Teach Your Children Well
22nd October 2023
A few years ago, David Brooks wrote a column in which he took a friend without a high school degree to a sandwich shop. “Suddenly,” he recounted, “I saw her face freeze up as she was confronted with sandwiches named ‘Padrino’ and ‘Pomodoro’ and ingredients like soppressata, capicollo and a striata baguette. I quickly asked her if she wanted to go somewhere else and she anxiously nodded yes and we ate Mexican.”
Brooks concluded that “American upper-middle-class culture (where the opportunities are) is now laced with cultural signifiers that are completely illegible unless you happen to have grown up in this class. They play on the normal human fear of humiliation and exclusion. Their chief message is, ‘You are not welcome here.'” Well, this is hardly a new phenomenon in America or otherwise, but it’s also only a superficial explanation of what separates the upper-middle class from everyone else. There are also real habits and real pieces of knowledge that enable some kids to get ahead. And they matter a lot more than whether you know different words for Italian meat.