"Just Squeaking By" With a Live-In Nanny
The entire article drips with sarcasm. You’ll soon learn Laura Steins is “squeaking by on $300,000 a year.” But first, you get a taste of the morning routine – including the live-in nanny.
As Detroit flatlines and those of us in the media quiver in our boots over impending newspaper closures and layoffs, the other half wants us to know they’re in pain. Only their pain looks nothing like ours.
Take Laura Steins, who not only has the live-in nanny but whose kids have “generic” cell phones and True Religion jeans. Along with the pool man and the gardener, these are costs she told the Washington Post are ” non-negotiable facts of her life and not discretionary.” For a woman who gets $75,000 a year in child support, well, let’s just say we should be so lucky.
Don’t think for a moment that the author really wants us to feel bad for Steins that she has given up her trips to the colorist (just read the closing line “Perfect looks perfect from a distance”). But the look-see at the lives of children living in this type of rich poverty is what fascinates.
The children complains that her cell phone just isn’t as cool as those her friends have. Could happen in any home, it’s true. But then, even in the lower middle class homes where cell phones for kids are ubiquitous, so too are the cheaper phones. Kids who complain don’t want a nicer one – they want one. Period.
And where the other person (beside mom or dad) making dinner in the average strapped American home is a child, the Steins’ kids and their ilk have the nanny to do that.
Perhaps Steins is right – some of these costs are necessary rather than discretionary. She can’t sell a house when the real estate market rights itself if she’s let the grounds go to pot. And living in an upscale neighborhood calls for upscale spending – including on your kids, lest they be picked on at school for their “lesser” clothing and accessories.
Believe it or not, I can buy a small percentage of her reasoning. It might even be best for her kids. But, in the end, Steins still has the power to make choices. She can choose not to get her hair colored, choose to employ a live-in nanny over a part-time babysitter, choose to hire a gardener rather than taking her three kids outside to help her weed.
And that – more than her bank account – is where she’s got it over on half of America. It’s not the upper middle class and rich Americans’ “stuff” so much as their decision to keep and add to it . . . and their attempts to simultaneously complain and justify their reasoning that their affluent lifestyle calls for less sacrifice.
Because the single mom making minimum wage who hasn’t seen a lick of childhood support in the last year and a half lost the power of choice a long time ago.
Do you feel sorry for the poor little rich kids?
Image: Amazon
Shoot, we “squeak” by on not much more than she gets in CS. I feel sorry…for the kids, not because they’re “poor” but because they, from the outside, live in a materialistic world.
I don’t feel sorry for Steins, I don’t think she’s asking for that, and I don’t think the article was meant to evoke that response. I think it was meant to show the relativity of the recession.
You know, many of the poor people had/have choices, too…they chose to party instead of working hard in college. They may have chosen to be arty and bohemian rather than practical in their careers. They chose to have more kids than they could afford. Many choose more expensive processed foods or fast food than taking the time to cook. Many choose to pay for cable instead of reading or bettering themselves. Lots of people have choices. I am tired of the sainting of the poor. Many have had hard knocks many others are living the results of a lifetime of their own bad choices and sloth. I know people like this.
Many, but not all. Then again, when one knowingly makes poor choices that lead to a poor outcome, I try not to saint, too.
It reminds me of an article I read a few years ago. Families of four making between $20k and $3 million a year were interviewed. Everyone thought they were just squeaking by and if they just had a little more money they would be ok. Everyone thinks they need more money, it is just the way our world works.
A lot of non-partying, college grad, avid readers are out of work these days. For instance, my husband – who was laid off from a job (along with 3000) of his coworkers after 13 years at his company (he was hired right out of college, where he did not party his time away). We are living on a lot less now…I don’t want to be part of the “sainted” poor, I don’t want to bee poor at all. However, I don’t want people assuming we’re losers just because we don’t have a live-in nanny…
of GP: I love when people make broad generalizations based on their own limited experience. It makes you look really intelligent.
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