This hits home with me as well. My spouse and I live a “DINK” lifestyle - dual income, no kids. He works from home for an established (not a startup) multi-billion dollar multinational in the Valley, so we live on the East Coast. He is well compensated enough that I don’t have to work, but I do run our investment property and a small business we founded.
The problems we have now are ones most of my own family can’t relate to, so I just don’t share them. His parents used to run an extremely lucrative firm, but that was after they raised him in much less lavish circumstances. So I can talk to them about some of these parts of life, and he and his parents know the value of a dollar.
It can be isolating to know how “both halves” live, and I definitely feel a sense of guilt as to the amount of privilege I have and how radically more easy we have it.
It does start to become hard to relate to people who don’t have this kind of socioeconomic standing because so much of life is built on how many assets you do or don’t have. Last year we were at Home Depot buying a new, rather pricey appliance for our new home and I realized in talking to the sales lady exactly how out of touch I had become. She had never had what we were purchasing and we were buying a high end model from a high end brand. I was trying to make small talk and I’m sure I sounded like a classist asshole, but I was trying not to.
I’m trying really hard to cling to a realistic relationship to money and class.
The problems we have now are ones most of my own family can’t relate to, so I just don’t share them. His parents used to run an extremely lucrative firm, but that was after they raised him in much less lavish circumstances. So I can talk to them about some of these parts of life, and he and his parents know the value of a dollar.
It can be isolating to know how “both halves” live, and I definitely feel a sense of guilt as to the amount of privilege I have and how radically more easy we have it.
It does start to become hard to relate to people who don’t have this kind of socioeconomic standing because so much of life is built on how many assets you do or don’t have. Last year we were at Home Depot buying a new, rather pricey appliance for our new home and I realized in talking to the sales lady exactly how out of touch I had become. She had never had what we were purchasing and we were buying a high end model from a high end brand. I was trying to make small talk and I’m sure I sounded like a classist asshole, but I was trying not to.
I’m trying really hard to cling to a realistic relationship to money and class.