A Private School Exposé
We do a lot of research around Gen Z today, and the truth of the matter is that most of them are struggling with money – working several jobs, living with roommates, deeply worried about the cost of rent & groceries and devoid of any sort of savings account or emergency fund.
I roll my eyes almost every time I read a surface-level trends deck about how Gen Z is “voting with their dollars” because … most of them don’t have any.
They’re shopping secondhand. They’re trying to find side hustles wherever they can. They’re staying in relationships that aren’t working just to make sure the rent is paid.
When a friend heard we were writing about money for this issue of Bones, he suggested I interview his daughter, who attends one of the most expensive private schools in California, to get a very, very different perspective from what we usually hear from young people today.
M: What does money look like in your day-to-day?
E: When you go out with people, they have so much dispensable income that they just don’t know what to do with it – so it really shifts your mindset about how you think about money. Like Apple Pay does not feel real to me. I’ve gotten in so much trouble about Ubers and spending money on food because my friends will go out and buy $400 or $500 meals for everyone, and I’ll feel bad not pitching in.
M: Do you and your friends talk about money or is it taboo?
E: Yeah, honestly, we do talk about money. The parents of some of my friends give them more money and we’ll talk about who has a really nice house. It’s never about others being poor; it’s about oh, she’s really rich and stuff like that.
M: How do you think about where you’re at, money-wise?
E: I consider myself upper middle class. I live in a nice house. There’s always money for the things I want. I go to a private school. I know all these things put me on the wealthier side, but I’m nowhere near the top percentage of wealthiness like some of the kids I go to school with.
M: How do you know who the wealthy ones are?
E: It’s the way they show their money. Like you go to their houses and they’ll be 12,000 square feet with private movie rooms & basketball courts. The trips they go on, some of them have private jets and some of them will just blatantly say their parents are billionaires or millionaires. Some friends get $800 a week for allowance, so you know their parents have a lot of money.
M: Do your friends with the most money seem more or less happy?
E: The people who have the most stable families and confidence in themselves are the happiest. But the richest people I know are the least happy people I know – and their parents aren’t usually very involved in their lives.
A friend of mine has a dad who’s not in her life at all. So she’ll get his credit card and spend all the money she wants to because she just hates him. He just gave her $40k to try to make up for all his absences, and she’s certainly not happy.
M: What does she spend that on?
E: All of us. Like she’s trying to buy our love. She’ll buy me $400 outfits, just to play tennis in for an hour – and then I often feel like I owe her my time and attention in return.
M: What do you hate most about private school?
E: With so much privilege, teachers look the other way if anyone misbehaves. Boys do such stupid, mean things because they can get away with it. Their parents don’t discipline them. They just do whatever they want & they don’t care about the consequences. They don’t care what teachers say. They know their moms will back them up if they do literally anything at all out of line.
M: Gimme an example, please.
E: I dated a guy and his mom would just worship him. WORSHIP HIM. He would be failing every class and his parents would be getting emails saying he’s disrespectful and sexist, whatever, and his parents would just be like … try a little harder.
M: Are you guys over now?
E: We went out for five months and then went on a break and I ended up kissing someone else at a party, who he and his friends vaguely knew. And then I got a whole bunch of texts from them that were just super rude. They kept calling me a fucking slut and said no one at school likes me – and would send me bad photos of myself every day. They just kept telling me they wish I would die, and it was truly horrible. They also threw eggs at me, and made up a song about what an awful person I am.
M: First off, fuck those guys. Second: how did you deal with that?
E: The bottom line is that I’m not thinking about them. They’re not my problem. They’re not going to do well in life with this mindset, and one day they’re going to get the shit kicked out of them and I’m not going to do a thing to stop it.
M: Why do you think parents pay $30K a year for you to go there?
E: They want their kids to get into the best universities, and we have a really high placement rate. Teachers will really work to help you out (if you know what I mean) and know exactly what classes & activities we need to get into the good schools.
M: What would surprise people the most about your school?
E: How racist it is? We’ve had talks recently but it’s so bad. There’s so much sexism and racism – mainly coming from these groups of guys who come from generation after generation of white privilege.
Honestly, parents need to start raising their sons better. They see them as these perfect little sons – and refuse to see the problems – and then raise absolute little shits.
M: I know you have a little sister who’s coming up behind you at that school. What advice would you give her?
E: Care more about experiences and trying to live your best life instead of money. And don’t kiss shitty private school boys.
-Megan Weisenberger
Photo by Shubham Sharan on Unsplash