Tuesday, December 16, 2008 - Posts
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Last week, we put out a call for a parody of the "Feel the Crunch" series in the New York Times. Here is our favorite, by Elizabeth Lazar of Chicago:
"As the Recession Worsens, Rich Teens Show Character"
This fall, Morgan Wellington began her senior year of high school much like the other privileged students at Kenilworth High, on Chicago's suburban North Shore. Her parents were providing a weekly allowance to cover basics such as a spa regimen, bento-box lunches and gas to cover the strenuous 8-block school commute.
But in October, Morgan's dad lost his top-paying job managing his father's investment firm, Wellington Fund in the Loop. He was forced to take a lower-ranking executive position with more hours and less pay at the nearby Wellington Family Foundation. Morgan's life changed almost overnight.
First to go was the school morning spa ablutions, a daily package which included black-soap body cleansing, steam room, deluge of freezing water, Spanish-whirlpool followed by a brief massage.
"I had to start showering at home twice a week," said Morgan, who is 17. "At first it was really hard and my pore size almost doubled, but now I'm totally used to it. I've gotten really good with the exfoliator."
It is impossible to quantify how many hyper-affluent parents have pruned allowances in recent months—or how many of their offspring, in turn, have adjusted their lifestyles to meet the stringent terms of the newly pared budgets. But interviews with dozens of North Shore teenagers, parents and teachers suggest that many youngsters in the area seem to have developed a new work ethic as the economic crisis that has jeopardized their parents' investments has also led to reduced spending money for after-school shopping sprees at the local Marc Jacobs or study-group hangs at the Michelin 5 corner spot up the street.
"I told my friends just to meet me in my home library wing for exam crams because by the end of the week I was starving and couldn't afford anything on the menu except the veal carpaccio appetizer. I was embarrassed at first, but my friends have been really supportive."
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Emily B, great catch on Caroline Kennedy selling her mother's handbags as tag sale dreck. I also agree with you that however admirable her volunteer work is, it's ridiculous to say this qualifies her for appointment to the Senate (even while acknowledging it's hard to fathom what qualifies many senators for the Senate). But I disagree with your Palin analogy. However ill-prepared Palin was for the vice presidency, she was chosen to run because she got elected governor of Alaska. And she did that without money, connections, or a famous name. Melinda eloquently wrote about wanting to see Caroline take up the Kennedy flame. But I would rather to see it doused. This country is ever more becoming a nation of haves and have-nots. By "haves" I don't just mean the rich. If you are lucky to have caring parents who are good role models and nurture good habits in you, you have an advantage in life—but you still have to work to make something of yourself. But there are many kids who have nothing—some of them go to the New York public schools Caroline Kennedy raised money for—who think there's no point making an effort because everything is already wired for the haves. They think that when the haves want something, all they have to do is pick up the phone and life's opportunities are handed to them. So Caroline Kennedy picks up the phone and announces that for her first full-time job, she'd like to be senator from New York, and thus is annointed. That's a bad message to send.
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Melinda, I see the appeal of framing whether Caroline Kennedy should get to be New York's senator in terms of whether she'd be good at it. But why should we take only her measure, as opposed to weigh her against other candidates? I'm with my fellow Emily, choking on dynasty fatigue. What especially irks me about this example is the wielding of Kennedy's fundraising potential as an argument for appointing her. (Thank you, Harry Reid.) It's bad enough that name recognition gives candidates a big money edge when they run for election. Can't the playing field at least be level when a candidate is getting appointed and doesn't actually need to run a single ad or print a single poster? Whomever Gov. Patterson chooses will have years to amass the war chest of an incumbent. He shouldn't make this appointment based on who starts with the biggest money edge. Especially since New York shouldn't be tough terrain for Democrats in this new blue era.
Nor do I see much in Kennedy's lovely public service record to demonstrate why she'd be a great senator, either. I'm glad she helped get the Gates Foundation to give $51 million to the New York public schools even though schools chancellor Joel Klein helped sue Microsoft as a Justice Department lawyer in the Clinton administration. But that's about rich and famous people courting other rich and famous people. It's not proof of a deep mastery of policy. Or even skill at handling constituents or fellow politicians. Obviously for some women (including me), it's exciting and somehow fitting to imagine a woman taking over Hillary Clinton's seat. But is that reason to overlook Kennedy's lack of most of the usual qualifications, like holding public office? Framed this way, how different would her ascension be, really, from the pole vault that Sarah Palin tried?
One more pressing question: The NYT reports that at a Central Park tag sale Kennedy put together for the schools, some bargain hunters, "unwittingly, walked away with evening bags that belonged to her mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis." Does that mean that Caroline K. sold off her mother's things without saying whose heirlooms they were? And she's supposed to be a fundraising goddess? Think how much more those handbags would have sold for if they'd been auctioned off as a piece from Jackie O.
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A few weeks ago, I posted about Women’s Wear Daily’s gallery of inauguration looks for Michelle Obama. Many of the top designers who submitted sketches made Michelle look white, rendering her skin in cottonball hues. This week, WWD asked designers to envision what Barack should wear on January 20. The resulting sketches are much more 
representational—and much darker skinned—than those of Michelle. Sure, Marc Jacobs offers a stylized white blank, and Brioni’s sand-colored sketch looks like a Modigliani portrait of Little Richard. For the most part, though, there is a real sense of comfort with Obama’s skin color: The president-elect looks handsome, recognizable, and discernibly black in these sketches from Nautica and Brooks Brothers. Tommy Hilfiger also gives Obama brown skin (although, in an amusing act of ego, he adds a face that looks just like Tommy Hilfiger’s). There’s also a distinct vein of photo-realism here: Sketches from Ferragamo, Sean John, Turnbull and Asser, Richard James Savile Row, and Zegna all look uncannily like our prez-elect.
I wonder why designers rendered Barack more accurately than Michelle. It’s tempting to credit the fashion industry’s habit of ignoring black women, but fashion isn’t crawling with black men, either. The discrepancy may also be explained by fashion culture: Perhaps womenswear designers are expected to be fantastical while menswear designers (used to dealing with less imaginative clients) typically produce more prosaic sketches. But I suspect designers had fun incorporating Obama’s face into their sketches because—particularly on the Shepard Fairey-style posters that were ubiquitous this year—it’s become as familiar as a logo. Barack’s features and skin color are now as iconic, emblematic, and chic as the Chanel C's or the Lacoste ‘gator. Designers are thrilled to employ them.
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I, too, was fascinated by that Washington Post piece on pregnant high school students—and very conflicted about it. Making it as easy as possible for pregnant teens and young moms to get an education is admirable, but it also, I'd imagine, establishes unrealistic expectations for these girls. Once they're done with high school, even if they qualify for assistance, as many of them do, they'll face far more obstacles. It seems highly unlikely that they would have access to on-site day care in the real world, for instance.
Ann, I love your idea of having a new mom speak at the "family life" courses—and maybe she can be joined by a young mother who got pregnant as a student and has spent a few years trying to juggle work and getting a toddler to (and paying for) day care. That might help the girls and guys alike realize that the school's Tiny Titans is not something to be taken for granted.
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Susannah, I'm surprised at you: Can't you see how much we've accomplished in Iraq, that Bushie was pelted with shoes and not IEDs? ("We will be hailed as liberators. They will throw flowers. Or boots; stuff happens.'') Can you imagine footwear flying at any other world leader, and the only response being laughter all around the world? I am for peaceful demonstrations, and in these tough economic times would not waste any Louboutins on our soon-to-be ex. But used Payless sandals, maybe, left in front of the White House? Barefoot for Bush could really catch on.
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Did anyone else see the piece about teenage parents in high school in the Washington Post Outlook section on Sunday? It's rare to get the kind of close-up look offered by Patrick Welsh, an English teacher at Alexandria's T.C. Williams High School, where 70 girls—almost all low-income black or Hispanic students—out of a 2,000-plus student body are either pregnant or already mothers and now have an in-school day care facility, Tiny Titans. He focused on an issue blurred in the Bristol Palin coverage: mainstreaming adolescent parents and its dilemmas. Welsh was unsettled less by the absence of stigma and more by the not-so-tacit atmosphere, and assumption by the girls, of approval. Sure, there is a required "family life" course at school that duly covers the dangers of teenage sexuality and pregnancy, and the Adolescent Health Center is a few blocks away. But as a social worker in the support network put it, "I don't personally accept it, but once a girl is pregnant, I have to be all open arms."
It made me wonder if schools have considered even more mainstreaming, with a twist. What might be the impact of having teen mothers—after they're done boasting about their pregnant bellies (as they evidently do) and deep into dirty diapers—help give those "family life" classes? Welsh quotes one mother who sounds ready to give her classmates an earful about "how difficult their lives are going to be if they have a baby." Are there enough others to be a group of peer advisers? If the adults can't convey disapproval, maybe the kids could help—and convincingly.
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Pipeline points out that a pair of women's spiked Louboutins would have made for a better shoe-weapon to be hurled at Bush in Iraq, rather than a simple pair of men's loafers. They suggest a Burberry studded heel or Louboutin for Rodarte with gold spikes, although I, myself, might have selected an Alexander McQueen's crystal-heeled boot for its goring potential. Elsewhere, Fighting Liberals suggests sending your old shoes to the George W. Bush Presidential Library, and Boing Boing has a roundup of amusing Shoegate GIFs.
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