Normally something I try to avoid talking about on LJ...

[derien]

People seem really annoyed that this meme doesn't take this or that thing into account, but

1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers. (same I think, but not really sure. Same or lower.)
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home (possibly)
9. Were read children's books by a parent
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18.
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
16. Went to a private high school
17. Went to summer camp
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels (we only ever had one family vacation, the Disney trip listed below.)
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them (My father never had a car that wasn't given to him by HIS father until I was in high school!)
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child
23. You and your family lived in a single family house
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
25. You had your own room as a child.
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18
27. Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
28. Had your own TV in your room in High School
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16 (I think the year I turned 16 we went to Disney.)
31. Went on a cruise with your family
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family. (This one killed me. Not for itself, but because someone ranted that as a 10 year old of course they wouldn't have gone over the bills with their parents. I had to respond: But if you know that there is an oil furnace but your father cuts wood for a woodstove, and you start the stove only when it gets really cold, and you all sleep in the kitchen together when it's really REALLY cold, it's evident, even if you don't go over bills.)


ETA: I'd like to add that I KNOW I had it a lot better than plenty of the people I was growing up near to.

ETA Jan 19: This meme is from "What Privileges Do You Have?", based on an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate in this blog game, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.

Comments

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

I think the thing for a lot of us to remember is that this meme just simply doesn't apply to non-Americans - nor to Americans (no matter what their class or wealth) of a certain age. My father left school at the age of eleven - which was what practically all people did. My mother got a scholarship and stayed in school till fourteen - which made her more educated than a lot of people of the middle or upper classes. By the time I was in school, free schooling went all the way to eighteen, rather than eleven and the vast majority of people stayed in school past the minimum leaving age of fifteen, all the way to eighteen or beyond - because there was a terrible economic recession and the state would provide for children in full time education up to the age of twenty-one, which was more secure than trying to find a job. On the plus side, all children up to eighteen (or twenty-one if in full time education) got totally free health care, as did people on invalid pensions (ie, disability) and their dependents, and the elderly (benefits for the elderly came in dribs and drabs, and it was pretty much accepted that being old meant being impoverished. Free travel and health care for OAPs was brought in by a government minister whose own mother lived in poverty). I got to go to college because my dad had been an invalid for years and we were therefore poor enough to qualify for full grants - the rich and the poor went to college, and people with enough money to get by took out expensive loans for their children.

None of which neatly fits onto that meme! Ireland was an odd country in those antediluvian days . . .