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dancerjodi) wrote2004-01-12 10:42 am
dancerjodi) wrote2004-01-12 10:42 am
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Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams
I was very, very touched by this book. I think that anyone interested in class issues, anyone from a working-class background or anyone that grew up in NYC would really enjoy this book by Alfred Lubrano.
Long rambling and book notes:
In a nutshell, the author describes how his working class upbringing (being the son of a bricklayer in Brooklyn) has impacted his education, career and life. He went on to interview 100 other "straddlers" who are living in the white collar world but came from families in which their parents did not have education, had physical labor jobs, and struggled financially. He describes all of the things that go along with this: ideals, prejudices, strong wills - he describes the good and the bad. As expected these individuals would go on in life (as anyone would) to find these things impacting their later educational and career experiences.
There are so many things in myself I've taken for granted. I never really saw them as "working class" qualities but just things that were in me. It was nice to see many, many things in me (that friends, my husband and others may not understand) echoed in the sentiments of people in this book. The role of family and community is emphasized. A strong work ethic, emphasis on making do with what you have and not wasting things is touched on, family prejudices are described - there is so much in this book that I thought "oh my God, that's me" or "oh my God, that's my family/neighborhood/whatever". I can't even summarize those things here because there are too many.
Both sets of my grandparents were blue-collar. My papa worked in a machine shop and got up at 5 AM to make teeny little metal parts (he owned his own business, so Gram was able to be a stay-at-home mom and take care of the kids and his books). My grampy was a custodian for the Waltham schools for years (dying of cancer which came from the Asbestos that he worked around for all that time). He had other jobs I'm sure (I don't know what they were). Nana worked at supermarkets and restaurants as a waitress. My mom went out to work at 13 to help support the family (dad went out to work before legal working age - he'd have to hide with all of the illegal immigrant workers at the factory when the labor guys would come around).
My parents made the first transition to white-collar life so I had much more than some of the people discussed in this book. My mom worked as a secretary (not a good or high paying job, but one more cushy than working on an assembly line). Dad decided he wanted to be an artist, so while working full time put himself through most of college (is like, 2 classes short of a BA) and went to art school. My papa was very upset by this - he didn't acknowledge my dad's studies (dad wasn't going to end up taking over the family machine shop after all). Dad had a kind of graduation ceremony for a certificate he earned; my grandfather didn't come because he was "at beano" at the Son's of Italy.
That led dad to a job in printing and graphic design, which was successful for a while. He wore suits to work every day and saw clients in a conference room. The 80's brought the PC though, and people didn't need to pay for all that printing work anymore. What was a company with 15 employees that made a lot of money dropped down to he and my mom in our basement not making enough to pay the bills anymore. Dad became the blue-collar guy once again and got licensed as a contractor. Finally, years and years and years later my dad has found financial success (again - he had a bit of it in the 80's in the graphics business before it bombed). He's showing paintings in galleries, being interviewed for newspapers and selling prints of his stuff. I wonder what my papa would think of it if he were alive today.
Yep, I grew up having ramen soup for supper, playing kickball in the street (home plate was a manhole cover, first base was a tree in front of the Shomphe's house). My mom dragged me out to get my working papers at the ripe old age of 14 (when I was legal) and filled out an app for me to bag groceries at Star Market immediately. Salary from Burger King paid for my first car (the 79' Monte Carlo, RIP) and paid the insurance. Any clothes that I bought in HS were from this money too. The only reason I was able to go to Simmons was due to my parent's crappy financial situation (though they had to kick in some cash freshman year and a bit sophomore year junior and senior year tuition - all $15K or so per year of it (no Room and Board, I was commuting) was financed through need-based scholarships or my own stafford loans. I worked around 30+ hours a week to pay bills and was very bitter about those that didn't need to do this kind of thing.
After graduation the salary at my first (Secretary) job was more than my parent's combined made in my last year of college (I knew this because one job of mine was in the financial aid department and I got to see everyone's tax returns - I'll tell you, hearing a friend complain about not getting a subsidized stafford loan when I knew that her parents made $140k a year and mine made a little over $20k makes one kind of bitter).
I don't get so bitter anymore. I'm thankful for the upbringing I had because I know I wouldn't have gotten where I have without it. I'm thankful that my parents saw value in education, and wanted their children to pursue what was right for them (rather than the family trade, a traditional mommy-hood alone, or just whatever paid the most money). My parents drink Coors light, wine from a box, watch Judge Judy, wear flannel shirts with paint stains on them, and don't really know what brie is. I'm still very, very proud of them and I wouldn't have it any other way.
I'd like to share the conclusion of the book with you - I think he does a good job summing up his ideas (its on pages 225-227).
"for Straddlers, life's ultimate goal is reconciliation: finding peace with the past and present, blue collar and white, old family ways and the new middle-class life. That is a challenge. Different values and different views often seem to get in the way. Now-vegetarian Loretta Stec will never be able to talk about the fine points of cooking meat with her family. Manhattan resident Rebecca Beckinham will probably only exchange polite, perfunctory chat with her folks on the farm. Doug Russell has gone far in his company, but he knows that his blue-collar background will forever hold him back. "I want to fit in and grow with the organization," he says. "But I feel people will always talk about me in a different way: 'Will he be running the company in five years? oh, no, he's a little rough, he's a little loud.' And I think, 'Why wouldn't you want to have people like me'? "
The phrase "people like me" is telling. Limbo folk remain aware of their otherness through their lives. Often out of step with their parents, their coworkers, and even their born-to-the-middle-class children, Straddlers can feel like perpetual outsiders.
Still, as tough as limbo can be, it does not have to be debilitating. The more successful Straddlers - and by this I mean people who are comfortable with their lives - embrace their middle-class reality while honoring their blue-collar roots. Though they live in limbo, they choose to concentrate on the upside and what makes them unique.
Another straddler, Jeffrey Orridge, always knew that he was just as good as those prep-school kids he ran with years ago in New York City. His working-class family imbued him with a strong sense of self. Living a profitable corporate life that includes international travel and major responsibility, he exudes confidence without being pretentious. People feel comfortable around Jeffrey because he's bright, accomplished - and grounded.
Joe Terry had his doubts about his worthiness and his suitability in white-collar America. A carpenter's boy and an avid fisherman, he believed his right hand would always to be too rough to shake in the boardroom. Nowadays, he celebrates the successful blending of his past with his day-to-day life. He looks at his working-class background as the strong foundation upon which his life is built. Possessing both calloused hands and corporate smarts, Joe has become a balanced person - more accomplished than his parents, more complex than his colleagues.
Some straddlers will tell you that they are successful *because* of their working-class roots. "I sometimes think that I'll never be what I could have been if I were born middle class," Doug Russell says. "on the other hand, I might not have gotten anywhere if I'd come from the middle class. I had such drive and ambition to get somewhere because of where I came from. I pushed and got somewhere." Straddlers can take pride in a resilience born of relative deprivation. As battle-tested as marines, Straddlers have no doubt they possess the stuff to get themselves through the hard times. that's because they've always had the hard times. Limbo folks carry within themselves a "strength-from-struggle" ideal that can keep them afloat and move them forward. "I was never afraid of my employers," working-class studies scholar Charles Sackrey says. "I was always willing to say, 'Take this job and shove it' because I knew I could survive no matter what. And most of my white-collar colleagues seemed not to know that at all." I too have always planned for the potential "crash." I've survived as a temp and a secretary at different times in my life. My years in newsrooms have honed my typing skills. If I had to, I could get by on my own.
I think that Straddlers enjoy the advantage of knowing they are self-created. "My identification is rooted in the family," says Peter Ciotta. "But I made my own identity." I take satisfaction in that notion myself. I don't work in my father's law firm: I'm not a third-generation surgeon. I am the bricklayer’s son who made himself into something new.
Straddlers come to the table without the same assumptions or the same take on life that middle-class people have. There's an independence of thought that makes for interesting perspectives. It’s a kind of diversity that human-resources types don’t normally strive to achieve. A mixed-class workplace is more energized and dynamic than a same-class shop; the dialogue is much richer.
Ultimately, Sackrey says, white-collar people from the working class can consider themselves lucky because they have escaped the drudgery of "real work" in which their parents engaged. That's an advantage we have over people from elite families. We will always believe that we got to some place better because we became educated. We will always know that we avoided the construction site and the coalmine, the bus route and the assembly line. We will always understand that whatever we do for a living is safer, cleaner, usually more profitable, and often more engaging than the truly hard jobs at which are parents were compelled to toil. We won't take ourselves for granted and we won't stop working hard to avid the alternative lives we could have lived.
My father was a bricklayer. I am a newspaperman. He got his wish - that I graduate from college and not live the life of the outside man, excluded from life's better buildings.
I got my dream - that I leave the neighborhood and get a chance to write about the world.
We Straddlers know there are costs and consequences for all the wishes and dreams. They are inevitable. Limbo folk can consider themselves fortunate if they can be upwardly mobile but still rooted in the blue-collar world. Peaceful reconciliation comes to us when we can finally meld the two people we are."
Long rambling and book notes:
In a nutshell, the author describes how his working class upbringing (being the son of a bricklayer in Brooklyn) has impacted his education, career and life. He went on to interview 100 other "straddlers" who are living in the white collar world but came from families in which their parents did not have education, had physical labor jobs, and struggled financially. He describes all of the things that go along with this: ideals, prejudices, strong wills - he describes the good and the bad. As expected these individuals would go on in life (as anyone would) to find these things impacting their later educational and career experiences.
There are so many things in myself I've taken for granted. I never really saw them as "working class" qualities but just things that were in me. It was nice to see many, many things in me (that friends, my husband and others may not understand) echoed in the sentiments of people in this book. The role of family and community is emphasized. A strong work ethic, emphasis on making do with what you have and not wasting things is touched on, family prejudices are described - there is so much in this book that I thought "oh my God, that's me" or "oh my God, that's my family/neighborhood/whatever". I can't even summarize those things here because there are too many.
Both sets of my grandparents were blue-collar. My papa worked in a machine shop and got up at 5 AM to make teeny little metal parts (he owned his own business, so Gram was able to be a stay-at-home mom and take care of the kids and his books). My grampy was a custodian for the Waltham schools for years (dying of cancer which came from the Asbestos that he worked around for all that time). He had other jobs I'm sure (I don't know what they were). Nana worked at supermarkets and restaurants as a waitress. My mom went out to work at 13 to help support the family (dad went out to work before legal working age - he'd have to hide with all of the illegal immigrant workers at the factory when the labor guys would come around).
My parents made the first transition to white-collar life so I had much more than some of the people discussed in this book. My mom worked as a secretary (not a good or high paying job, but one more cushy than working on an assembly line). Dad decided he wanted to be an artist, so while working full time put himself through most of college (is like, 2 classes short of a BA) and went to art school. My papa was very upset by this - he didn't acknowledge my dad's studies (dad wasn't going to end up taking over the family machine shop after all). Dad had a kind of graduation ceremony for a certificate he earned; my grandfather didn't come because he was "at beano" at the Son's of Italy.
That led dad to a job in printing and graphic design, which was successful for a while. He wore suits to work every day and saw clients in a conference room. The 80's brought the PC though, and people didn't need to pay for all that printing work anymore. What was a company with 15 employees that made a lot of money dropped down to he and my mom in our basement not making enough to pay the bills anymore. Dad became the blue-collar guy once again and got licensed as a contractor. Finally, years and years and years later my dad has found financial success (again - he had a bit of it in the 80's in the graphics business before it bombed). He's showing paintings in galleries, being interviewed for newspapers and selling prints of his stuff. I wonder what my papa would think of it if he were alive today.
Yep, I grew up having ramen soup for supper, playing kickball in the street (home plate was a manhole cover, first base was a tree in front of the Shomphe's house). My mom dragged me out to get my working papers at the ripe old age of 14 (when I was legal) and filled out an app for me to bag groceries at Star Market immediately. Salary from Burger King paid for my first car (the 79' Monte Carlo, RIP) and paid the insurance. Any clothes that I bought in HS were from this money too. The only reason I was able to go to Simmons was due to my parent's crappy financial situation (though they had to kick in some cash freshman year and a bit sophomore year junior and senior year tuition - all $15K or so per year of it (no Room and Board, I was commuting) was financed through need-based scholarships or my own stafford loans. I worked around 30+ hours a week to pay bills and was very bitter about those that didn't need to do this kind of thing.
After graduation the salary at my first (Secretary) job was more than my parent's combined made in my last year of college (I knew this because one job of mine was in the financial aid department and I got to see everyone's tax returns - I'll tell you, hearing a friend complain about not getting a subsidized stafford loan when I knew that her parents made $140k a year and mine made a little over $20k makes one kind of bitter).
I don't get so bitter anymore. I'm thankful for the upbringing I had because I know I wouldn't have gotten where I have without it. I'm thankful that my parents saw value in education, and wanted their children to pursue what was right for them (rather than the family trade, a traditional mommy-hood alone, or just whatever paid the most money). My parents drink Coors light, wine from a box, watch Judge Judy, wear flannel shirts with paint stains on them, and don't really know what brie is. I'm still very, very proud of them and I wouldn't have it any other way.
I'd like to share the conclusion of the book with you - I think he does a good job summing up his ideas (its on pages 225-227).
"for Straddlers, life's ultimate goal is reconciliation: finding peace with the past and present, blue collar and white, old family ways and the new middle-class life. That is a challenge. Different values and different views often seem to get in the way. Now-vegetarian Loretta Stec will never be able to talk about the fine points of cooking meat with her family. Manhattan resident Rebecca Beckinham will probably only exchange polite, perfunctory chat with her folks on the farm. Doug Russell has gone far in his company, but he knows that his blue-collar background will forever hold him back. "I want to fit in and grow with the organization," he says. "But I feel people will always talk about me in a different way: 'Will he be running the company in five years? oh, no, he's a little rough, he's a little loud.' And I think, 'Why wouldn't you want to have people like me'? "
The phrase "people like me" is telling. Limbo folk remain aware of their otherness through their lives. Often out of step with their parents, their coworkers, and even their born-to-the-middle-class children, Straddlers can feel like perpetual outsiders.
Still, as tough as limbo can be, it does not have to be debilitating. The more successful Straddlers - and by this I mean people who are comfortable with their lives - embrace their middle-class reality while honoring their blue-collar roots. Though they live in limbo, they choose to concentrate on the upside and what makes them unique.
Another straddler, Jeffrey Orridge, always knew that he was just as good as those prep-school kids he ran with years ago in New York City. His working-class family imbued him with a strong sense of self. Living a profitable corporate life that includes international travel and major responsibility, he exudes confidence without being pretentious. People feel comfortable around Jeffrey because he's bright, accomplished - and grounded.
Joe Terry had his doubts about his worthiness and his suitability in white-collar America. A carpenter's boy and an avid fisherman, he believed his right hand would always to be too rough to shake in the boardroom. Nowadays, he celebrates the successful blending of his past with his day-to-day life. He looks at his working-class background as the strong foundation upon which his life is built. Possessing both calloused hands and corporate smarts, Joe has become a balanced person - more accomplished than his parents, more complex than his colleagues.
Some straddlers will tell you that they are successful *because* of their working-class roots. "I sometimes think that I'll never be what I could have been if I were born middle class," Doug Russell says. "on the other hand, I might not have gotten anywhere if I'd come from the middle class. I had such drive and ambition to get somewhere because of where I came from. I pushed and got somewhere." Straddlers can take pride in a resilience born of relative deprivation. As battle-tested as marines, Straddlers have no doubt they possess the stuff to get themselves through the hard times. that's because they've always had the hard times. Limbo folks carry within themselves a "strength-from-struggle" ideal that can keep them afloat and move them forward. "I was never afraid of my employers," working-class studies scholar Charles Sackrey says. "I was always willing to say, 'Take this job and shove it' because I knew I could survive no matter what. And most of my white-collar colleagues seemed not to know that at all." I too have always planned for the potential "crash." I've survived as a temp and a secretary at different times in my life. My years in newsrooms have honed my typing skills. If I had to, I could get by on my own.
I think that Straddlers enjoy the advantage of knowing they are self-created. "My identification is rooted in the family," says Peter Ciotta. "But I made my own identity." I take satisfaction in that notion myself. I don't work in my father's law firm: I'm not a third-generation surgeon. I am the bricklayer’s son who made himself into something new.
Straddlers come to the table without the same assumptions or the same take on life that middle-class people have. There's an independence of thought that makes for interesting perspectives. It’s a kind of diversity that human-resources types don’t normally strive to achieve. A mixed-class workplace is more energized and dynamic than a same-class shop; the dialogue is much richer.
Ultimately, Sackrey says, white-collar people from the working class can consider themselves lucky because they have escaped the drudgery of "real work" in which their parents engaged. That's an advantage we have over people from elite families. We will always believe that we got to some place better because we became educated. We will always know that we avoided the construction site and the coalmine, the bus route and the assembly line. We will always understand that whatever we do for a living is safer, cleaner, usually more profitable, and often more engaging than the truly hard jobs at which are parents were compelled to toil. We won't take ourselves for granted and we won't stop working hard to avid the alternative lives we could have lived.
My father was a bricklayer. I am a newspaperman. He got his wish - that I graduate from college and not live the life of the outside man, excluded from life's better buildings.
I got my dream - that I leave the neighborhood and get a chance to write about the world.
We Straddlers know there are costs and consequences for all the wishes and dreams. They are inevitable. Limbo folk can consider themselves fortunate if they can be upwardly mobile but still rooted in the blue-collar world. Peaceful reconciliation comes to us when we can finally meld the two people we are."
no subject
I know the definition of working poor, but I wouldn't necessarily equate that with working class. The middle class works and struggles with paying college tuition bills too. Is the dividing line between the middle class and the working class a matter of salary or education? A blue-collar worker can make more money than a white collar worker, so blue-collar workers can be middle-class if middle-class is about making a certain amount of money. I am not sure if it's an educational boundary either - don't blue-collar jobs often require as much skill and education as white collar jobs if in different arenas?
Financially, some of the struggles you describe happen in a middle-class world as well. And some of the things you describe as middle-class, I would say are way upper-middle-class. Fewer than 5% of the population makes over 100K/year. So class is not financial alone, or at all. There is definitely a social element that defines class, and what is that element?
Just curious how the terms are defined in an anthropological sense.
Definitions
In this book, he defined "blue collar" as not having post-secondary education and working at either a skilled manual labor job, or an unskilled labor job. Anyone that had a college degree, no matter what their salary was middle class.
The concept he uses is called "cultural capital" - there are things beyond money that one can use to get ahead in the corporate world. He mentions far too many here to get into but I'll mention a few. The concept of networking is one blue collar people don't do (yet, it seems to make the white-collar world go around). The concept of thinking or planning is another - blue collar people just "get the job done" and don't ponder it much. Things as small as the right clothing, knowing the right music, etc are also mentioned. He notes that believing you can do anything if you just set your mind to it is a middle-class ideal (blue-collar people are focused on just surviving).
"educational boundary either - don't blue-collar jobs often require as much skill and education as white collar jobs if in different arenas?"
It really just depends on the job. Being a guy that lugs boxes around a warehouse doesn't require much education. Being a plumber requires more. The plumber may make more money than a writer - but they don't have the same level of 'cultural capital' that the writer does. They may know more about how a sink operates, but that's not going to help them much in the white-collar world. :)
"There is definitely a social element that defines class, and what is that element?"
He really doesn't focus on the money aspect as much as the cultural and educational one in this book. Parents may work their butts off to send their kids to college (I don't think many people can easily drop $30k a year and not flinch at it). College is a given for many kids in the middle class though - its just something you do and its something that most parents expect themselves to pay for (even if it kills them). Typically in blue-collar families college is a really big deal - its just not an option, or if it is at all, its something that kids do pay for.
There were things that I took issue with in this book for sure, but I think it was a really good read. I think given your interest in cultures you would find it interesting :).
Re: Definitions
The 'Cultural Capital' thing finally codifies an unspoken message about how certain jobs - despite salary - are better than other jobs. For example, it's better to be a struggling writer at an arts magazine than a prosperous electrician. (better to some - you know what I mean). Growing up, I was subtly taught this message. This comes up in the Bobos book (which you might enjoy as a contrast), where the financially-struggling professional intellectuals are welcome in the circle of wealthy industry heads, much as a wandering musician might be welcome in the courts of the past. They are in the same class even though they can't afford the same lifestyle.
College was expected in my family (but we ALL had to pitch in - my dad told me if he had to pay for himself, so did I). However, my family emphasized that college must be used as the vehicle to financial success - go to college so that you can support yourself. I think there is a whole 'nother class of families who think education for its own sake is important. They encourage their kids to go ahead and do that graduate school thing in comp lit if they want to. Not us. Hence my degree in Comp Sci.
But my dad and my mom had to fight to go to college - my mom because she's female and was supposed to get married, and my dad because he comes from a family of farmers. I would like to read this book because I think my dad comes from this straddler group. He was an executive - a VP of sales at a large company - but he's a very simple man with simple tastes. Still a midwestern farmboy in a way. He ended up losing his job because he didn't know how to play the game and didn't want to backstab people. He just wanted to do his job and do it right. I might even give him the book, as he is at a crossroads in his career since he lost his job.
My dad's message is "work hard at what you love and you will succeed". My mom has that middle-class message you mentioned "You can be whatever you want to be if you set your mind to it." Good combination, although I don't believe in either of them - I don't think I can be whatever I want and I don't think that hard work always gets rewarded.
Re: Definitions
It wasn't expected, but encouraged in mine. I felt so awful for some of the people in this book that had to run away from home to put themselves through college (their families thought that their desire to go to college was them in effect saying "you guys all suck, I'm above this"). Their parents saw them as getting hoity-toity at them, because they just didn't understand how working in the neighborhood or being a mom wasn't good enough.
I am SO GLAD my parents weren't like this :)
"However, my family emphasized that college must be used as the vehicle to financial success - go to college so that you can support yourself."
Mine did too. My parents accept that I'm in grad school because I "need that piece of paper" but I could never discuss the finer points of sociology with them. School is just something you do to make more money in Mom's eyes. Dad - he goes back and forth :)
"I would like to read this book because I think my dad comes from this straddler group. He was an executive - a VP of sales at a large company - but he's a very simple man with simple tastes. Still a midwestern farmboy in a way. He ended up losing his job because he didn't know how to play the game and didn't want to backstab people. He just wanted to do his job and do it right. I might even give him the book, as he is at a crossroads in his career since he lost his job."
It sounds like he'd probably identify with the book quite a bit. I want to pass this on to my dad too (my Mom, I think its something that's really beyond her - though she works in the corporate world she's still very much got a blue-collar view of the world it seems).
"My dad's message is "work hard at what you love and you will succeed". My mom has that middle-class message you mentioned "You can be whatever you want to be if you set your mind to it." Good combination, although I don't believe in either of them - I don't think I can be whatever I want and I don't think that hard work always gets rewarded."
Yes, I think realistically what happens is a mix of both - hard work and knowing how to play the game, and luck gets one things.
no subject
Well, facetiousness aside, I think that it is a matter of salary and education. Rather, the formality of the education, which some people unfortunately equate with quality. Many white collar workers are poorer than blue-collar ones.
no subject
Yep
Yes, the author touches on this quite a bit in the book. He attributes it to ignorance, and also people (in his own neighborhood) finding it unfair that while they were struggling things like affirmative action were happening.
My grandparents were all very racist - they took (and the grandmothers that are still alive, take) the "MY ancestors came over here, learned english and worked, why can't they" argument. I don't think they realize how much easier I think it was for immigrants to fit in then - most people were immigrants, and they had a lot of family and community support.
My parents are a bit better though they still have their prejudices. They didn't seen other ethnic groups as bad on the surface, but those that didn't speak english or those that collected welfare still pissed them off. My dad had cousins on welfare (i.e. white Italian-Americans) that he had equally bad feelings about. I think they came a long way from their parents, but as much as I hate to say this, I don't think they'd be psyched if I came home married to a black man. I dated a Haitian guy briefly that I worked with and they didn't really like him or his family (heh, they said that HE was ignorant, just because they couldn't understand his thick creole accent).
The author says that a lot of white middle class people are racist too - they just aren't as blatant about it. I guess I'd rather have someone be honest with me rather than behind closed doors keep that job from me due to my "handicap".
"Well, facetiousness aside, I think that it is a matter of salary and education. Rather, the formality of the education, which some people unfortunately equate with quality. Many white collar workers are poorer than blue-collar ones."
Yep. A good tradesperson with good business sense and the ability to communicate with their more upper-class customers can go very far financially. That doesn't mean you can converse with them about Bach or high tea :)
no subject
your question prompts me to ask myself how i define it. i define it socially, not economically, and from dancer's write-up, and from what bunicula has been telling me in person, this is the real problem with the working class to middle class transition.
i have noticed that most people raised in middle class households really have no clue about what constitutes minimum survival. even i don't, but i seem to have more a clue than most, since i left college to live without my parents' support and work for a living. i went back to school, but i found that my views on life had permenantly diverged from my coddled, middle and upper-middle class schoolmates. they just had no clue what it's like to really struggle for a living, and no appreciation for everything their parents gave them, and in adulthood, most of them still don't. it makes me sad, and sometimes mad.
(i especially get mad at the ones that think they appreciate it. they're often the ones who feel trapped and stressed because of their busy social lives, interestingly -- they create a web of self-assumed "obligations" and thus create a stressful environment... almost as though they need the feeling of struggle to validate their otherwise luxurious existence.)
Fewer than 5% of the population makes over 100K/year
which reminds me, i have reluctantly concluded that you cannot buy a home -- even an apartment-sized condo -- in or near boston unless your aggregate family income is at least $150,000. no wonder the working poor rent -- they just can't get the capital to buy a house, even though in the long term it would cost less. it's sad because in thirty years, they'll be paying more rent, while those who can buy a house today will have no expenses other than taxes and utilities in thirty years.
home buying
aggregate family income is at least $150,000."
Well we did, and we earn less than that (though, not that much less than that). We could have even found a place cheaper but we had certain things we wanted in a home (gave up being closer to have a yard, 2 floors, etc).
I think the problem is, people of middle or higher income brackets can afford the mortgage payments - what they need help with is the downpayment. There are lots of downpayment assistance programs out there but to qualify one needs to meet income guidelines which are pretty low. The people that can meet those guidelines don't make enough money to make mortgage payments, repeat.
In Boston I think its possible to own a home - typically the working yuppie couple needs to have lower standards than what they were used to growing up.
The working class gal in me won't give up, though. I'm going to work and work and work and work until I get that house in Waltham :) I'm also accepting that we may need to give up some things we like (stained glass, a fireplace, fancy new kitchen) to get it. I've found that the location means much more to me than the "stuff".
Re: home buying
you did in summer 2002. have you checked housing prices lately? the house across from you is going for $300,000. in somerville, crappy apartment-to-condo conversions in the nasty areas near sullivan square are going for $290,000. for four-room apartments. i can't afford that. i might be able to afford that if i made $120,000, and i could if i were half of a yuppie couple, but i don't and i'm not. (my partner's a minister in training. ie broke. :-)
the housing market within 128 is priced completely out of the reach of the working class. and as i demonstrate, even out of much of the middle class. i can't make mortgage payments on a $250,000 home, and i am phenomonally well-paid by most standards. i can't imagine trying to raise a family in boston with an aggregate income of what i have. it's the same thing that forced you out of waltham. :-/
this is why if i buy a home -- and that's a big if -- it will be be way outside the city, probably far outside the 495 belt. possibly in new hampshire.
I've found that the location means much more to me than the "stuff".
it's good to know this :-)
Re: home buying
or not going, as the case may be... i doubt they'll get even close to that. it's been on the market for a couple months now.
i hope they do, since that would bump our value. but i doubt it will happen.
Re: home buying
Re: holy crap, I can totally relate there
I do too sometimes (though its gotten better over time) - I think it was a way to make me feel better in those bitter times I mentioned. He does touch on this in the book too - its comforting to know I'm not the only one that feels this way (I feel like such an asswhole sometimes).
"I think I'll check this book out. Seems very interesting."
Given what you said about your upbringing, I think you'd like it. I laughed out loud at a lot of parts, and shared a lot of it with Brian since I just had to talk to someone about it and he happened to be there at the time.
Interesting...
While all my grandparents were definately working class: career enlisted military, electrician then rendering plant manager, nurse, housewife, both my parents are college educated: teacher and Naval officer then chemical engineer.
And yet, my dad especially is much more a blue collar man than he ever was a white collar guy. It wasn't education or job, but attitudes, both good and bad. In the long run his career in the oil business died not because of lack of competence but lack of office political skill...he maintained too long that blue collar attitude that "I'm the best engineer thus I should be getting ahead" never realizing that raw competence was only one part of white collar success...something that showed in his fustration that technical jobs only went so far before you had to go into management.
I think his failure to straddle is one reason when I choose to live the white collar world for the wonderful world of pizza he was so supportive.
Re: Interesting...
Brian is at this place now. He's technically a manager (because its a small company, his manager was let go - and he being the senior person was promoted). He's totally not "management material" though, and doesn't want to. Its really a tough question, what does the techy do when they've come as far as they can?
He also wishes sometimes he could go back to building things with my Dad - sitting in an office cubicle and staring at a monitor doesn't always bring the same satisfactions of a job well done as much as building something tangible and looking at it when you're done does.
"I think his failure to straddle is one reason when I choose to live the white collar world for the wonderful world of pizza he was so supportive"
That's really great! I know some parents wouldn't be so supportive of it. My parents always wanted me to do well and in concept encouraged us to follow "our dreams", whatever they were. There have been a couple of times that they have looked at me kind of confusedly when I had the opportunity to make more money but didn't take it (in last year's job searches, for instance). They have no clue what I do so a good job versus a bad one (for me) is hard to explain to them. I think I'm getting better at it, though.
I know myself, I'm just not management material so I won't aspire to be that - I'm content to do what I do well and let other people worry about the schmoozing and the politics. Luckilly, my dad is a pretty social guy and seems good at talking (despite his distaste of schmoozing). I think its helped me be a translator of sorts between the workers and management, which has helped me go far.