(2023-02-06) Warner We All Want

John Warner: We All Want. *Twitter tongues were wagging this week over an article in New York magazine titled, “The Fleishman Effect” by Caitlin Moscatello. 2023-02-28-TheFleishmanEffect

The title is referring to Fleishman Is in Trouble. Rachel Fleishman’s crisis/breakdown over the never ending pursuit of not necessarily more money, but more status, which can only be purchased with money, is apparently very relatable to real-life professional women with families living in New York, so we get, “The Fleishman Effect.”

this aspect is heightened by the TV show, perhaps because the visual medium truly allows us see what this level of wealth in this milieu looks like. It’s more visceral

What becomes clear is that these women - despite their educations, their wealth, their status - in their minds they lack some essential agency over their own lives. They do not believe they have control over their own choices.

lower income parents more often experience parenting as “enjoyable and rewarding” than higher income parents.

upper-class parents “work tirelessly to give their children the skills to reproduce their class position.” I’ve written how these attitudes are rooted in a culture of “scarcity and precarity” where lower-class students experience actual scarcity

It is not only the Rachel Fleishman’s of the world who are breaking down over these things. Their children are crumbling under the stress as well

This is what is most striking to me about the women profiled in “The Fleishman Effect,” they don’t seem to give any importance to how they feel about the lives they’re living beyond acknowledging to themselves that they’re pretty miserable.

The overwhelming belief I had growing up as the child of two college-educated parents in a prosperous Chicago suburb was that I was going to be fine.

was about to say that I’ve had the luxury of trying to orient my life towards what I’m interested in and good at, but what a weird word to use, “luxury.” What has happened that this is now perceived as a luxury and I feel overwhelming good fortune to be in this position?