After the pain of childbirth, the hours you’ve had to work Bugabooing your child from park to playground, not to mention the hours upwardly mobile mothers have had to work to afford the nanny to change the diapers and clean up the spit-up while they’re at work, we say moms are entitled to get something for themselves from those bundles of joy that have given them stretch marks. Isn’t it about time your offspring did something for you? Why should you have to do all the climbing?
Any psychologist will tell you it’s not healthy for parents to hide the realities of life from their children: the hard work, the teamwork, and most important, the Mountaineering required to obtain the “good life.” Get them into the right school and they’ll understand Mommy and Daddy didn’t get where they are by magic. Just as you had to climb, so will Junior.
Another advantage of sending your children to one of the right private day schools in the city, as opposed to a private boarding school, is that when the little ones come back to your apartment/home in the afternoon, you’ll be able to coach and debrief them; teach them the subtle cues that will help five-year-olds determine whether they just had a playdate with a millionaire or a centimillionaire, i.e., a bona fide Whale. With a little help your first-grader will easily learn to recognize the difference between a Degas, a Picasso, a Lichtenstein, a Pollock, and a Basquiat, and will be able to tell you which of the kids in his/her class have such high-priced art hanging on their walls. By the time they are in second grade they will be able to ascertain whether the Monet water lilies above the fireplace is a seventy-nine-dollar print, or a $79 million oil. Do their playmate’s mommy or daddy own the Lear Jet that flies them to Nantucket on weekends or is it just a NetJet? You know the questions they should be asking. And you will have the fun of teaching them the tricks of turning fun into ambition.
EMPOWERING THOUGHT #33
As a parent, think how much faster, easier, and more luxurious your family’s climb would be if your son or daughter happened to overhear their best pal’s mom and dad discussing the positive result of a drug trial at the pharmaceutical firm they work for. When a child innocently passes along information he or she happened to overhear, it’s not insider trading; and even if it is, is the SEC really going to send your seven-year-old to jail?
Every major city in America has one or more of these right schools. In Houston, the greater percentage of the parents at one of the right schools will be in the oil/energy business. In Palo Alto, the young centimillionaire moms and dads will more than likely be computer geeks. And, of course, in Los Angeles, you’ll have a higher percentage of parents in the entertainment business. Geography affects the makeup of the Big Fish parent population at the right schools, but one thing remains the same everywhere: Sadly, the best right schools for the upwardly mobile are invariably the ones that reject the most applicants.
Academic excellence is part of the sales pitch at every one of the right schools, regardless of where they’re located. Glossy catalogs boast of second-graders learning Mandarin, Nobel Laureates lecturing fifth-grade science class, etc. But the real appeal, what the right schools are really selling, and the never-mentioned reason Big Fish, Whales, and famous and well-connected parents of every description want their children to go to these right schools is so their offspring will make friends with the children of even bigger Big Fish, bigger Whales, and even more famous and better-connected parents.
In a perfect world, everyone’s children should and would be able to learn Mandarin in the second grade and have a Nobel Laureate lecture them in grade school. But the social climber knows the world is neither perfect nor fair.
Even if you can afford to spend what the average American family of four lives on in a year on your child’s tuition, and even if your privileged tot’s test scores surpass those of 97 percent of the other applicants, there’s no guarantee your child will be accepted into this inner, über academic circle. In fact, the odds are against you. However, if you are a Big Fish/Whale, famous person, or “legacy” (a legacy meaning one of the child’s parents attended the school themselves, which of course means that child has the advantage of being a second-generation social climber), these odds shift dramatically in your favor.
Each right school has its own selective and secretive admissions policy. Though acceptance is never easy, the younger your children are when you apply, the easier it will be for them to get in. If you wait to fill out your first private school admissions forms until your child is going into the first grade, you and your progeny are sadly already behind the eight ball. How can that be? Because those applicants who have already attended the right feeder or nursery school will have preference over children whose parents were irresponsible enough to wait until they were six to start them social climbing.
What kind of networking/social climbing does it take to get into the high end of the food chain at age two and a half? Take the case of Mr. Jack Grubman. When he was a hot telecom stock analyst at Smith Barney, he wanted his twins to gain admission to the famed 92nd Street Y preschool. Around this time, he had also rated AT&T stock as “neutral,” i.e., not a buy. Shortly after Grubman gave the unfavorable rating, he wrote a memorandum to Mr. Sandy Weill, then CEO of Citibank and a billionaire board member of AT&T, asking Sandy to help his children get into the 92nd Street Y preschool. According to PBS Frontline, Grubman wrote, “Given that it’s statistically easier to get into the Harvard Freshman Class than it is to get into preschool at the 92nd Street Y [by the way, this is a correct statement], it comes down to ‘who you know.’”
After writing this memo to Mr. Weill, Mr. Grubman upped his rating of AT&T from “neutral” to “buy.” Which of course was good news for AT&T and Mr. Weill, who then contacted a member of the 92nd Street Y’s board and recommended Mr. Grubman’s children, who were soon accepted. Shortly after, a Citibank foundation then saw it in its heart to donate a million dollars to the 92nd Street Y preschool. Yes, Mr. Grubman has since been banned from the securities industry, but at least he got his children into one of the right schools.
To those who are saying to themselves, “Thank God that’s not how it works at the right school in my town,” wake up and smell the coffee. Also, think how much Mr. Grubman’s children love him for what he taught them by example about climbing.
So how do parents who aren’t analyzing and rating stocks get a Big Fish or Whale to go to bat for their children? Here’s where love pays off in social climbing.
If you’ve been a great guest at a Big Fish’s home for in excess of five years, have always laughed at their jokes, given them a jar of your bogus homemade jam at each and every visit, and most important, aided and abetted them or their spawn in avoiding disgrace, embarrassment, or arrest, you’re in a good position to get a great letter of recommendation for your child.
Every social climber who has any thought of ever having children should early on identify and befriend any and all Big Fish they encounter who are on the board of one of the right schools in their city. Don’t just make them your child’s godparent. Name your firstborn after them. Help your child write them birthday and holiday cards. Encourage the little ones to call the Big Fish who can do the most for them Uncle and or Auntie.
A word to the wise: It is always best to have the Big Fish give the letter of recommendation you have asked them to write to you and not send it directly to the school. Before forwarding a Big Fish’s letter of recommendation to anything, always steam it open and read carefully. If the recommendation begins, “I have been asked to write a letter for . . .” do not send the letter. Why? To admissions committees to anything—school, club, or gated community—“I have been asked to recommend” is code for “this is the last person in the world you want to let in.”
Never ask acquaintances or friends whose children have already gotten into the right school that you want your child to attend for help or advice concerning admissions. Why? Because they won’t tell you the truth. Why? Because parents like to brag that their child did it all by themselves, and
if they admit that their uncle donated a hockey rink or that their spouse affected the stock value of a board member’s company, it will make their child seem less of a little genius.
To those upwardly mobile families who have gotten their progeny into a right school, congratulations! But know that your work has just begun. To take full advantage of the new climbing opportunities your child has opened up for you we suggest the following:
If your nanny is responsible for pick-up and drop-off, make sure that she understands that her Christmas bonus or help with her immigration problem is dependent on her setting up the right playdates. If your three-year-old and your nanny hang out with, say, a movie star’s child and his/her nanny (Uma Thurman, Jerry Seinfeld, and Woody Allen all have children who attend one of NYC’s right schools), chances are when Uma’s, Jerry’s, or Woody’s kid has his/her birthday party, your child will be invited. In which case you, not your nanny, will bring your child to the birthday bash, ergo, you, having read our book, will soon find yourself friends with Uma, Jerry, or Woody.
Make up an excuse to casually drop into your child’s private school and check the student signup sheets on the school bulletin board to find out whether the right parents are having their sons and daughters sign up for, say, tennis or baseball on the weekends. If the right sport turns out to be tennis and you have a son or daughter who loves baseball, gently explain to your child that if they make the wrong choice and decide to play the sport they like rather than the one you want them to, like tennis, they won’t just be missing out on opportunities Mommy and Daddy worked hard to give them, they will also be making a mistake that could limit their future earning power. If that doesn’t work, try bribery.
Summer, of course, means Mountaineering out of doors. Because the whole point of social climbing as a family is that all the boats in your little family’s armada rise and fall together as one, we are against sending your child off for eight weeks to summer camp. Like boarding school, the camp experience does more to further your child’s social ambitions than your own. Camp is also expensive. If you’re already having trouble coming up with the private school tuition for your child or children, it’s better value for the whole family to rent a summer house as close as you can afford to be to a beach, lake, or summer community where Big Fish swim. Or better yet, where Whales are known to surface.
It doesn’t matter that you don’t know any of the Whales or Big Fish that reside in your water hole of choice, or that you lack the extra scratch and entrée to belong to any of the right beach or country clubs. Send your seven-year-old over to the rich neighbor’s house with a fresh-picked bouquet and your fruit compote, and the Big Fish (especially if they have no children or grandchildren of their own) will soon be inviting you and your seven-year-old over for dinner. If you and your family tag-team them with your well-rehearsed charm, it won’t be long before they’re inviting you to their beach/country club. Bear in mind: At most clubs each member can bring the same guest only four times per season, i.e., start using your child to endear yourself to their Big Fish friends ASAP.
As your children get older and your family matures, they will have more complicated social climbing decisions to make. If, for example, you’re Jewish and your child’s thirteenth birthday is approaching, you as a family will have to decide whether you can afford to throw a bat/bar mitzvah that won’t embarrass you and your child. Yes, bar/bat mitzvahs are often as expensive as weddings, but given that a mediocre bar/bat mitzvah often gets you and your child invited to a great bar/bat mitzvah, we say go for it and hope that your child meets a future spouse at the event who has a trust fund large enough to benefit you and all your loved ones.
Nowadays, debutante parties are no longer an exclusively WASP tradition. Debutante parties present opportunities for the eighteen- to twenty-year-old daughters of social climbers of all races and religions to meet society spouses who can improve the cachet of the entire family. Compared to the cost of a bat/bar mitzvah, debutante parties are a bargain. In New York City there are three “coming out” galas: the International Debutante Ball and the Infirmary Ball, both held at the Waldorf Astoria, and the Junior Assemblies, held at the Pierre. All are by invitation.
The International sounds classier than it is. In point of fact, any young woman whose social climber parents can get their daughter to squeeze into elbow-length white kid gloves and a white ball gown that more often than not will make her look as large and poufy as a well-upholstered sofa and are willing to donate fourteen thousand dollars to the Soldiers’, Sailors’, Marines’, Coast Guard and Airmen’s Club can attend. Though a worthy charity, the International basically offers entrée to nothing but other social climbers. The Infirmary Ball, slightly larger and more exclusive, caters to a more metropolitan crowd and only requires a donation of seven thousand dollars. Think of it as the Lexus of debutante balls.
Though not all debutantes are WASPs, debutante parties are part of a WASP tradition that places as much value on frugality as it does on snobbery. In keeping with these values, the smallest, most exclusive ball of the season, the Junior Assemblies, is also the cheapest. It is so “exclusive” that the young ladies are not allowed to bring their grandparents, which is a much-appreciated blessing for those debutantes whose grandparents live in a trailer.
As Ms. Johnson knows from personal experience, though debutante parties are chaperoned, there are perils in sending one’s daughter off to a ball in the Big City. She remembers wanting to use her debut to show her parents that she was a woman of the people, by opting to take the subway rather than their limo to the ball. An admirable inclination, but it was definitely a mistake to put on her ball gown and tiara and proceed to board a train that took her directly to Harlem. Parents should know that even the most docile of debutantes can make an unexpected wrong turn at any point in the evening.
Though at any one of these events your daughter may in fact meet young men who will grow up to be billionaires, there are risks involved. Debutantes have a long history of becoming intoxicated, removing their ball gowns, doing fifty thousand dollars’ worth of damage to their hotel suites, and/or getting knocked up by a busboy.
A membership in the right club may entail less risk than having your daughter become a debutante, but here, too, status comes with a price. Whether it be golf, golf and tennis, or tennis and beach, club membership can open up a whole new exciting world of climbing opportunities to your family. We will discuss the pros and cons of club membership and the admission process in detail in our chapter on Advanced Mountaineering. But for now, the basic questions you will be faced with are: a) Given that the initiation fee at one of the right clubs (the one that your child’s friends at the right school belong to) is in the neighborhood of $250,000, can I afford to join? and b) Do I really want to belong to any club that would have me and my family as members?
EMPOWERING THOUGHT #34
There is no denying that climbing as a family will be more difficult for those who lack the disposable income necessary to pay for the right private schools, the right debutante balls, the right clubs, and the right bar/bat mitzvahs. But no matter what rung of the socioeconomic ladder you and your loved ones are on, one of you must know someone who has so much more of everything that you and your family member will be able to convince them to do the right thing, i.e., help you.
If you and your loved ones work as a team, you can flatter, charm, and manipulate that lonely old rich woman who lives down the block or on the other side of town into taking an interest in you and your children. Why? Because your local Big Fish, like everybody else in the world, need friends . . . even if they have to rent them.
To help you get a clear picture of where your family stands with their social climbing, turn off the TV, shut down the computer, silence your iPhones, and sit down and have a serious conversation with your child, spouse, and yourself about how they can improve the prospects for the home team. Be open, honest, forthright, and responsible with your children. Compliment them on the importa
nt friendships they have already made and make a point of thanking them for getting their friend’s dad to invite you to play golf at his club before reminding them that if they don’t write better thank-you notes to Grandpa they might not get included in the will.
Don’t sugarcoat the truth—statistics show that adolescents actively involved in responsible social climbing have a far lower risk of drug abuse and unwanted teenage pregnancy.
SCENESTER SOCIAL CLIMBING
Scenester climbing is for all of you who would like to win friends, influence people, and get luxury goods conglomerates and vodka companies to pay for you to party 24/7/365. This method of Mountaineering is ideally suited for young adults birthed by baby boomers, otherwise known as Generation Y, who know they are special but have yet to do anything special.
To find out if you have what it takes to be a “scenester,” ask yourself the following questions:
1. Are you a thrill seeker with a short attention span who feels entitled but isn’t sure why?
2. Are you twenty-five years old, or can you pass for twenty-five in a dimly lit, crowded nightclub/trendy restaurant/hot bar, and do you like to hang out with Swans, supermodels, professional athletes, rap stars, or Big Fish from the worlds of fashion, finance, and film?
3. Do you enjoy alcohol and/or drugs, especially if someone else is paying for them?
4. Do you have the stamina and discipline to stay up until five in the morning, night after night after night, to catch a whiff of fresh-brewed zeitgeist?
5. Do you own a hoodie, not like to shave every day, or look good in black and not have a job to get up and go to in the morning?
6. Do you lack the skills, inclination, cognitive ability, or the attention deficit medication to actually sit down and do something creative but still consider yourself a creative person?
7. Are you the kind of upwardly mobile youngish person who believes that an essential ingredient for a meaningful life is knowing and doing what is hip, hot, sick, next wave, cutting edge, and au courant when it comes to nightspots, tattoos, piercings, bikini waxes, Third World condiments, the latest fashion in orthopedically damaging footwear prescribed in Paris, and other such subjects, so you can say “been there, done that” a week before the rest of the world reads about them in the blogosphere?
The Social Climber's Bible: A Book of Manners, Practical Tips, and Spiritual Advice forthe Upwardly Mobile Page 15