CLASS
IS ABOUT...
Tamar Lewin, "Up from the Holler," in Class Matters, ed. Bill Keller (New York: Times Books, 2005), 70.
"WE NEED TO RECOGNIZE THAT THE MOST SERIOUS DOMESTIC PROBLEM IN THE UNITED STATES TODAY IS THE WIDENING GAP BETWEEN THE CHILDREN OF THE RICH AND THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR."
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I REMEMBER ASKING MY MOTHER IF WE WERE POOR AND SHE SAID "YES, OF COURSE WE'RE POOR"...
(0:38 min)
A LOT OF TIMES WITH THE LOWER CLASS YOUR PARENTS ARE ADDICTED TO DRUGS OR HAVE MENTAL PROBLEMS...
(0:54 min)
I WILL NEVER GET OVER NOT HAVING ENOUGH MONEY WHILE I WAS GROWING UP...
(0:21 min)
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When I became a Skidmore parent, I developed a new and different view of the campus, with my son's experiences and our socioeconomic class, as opposed to others on campus. My son became involved with a young woman here, and they continued dating after graduation and had plans of moving together to San Francisco. Her family was quite wealthy. And he, as they were planning on moving out together, discovered that the inequity in the social classes really presented a problem for them. She had just this enormous budget for an apartment, and he was unable to really even pay half of that. And in the end, their relationship sort of dissolved naturally, because it just sort of didn't work out. But it was interesting that while they were here on campus, there was sort of an equalizer; and then afterwards, it became too difficult to hold together.
Classless Society Stories Project
WHEN I BECAME A SKIDMORE PARENT, I DEVELOPED A NEW AND DIFFERENT VIEW OF THE CAMPUS...