid vacations as she does not have to work when we go on holiday with our child (i.e., Spring Break, Easter Break, two weeks in the summer, Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays). When we have special needs, such as when my husband and I are out of town at the same time (rarely) and we need her to stay with our daughter, we always consult her schedule. Our child is in the third grade and trains in a sport five days a week so her time with her is limited (3-5 pm). She does clean our house but does not have to cook. Our child absolutely adores our nanny and we feel we are not paying for essentially a taxi/housecleaning service, we are paying for "peace of mind" and someone we respect and value as a person. It's a win-win situation for all.

Don't really see what's so outrageous about this one. I have a friend that did this. If both parents work someone's gotta pick up your kid when she gets out of kindergarten.

You mean like daycare?

like grandma?

i think it is less "these people have child care" and more "these people could buy a used car every month with the money they spend on child care"

also "these people take a minimum of five vacations a year"

how is that bike lamp thing a "ruling class" agony

cuz they're noguchi!

that blog is still the brightest spot in my day.

Don't really see what's so outrageous about this one. I have a friend that did this. If both parents work someone's gotta pick up your kid when she gets out of kindergarten.

― dmr, Thursday, 22 March 2012 20:50 (48 minutes ago) Permalink

Well, I was surprised at how much they paid for PART TIME daycare, but I also just thought there were subtly funny quiddity-esque lines in the comment, like "Our child is in the third grade and trains in a sport five days a week so her time with her is limited"

Damn those ruling class New Yorkers and their Christmas, Easter AND Thanksgiving holidays!

i mean i've worked through most holidays my whole life, and i've sorta chalked it up to being the lot of my shitty low-rung wage work. i feel like numerically there might be more people on my side of the fence than the other?

"Being off school for a week" != "entire family going on holiday/vacation."

"go on holiday with our child" sounds like a trip to me but i'm not particularly interested in arguing about this

Yeah, def using the Brit version of "holiday"

I mean, yeah, rich kids and poor kids alike get Christmas vacation and spring break during the school year, but they are only an opportunity for the whole family to travel for one of those groups.

I only ever went somewhere for spring break once, and that was when my sister and I went to visit my dad for a week in luxurious Ft. Belvoir, VA. Ah, the joy of cramming three people into an efficiency apartment in the Bachelor Officers Quarters!

To be fair, it's a middle class luxury for parents to be able to plan their vacation time to overlap with spring break and travel for a day or two at that time. Really, some parents just take time off during spring break so that they don't have to pay for all-day daycare or find a place to stash kids.

I say this as I look around at a partially-empty office due to all my family-having coworkers being gone

there is something curiously british about michelle k from houston - texans don't say "go on holiday" do they? or "trains in a sport"? i know there are a lot of houston transplants from the scottish oil industry in the north sea, maybe she's one of them

or she's doing the "sounding british" affectation to seem classier, which seems like an anachronism to me

Yeah, I think Madonna put the final nail in that one.

And thanks Phil D for telling me what the B in BOQ meant! My family stayed in the BOQ between giving up our apt and going back to the US when we left Germany, and I never knew what it stood for (always assumed "base").

nah, the perception of England as classy is pretty much over :)