Posted on 05/18/2015 1:15:36 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
WHEN our family moved from the West Village to the Upper East Side in 2004, seeking proximity to Central Park, my in-laws and a good public school, I thought it unlikely that the neighborhood would hold any big surprises. For many years I had immersed myself — through interviews, reviews of the anthropological literature and participant-observation — in the lives of women from the Amazon basin to sororities at a Big Ten school. I thought I knew from foreign.
Then I met the women I came to call the Glam SAHMs, for glamorous stay-at-home-moms, of my new habitat. My culture shock was immediate and comprehensive. In a country where women now outpace men in college completion, continue to increase their participation in the labor force and make gains toward equal pay, it was a shock to discover that the most elite stratum of all is a glittering, moneyed backwater.
A social researcher works where she lands and resists the notion that any group is inherently more or less worthy of study than another. I stuck to the facts. The women I met, mainly at playgrounds, play groups and the nursery schools where I took my sons, were mostly 30-somethings with advanced degrees from prestigious universities and business schools. They were married to rich, powerful men, many of whom ran hedge or private equity funds; they often had three or four children under the age of 10; they lived west of Lexington Avenue, north of 63rd Street and south of 94th Street; and they did not work outside the home....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
A writer and social researcher in New York and the author of the forthcoming memoir
“Primates of Park Avenue.”
Why not "Maggots of Park Avenue"?
At least, then, it wouldn't sound so waaacist!
She just sounds jealous. Dependent, powerless women? No, darn smart women.
it was a shock to discover that the most elite stratum of all is a glittering, moneyed backwater.
Am I supposed to believe a liberal New Yorker doesn’t have a clue about how the wealthy liberals in New York live!!!!!
Any bets on when we’ll be reading about how one of Greer songs has transgender issues?
Totally. Crazy, one side of NYC's elite sniping at another.
I have friends on Park Avenue. Many of them are conservatives.
Park Avenue is the cleanest, most pleasant street within a 50 miles of here, and of any comparable metropolitan area.
As an aside, when his Potusness comes here, he blocks off all four lanes of Park and process up. The sidestreets are blocked with dump trucks filled with sand. It's as if he's thumbing his nose at the Kock brother. The only thing missing is cries of "hail ceasar" from all the people who turn out to see him.
sorry: Koch brothers.
Do people still turn out to see him?
This article didn’t tell me what I wanted to know.....
Do these woman have guilt for having money and vote dimocrat OR are they smart enough to know which side their bread is buttered on and vote republican?
Other than that, I don’t care what they do.
Didn’t read the whole thing, but the author’s apparent belief that “social researcher” is a more important and self-actualizing role than “mother” is quite hilarious.
It’s an interesting article. However, as I read it and wonder, “Do these people really exist?” I recall that it’s entirely possible they do not. Anthropologists, like journalists, make things up all the time.
Nobody moves from the glorious West Village to the boxes of the Upper East Side for the parks!!! Her premise is already a lie.
There are pockets of Republicanism on the Upper East Side - they did not vote for DeBlasio which is why he didn’t plow their streets right after his election.
Life’s losers are consumed by envy. It’s their most prominent characteristic. If you give them a foothold into your life they will use that to try to drag you down. Misery loves company.
Liberals always preach “pro-choice” and “a woman’s right to her own body”. However, when these women choose this life and control their bodies, liberals turn to ridicule.
Mrs. Martin should go off and save the rain forest instead of wasting trees for paper, so that she can write drivel.
And a first name of Wednesday? Brings up bizarre images of the Addams family.
My wife is a SAHM...She loves the fact she is..
Now, if these women DID work, the story would be about how money-hungry they were---scarfing more and more of the economy for themselves. "Just how much is enough?" would be the refrain.
If your husband makes several million a year, there is no real economic benefit to the mother working for 100,000 - but they could save that much on comparative childcare costs for several children in that social stratum.
And if the woman wants to be at home with the kids (because in our society, almost no one has three kids without wanting to), how can a feminist deny her that choice? Oh, right, she wants the woman to be as hard charging as the men or else be denigrated.
Yes, these people do exist. This is not the first story done on this small segment of society. These are the .1% of the socioeconomic part of our society. They are the billionaires wives. Their husbands work at Goldman Sachs down the street on Park Ave. However, they have chosen to live in the city as opposed to living in Darien, Westbrook, or Greenwich, CT.(I know someone who lives in Darien and works at GS on Park Ave.) These are people who make Millions/per year. Their children go to private schools.
Many of these wives met their husbands at some Ivy League University. Almost all of them came from money. They are not the new rich. They are the trust fund kids grown up. Their relatives are on the board of Princeton, Yale, etc. They are in the club.
Surprisingly, many are conservative. They value the fact that the mom and nanny(of course) raises their children.
There was a book/movie(The Nanny Diaries) about fifteen years back about a nanny to one of these families. The nanny took the children over to the West Side of the park(this is where the new rich and liberals live). The mom said:
“the children are not allowed to go to the West Side.”
More and more of them are liberal environmentalists.
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