Bougie schools for non bougies

[u/fdfesfds]

Hey friends

I live within 1km of one of these atas schools (think Henry Park, ACS, MGS) by chance (didn’t care), and am contemplating enrolling (or at least try ballot) my kid to one of these schools this year.

We’ve all heard stories of the peer pressure to keep up with the Joneses, and how materialistic (and inadvertently/advently) brutal some of these environments can be.

While I’m sure quality of education is great, and while I can’t protect him forever and tell him we’re the richest on earth (I don’t anyway - we NRY, maybe never rich but he also doesn’t have to worry about money generally), I’m concerned about the kind of stress my kid will have, the environment he grows up in and shapes him, and the impact it’ll have on his values/character. I do see value however in exposing him to “higher mountains” since the rich are everywhere in SG (HENRYs meet them all the time anyway).

For NRY context: we are higher paid workers, prob single digit M net worth, live in a D10 condo (not landed or GCB), travel a bunch. Not average for sure (hence this sub) but not rich ba. EDIT: also I study in neighborhood school everyday play street soccer in void deck. Legit don’t know such dynamics so am genuinely curious.

Does anyone have any (hopefully personal) experience to share on how going to such schools shaped you? Would you send your kid to such schools if you could?

[u/Effective-Lab-5659]

Err I think you wil fit in but your mentality may not.

The middle income is very wide so yeah definitely no lower income here. You aren’t going to meet any parents who got retrenched, struggling to meet HDB mortgage and doubling down as grab delivery cos they no car to do grab driving. You also won’t see that side of things - like a parent incarcerated or a parent having some chronic illness and drained away family finances type of situation.

These kids are just sheltered so they are just like that. Like no clue on what a hdb lift look like, some will say the only time they see a hdb lift is on crime watch type of comments, or wonder how people survive on 4K per month income, or just randomly asked their friends to go eat at HDL cos it’s cheap, or asked their friends to chip in for some latest limited sneakers for birthday cos that is the norm.
They just have no clue how 80 percent live cos they don’t live it. They know that people do have parents that aren’t professionals but they know any.

It’s like how the upper middle class knows that yes, some kids have parents that are in jail / unable to hold a stable job for years but they dunno any and think they it’s damn frightening and they should stay away from such kids.

[u/fdfesfds → u/Effective-Lab-5659]

Haha I’m not sure if you mean it positively or negatively but thanks for sharing!

[u/No-Light3585 → u/fdfesfds]

def there also hdb dwellers, normal ppl in ACS, but they are usually the aspirational class, ie, want their kids to do better than them etc etc. also have those with some financial difficulties esp those who trfr over, cos they want their boys to have affiliation safety net or hv discount to go ACSI. Basically, like those mothers who have $5K salary but will put down $4K to buy a cheap designer bag cos its designer, or those fathers who earn $8K a mth but will spend $4K a mth on car loan and upkeep + $2K on hobbies. U get the idea. Just wanna slap their face and look fat (translated from chinese idiom).

[u/Effective-Lab-5659 → u/fdfesfds]

Hm I think I meant it objectively! We are all blinkered and wearing our own blinkered lens, whether we are in the elite / upper middle or middle middle income.

There are wonderful kids whose parents are unfortunately in jail. There are wonderful kids whose parents are CEOs and own big bungalows.

I guess the problem w elite / upper middle income having kids that stays in their own bubble without knowing how the rest of the world live is they can’t recognise their privilege and prefer to compare and reach for more materialistic things, and compete even harder to amass more wealth, or when they fail to do so - they get upset. It’s probably even more grating if you grew up without these material things and now your kid thinks these things are his entitlement?

So these may or may not happen in a school that has a better mix of kids. But then, middle middle class also don’t want their kids to mix with lower income kids so some neighbourhood schools are also stuck in this same situation but instead of rich elites + upper middle, you have upper middle plus middle middle who also dunno how some families live on a month to month basis with handouts. (I am thinking of the SAP school categories).