Middle Class Child Syndrome

Many people who grow up in the relative affluence of the middle class have a hard time adjusting the the reality of their situations. We do not realize that our parents really don't have all the money we could ever want and we think that the world is going to hand us everything that crosses our minds.

This is due, in part, to never really having to do without anything essential. We never get to be truly hungry for longer than a couple of hours. We always have a coat. Shoes are always season appropriate. We get told "No" because our parents choose not to give us something, not because they CAN'T give it to us.

The fact of a Budget never crosses our minds. Even when we hear the word and are told that we must stay within it, the range is large enough that truly doing without is just not happening.

And that there is a budget of sorts for other things, teachers' patience, parents' tolerance for attitude, etc., never occurs to us either.

So, we get to become chronological adults with no real grasp of shortfall. Until our parents no longer support us and we fall on our asses.

MCCS is marked by not getting your shit together until after you have failed dramaticly. Not every child of the middle class has to endure it, but I have seen a LOT of friends and relatives go through it.

Note that I used self-inclusive pronouns.

I will be letting C live with his choices about schoolwork and I will not be nagging him any more than I have because I hope for him to learn the lessons of failure sooner, rather than than later.

I don't want him to fail, but I willing to allow him to.