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

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/fashion/in-the-hamptons-mind-your-manners-or-else.html

I like how that article makes it seem like the "Hamptons" are a real place

it's not? i've seen it on tv i think

they're actually in long island

long island is a terminal moraine. It's the earth deposited by a receding glacier.

I don't know if this is really the right thread, but I just had a revelation -- the whole reason rich private schools are often referred to as "day schools" (e.g. Georgetown Day in DC) is that rich people commonly send or sent their kids to boarding schools, so the "day" modifier signifies "not a boarding school" while simultaneously assuring you "still for the upper crust."

esp like it when they're in the country

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_Day_School_movement

Yeah. I find it kind of fascinating how subtly that one word operates, simultaneously saying "Not X" and "The fact that we even need to specify not X means it's not for the proles." Schools for the middle class aren't called day schools because there's no other kind.

I don't know if this is really the right thread, but I just had a revelation -- the whole reason rich private schools are often referred to as "day schools" (e.g. Georgetown Day in DC) is that rich people commonly send or sent their kids to boarding schools, so the "day" modifier signifies "not a boarding school" while simultaneously assuring you "still for the upper crust."

yea there's like a million country day schools in wealthy areas of massachusetts, i totally had that revelation recently

I like to think of juvie as boarding school for the rest of us

i'm like, why the fuck are they calling all these ritzy private schools "day schools"? oh, right

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/magazine/the-opt-out-generation-wants-back-in.html?ref=magazine&target=comments&pagewanted=all

She worked her way through Ohio State and, eager to pay off her college loans, got a job selling copiers. She eventually landed in a competitive training program at Oracle, the technology company, where she rose quickly through the ranks, ending up in the top 5 percent of the sales force. She also met the man who would become her husband, Mark Eisel — an up-and-comer in management. They worked hard and became well off. At her peak, O’Donnel was earning $500,000 a year.

But after her first two children were born, O’Donnel’s travel for work became more difficult. She gave up a quarter of her earnings in exchange for working three days a week, but felt marginalized, her best accounts given to others, meetings often scheduled on her days out of the office. “I felt like a second-class citizen,” she said.

Even with the reduced schedule, the stresses of life in a two-career household put an overwhelming strain on her marriage. There were ugly fights with her husband about laundry and over who would step in when the nanny was out sick.

Sheilah O’Donnel tells herself that her new home, a townhouse in a development in Chevy Chase, Md., just a stone’s throw from a Safeway, isn’t really all that bad. Sure, it’s near a gas station. And the front window, with its cheerily upholstered cushions, overlooks a dreary parking lot. And yes, it’s kind of small — “an apartment,” O’Donnel, who is 44, sometimes says bitterly, when she’s reminded of her former life with her ex-husband in their custom-built, six-bedroom home. But then again, it’s perfectly maintained and impeccably furnished, and most important, it’s rented with her own money, from the first real job she has had in almost a decade.

It’s a midlevel sales job, a big step down from the senior position she held before she had children and quit work. When she was first hired, in May 2011, her salary was just a fifth of what she earned at her peak.

(i.e. 1/5 of $500,000)

I liked this summation of that article:

@jesshopp: the NYT story about women opting out of the workforce is more of a trend piece about asshole husbands. http://t.co/mdke1ZjIIP

We are talking about a woman who felt "like a second-class citizen" making $375,000 for 3 days work.

tbf "asshole husbands" is more of a historical reality than a trend

Serious Q, do you include this guy in "asshole husband"?

And Ted had kind of had it. Here he was, he said while coming and going from the kitchen where he was making French toast for the Mattox’s youngest child, earning the household income, helping drive the kids around, pitching in on laundry, housekeeping and cooking, while Kuae, in his eyes, was blithely giving her time away — free — to a volunteer organization. He’s a numbers guy, he said. From his perspective, the numbers pertaining to what he called her at-home “journey of self-discovery” just didn’t add up to be a very good deal for him or any husband whose nonearning wife still expects to split household drudgery 50-50.

Ted’s expectations were formed by his own mother, a stay-at-home mom in an age in which the identity had no such title, whose “whole goal her entire life,” he said, “was to make sure her boys had a clean house, clean clothes and were well fed.” Given this, it seemed natural to him that Kuae, as a self-proclaimed stay-at-home mother, might want to try putting some more time into their home. Into things like “the shuttling of kids, the picking up the house, the laundry, the shopping.” Even, he ventured further, “balancing checkbooks, cleaning, setting up the home Wi-Fi, fixing an appliance or whatever.” A hoot of laughter from Kuae greeted the end of this task list.

He continued: “Being the kind of person I am, Type A, wound, always going after something, I wonder what I could have done, having 12 years to sort of think about what I want to do. I sometimes think, Wow, I could have been an astronaut in 12 years, or I could have been something different that I’d really enjoy and that I never was afforded the financial opportunity or the time or the resources to enjoy. Maybe call it jealousy. Maybe envy. What could I have been in 12 years of self-discovery? I’ll go out on a limb and say: ‘I’d like to try it. It looks pretty good to me.’ ”

tbf everyone in the article sounds basically horrible, dunno if the husbands qualify as particularly assholish

Ted sounds like an asshole to me, yes. If not only for airing his fam's laundry to the nyt.

well isn't that what everyone interviewed for the article is doing?

Yeah and they all seem like assholes!

There's definitely something a little douchey about the way he speaks about his own wife to a newspaper, at least the tone he takes

And the "Where's my 12-year sabbatical to find myself" whine.

Not a fan of the whole "my marriage was an investment and I expect x return" spiel

husband basically convinced her to quit job, then when she didn't like just being a stay-at-home mom he got mad. he's obv the bad guy here.

I'm with LL on this one. Does anyone (male, female, martian monogender) really expect to roll back into the same level of job after ten years out of the game? That's not sexism, that's you being dumb.

And tbh if I were working full time and spouse was not, damn right I expect him to do more shit around the house than I!

And then he bitched about it to the newspaper!! Total asshole.

man, where do they dig these folks up?

upper west side mostly.

This may be the most quid/ag of recent memory. Oscar-level Wealthy Whining here.

divorce is shitty and makes otherwise dece ppl go straight transactional- or worse. hard to rate assholedom on that factor. sharing it with the world? nagl imo, but it's the current style afaict. like txt acronyms.

I dunno, I'd argue that it's easy to rate assholism that way bc ppl who aren't assholes know that it's nagl to shit on ppl in the newspaper no matter how much they may want to. Ted is an asshole.

I sometimes think, Wow, I could have been an astronaut in 12 years

Dream on, twatcakes.

People who are bitter over strawman I COULDA BEEN A CONTENDER bs are the worst. Beat yourSELF up over missed opportunities sure but dont drag others down with you.

I think I am with quincie though. The guy sounds douchey but I don't actually disagree with his point. It's not unreasonable to ask the no working spouse to do a little more around the house. And if the genders were reversed the guy would be referred to as a loser, bum, man child, etc. I mean I know a couple that is kind of the gender reversed version of this - she's a high powered career woman and he does this sort of part time nonprofit work while not really pulling his weight around the house, and that's what we call him.

No I agree there. if you're going to be a stay at home parent, thats the idea - so you can keep the house and kids. I'd happily do so if it was me.

I think I am with quincie though. The guy sounds douchey but I don't actually disagree with his point. It's not unreasonable to ask the no working spouse to do a little more around the house.

You don't actually disagree with one of his points (same here, she should pick up the slack at home). It's the other stuff he says that pushes him into mega-douchedom.

Yeah thats what I took issue with. The whole "but what about MY insane never gonna happen aspirations I wouldnt have done even if I'd had all the time in the world"

I mean thats just mid life crisis 101.

this story sounds like the plot of a late 1980s/early 1990s woody allen film.

Even with the reduced schedule, the stresses of life in a two-career household put an overwhelming strain on her marriage. There were ugly fights with her husband about laundry and over who would step in when the nanny was out sick.

went into h8 mode after this

It's hard for me to comprehend a marriage where there are multiple times when NEITHER person is willing to just volunteer do the laundry or step in when the nanny is sick. How do you not see "make my spouse's life easier and better" as part of your job in a marriage?

when THEY SHOULD BE MAKING MY LIFE EASIER FOR ONCE

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/08/fashion/smoking-is-back-without-the-stigma.html

"Vapor water might not be smoke, but it still emits a smell and a plume which I found very distracting particularly in a dark movie theater."

Goldin Martinez, who works security at Jimmy, the rooftop bar at the James New York Hotel in SoHo, among other places, recalled a recent run-in with a patron he mistakenly singled out for smoking. He’s still annoyed over the encounter. “It gives the place a bad image,” he said. “People think, ‘What’s up with the staff here?’”

Still, the mistake happens enough that e-smokers have developed a kind of hand gesture to ward off the cigarette police. The e-smoker will “put the cigarette to their forehead,” Mr. Birnbaum said. “You realize either the person is a psycho or they’re smoking an e-cigarette.”

And then there is the splashiest and most active entrant, a Facebook page that showcases pictures and reports of unacceptable behavior. The second word in its title is “Spotter”; the first is unfit for polite society when used in such derogatory fashion.

what the fuck is wrong with this absurd newspaper?

the gentility is really the last good thing it has going.

like the insistence on referring to Kanye as like "Mr. West"