S/O Schools: Your high school experience?

[catbus]

Where did you fit in at your school? Were you a "rich kid" and acted like it (parents bought you a new(ish) car, wore the "right" clothes, generous allowance? "Rich kid" without all the perks (maybe a car, but strings attached, average allowance and/or a part time job for responsibility)? Average? Poor? How do you feel that affected you in the long run?

[catbus]

I went to a low-mediocre public school (Federal Way High School) that had its share of "rich" kids with parents who bought them brand new cars for their sixteenth birthday (car of choice for the boys: white Acura Integra, girls: red or white Honda Civic or VW Jetta). There was plenty of "keeping up with the Joneses" there, unfortunately. My parents just didn't really let me keep up, LOL, even though technically they could have afforded to. Not that I had it rough by any means. They bought me a solid car when I was 17 (a '94 Ford Escort in 2000) but I was supposed to hold a part-time job (~10-15 hours a week) to keep the car. They gave me gas money. I had a cell phone from junior year on, which was fairly common (probably a little less than half the students had them at that point?). They paid my car insurance.

I think this was a good balance, but I actually wish they had been a little "harder" on me and enforced saving for the future. I always felt like money was to be spent. I had to learn on my own in my early 20s the importance of saving. H had those values instilled in him from early on, and still has better self control.

[jennlin]

hmm..i want to say i was "asian". i don't know if it was the same at the other schools...but all the asians, we fit together.... generally higher income, usually honors classes or at least top of the regular classes, no sports, we all had cellphones....and not just any cellphones. the ones with cool phone covers and flashy lights. this was before most people had cellphones. we were all part of FBLA (future business leaders of america) and/or DECA (no idea what this stands for). we all had cars that were given to us...some new, some used. i think most of us got new-to-the-family cars...as in bought-used, or hand me downs.... we all dressed like we were going to work...never went to school in sweats, hardly in jeans. i worked part time, but i think most of us did not.

i graduated in 2003, if this makes a difference.

[Deleted]

I went to Bainbridge and I was an average kid. There were tons of rich kids who got brand new cars and expensive clothes. The only reason that my grandparents stayed on the island was because the schools were better than other areas. Once we were both out of school they sold their house and moved to the house my grandma grew up in. They could barely afford to live here by the time they moved. The only reason that they could was because they had bought their house in 1975.

[catbus]

Apr 11, 2013 12:46:38 GMT -5 jennlin said:

hmm..i want to say i was "asian". i don't know if it was the same at the other schools...but all the asians, we fit together.... generally higher income, usually honors classes or at least top of the regular classes, no sports, we all had cellphones....and not just any cellphones. the ones with cool phone covers and flashy lights. this was before most people had cellphones. we were all part of FBLA (future business leaders of america) and/or DECA (no idea what this stands for). we all had cars that were given to us...some new, some used. i think most of us got new-to-the-family cars...as in bought-used, or hand me downs.... we all dressed like we were going to work...never went to school in sweats, hardly in jeans. i worked part time, but i think most of us did not.

i graduated in 2003, if this makes a difference.

Yep, we had this group at my school, and it was parallel/intersected with my group (honors classes, certain extracurriculars). I forget what DECA stands for, but I couldn't do it because it interfered with journalism class. 

[stretchad]

I think my situation most closely resembles Jennuinne's. My parents married and had me young, got divorced young and my dad raised me and my sister on his own for several years so things were tight. Went to public schools in Indianapolis, but did live in an upper-middle class part of town. In elementary school, clothes shopping was limited to garage sales and target. As I progressed in school dad's income did too, and life got a bit better. By high school I was solidly average, pushing upper average. The school itself was MASSIVE (4000 students, largest in the state) so no matter who you were you fit in somewhere. I had friends in all socioeconomic levels because I sorta got along with lots of different types of people and because of what I was involved in. I played in the HS symphony orchestra, was also on a championship winning tennis team (woohoo!), but also took accelerated classes. No cell phones, but again not many had them any way since they were not widespread (graduated in 99). I got to borrow a car most days to get around, under the condition I had a job, which I did. Eventually when I went to college the car became mine and when the door wouldn't open to the drivers side and it cost more to repair than it was worth, I traded it for $300 straight up. Ha!

In terms of how it has affected me, I think it's made me more driven to go beyond my undergrad & get an MBA so that I could get into a career that I could excel in so I could do well financially. I also think that because my parents struggled early on because they did things so young I took it slow from a family-starting perspective because I wanted to be in a very comfortable financial position before having a kid. I also wanted to have years under my belt with just me & DH. But, I also think that the frugal times I experienced throughout much of my childhood has DEFINITELY impacted me...I'm a saver by nature, I'm frugal and don't waste money, but I also know that life is no fun if you don't enjoy it so I'm also not opposed to spending some money here and there too.

[dana86]

I was average for my HS ( Tahoma Senior High School). We didn't really have a rich group, our school was more divided by activities. I had a wide range of friends but my main group was from FFA. We were more the likes to go out and play in the mud group. It never mattered who had money and who didn't which I think was something I did like about my school.

[niq]

My school was a private school in the city. It was found by some dirty hippies in the '70s as an alternative to the other private schools that do stuffy things like require uniforms, hold weekly episcopal services, call teachers Mr. & Mrs. this or that (yes my school was so hippy you called your teacher by their first name), etc. It cost less and spent more on scholarships. So there was a lot of class warfare of the 10-20% against the 5%, both with the kids and the parents. Even so there were some kids whose parents were rich and/or locally famous ... CEO of Rich's (basically the Southern version of Bon Marche), founder of CourtTV, president of the Atlanta Braves & Hawks, local TV & radio personalities, US Congressmen, I think the mayor sent his kids there, etc. Still, most kids were sort of run-of-the-mill upper middle class (yeah that's kind of an oxymoron): children of college professors, lawyers, doctors, dentists, that kind of thing. The kids who were poorer stood out a little more than the kids who were richer. And it was the kind of school where the rich kids mostly tried to act normal and the parents didn't want to spoil them too badly (at the other private schools there would be kids who got Escalades or Porsches on their 16th; even though there were very rich kids at my school, no one got anything like that).

Of my 8-10 best friends ... hmm. One of them was clearly way up there. One was on scholarship. One had parents clearly making sacrifices to send their kids to private school. One went to public schools K-6 and lived a little further from the city so probably closer to middle class. The rest of us were that run-of-the-mill upper middle class. We all had cars, mostly either hand-me-downs from parents, or something cheap and/or used like a Honda Civic. Overall we were probably average for the school.

My friends were pretty nerdy, but my school was pretty accepting of nerds. Not completely accepting but about as good as you could hope for. I'm really glad it was like that.

Anyway I dunno which parts of this affected me. Most of my class self-awareness comes out of following politics more than any personal life experience.

[larzhope]

I was a nerdy shy kid. My parents did buy me a new car, but there were definitely strings attached. they didn't trust used cars, so the rule was they provided me a car from 16-18, and I had to save up enough money to buy a new car when I turned 18. so, although I had a nice car (Pontiac sunfire) to drive, I also worked 40 hrs per week while I was in school, and was expected to maintain really good grades. I think it taught me a sense of responsibility, and definitely didn't put me in the "spoiled rich kid category" because saving my money and working was more important to me than having the coolest clothes, etc.