Parents who pay their kids' rent

Here’s my favorite quote from a NY Times article about Emma Koenig (who is a cute girl into "hookups" who had a Tumblr blog I never heard of which lead to a $10,000 advance for a book):

To aid in their decision-making on how much to help their daughter, Ms. Bass made a spreadsheet of all her daughter’s friends who were in the performing arts. “I wanted to see who was making a living, who was making a living in their art and who was being supported by their parents,” she said. In a graph of 45 young adults, only 3 were getting no help whatsoever, and those 3, Ms. Bass said, were working full time either in a restaurant or baby-sitting, and had limited energy left over to pursue what they had studied.

“It made me see that Emma’s social context was such that our helping with her rent was legitimate,” Ms. Bass said. “I didn’t feel like we were indulging her. I felt like it was a necessary fifth year of college where she had to stabilize herself without the structure and positive feedback of school.”

Another lesson not to do something creative unless you have parents willing to pay your rent to live in Manhattan for two years.

* * *

Emma’s older brother graduated from Columbia and is the lead singer of an Indie rock band.

Comments

[Peter]

So, basically, of the 45 young people in the "performing arts," ZERO of them were self-supporting with their arts earnings. That is so far beyond ridiculous I have no idea what to say.

[ProleMadeGood]

@Peter

Its not ridiculous, its reality. If you want to pursue a high-prestige career in the arts, you really need to be in NYC - and not in the Bronx, but in Manhattan or Brooklyn. Thanks to Giuliani and Bloomberg, as well as the continued trend of UMC/upper-class-background people wanting to live in cities, Manhattan south of 96th street and easily-accessible Brooklyn are now completely safe, and housing costs are exorbitant.
Girls like this are a dime a dozen in the city. They're lots of fun, and there's always a new crop coming in as the old models from a few years back give up on their NYC dreams and head to yet another cash-cow master's program. They all ride the carousel, hard. Good for the guys who can afford to be here and work in the right industries, but terrible for the guys in all their hometowns - they're stuck in shitty jobs that lead nowhere, and the attractive women have all left town for the big cities.
Its an interesting case study in the micro-effects of extreme inequality.

[Anonymous]

“I was more concerned about the drinking than the sex,” Ms. Bass said.

LOL

[DaveinHackensack]

I agree with Anon that it's not ridiculous to pursue their passion for the arts when they're young, but disagree that they need to do so in an expensive neighborhood in NYC. First, why it's not ridiculous: best case scenario, they'll end up making a living as an artist; next best scenarios, they'll end up making a living in a related business, or marrying a wealthy patron of the arts; worst case scenario, they'll have to find something else to do for a living, but at least they won't have regrets about not having taken a shot at their dreams.

Now, as for why they shouldn't be living in an expensive NYC neighborhood starting out: artists traditionally start out broke, and live in cheap places because of that, where they can focus on their art. You don't need to be in NYC to create art. When you've created something great, then you can come to NYC and get exposure for it. That's what plenty of real artists have done, and that's why the most creative and original stuff on Broadway, for example, often gets developed workshopped elsewhere.

[Kyo]

I'd have somewhat more sympathy for this girl had her "viral blog" not contained an obscenity right there in the title.

Emma, people surf the internet during downtime at work these days. You think a URL like that is going to look good in anyone's web history?

[Just Speculating]

Interestingly, many beautiful fresh looking White women are found living in NAM neighborhoods here in NYC. I've met just as much, if not more attractive women up here in Harlem and Washington Heights, than in the Upper West and East Sides, where the more tired grumpy bitches are usually found. A lot of them have been fucked around and now jaded, because everything is expensive and the guys around them are pretentious jerks. Rooms are spacious and the rents are cheaper in upper NAM Manhattan, and the commute isn't too bad.

[Lexus Liberal]

What a waste of talent and admission space. If you wanted to become a garage band singer, then don't go to an Ivy League college. How does that benefit your singing? Hire an agent, coach and spend some money on demos or promotion. Or better yet attend a music or performing arts school with a reputable program.

It doesn't help that most women who attend Ivies are likely in 5-10 years after graduation to settle down, quit work and become full-time homemakers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/national/20women.html?pagewanted=all

Liberals with their delusional idealism that career women can have a fulfilling family life and professional success is such a hindrance to maximum social utility.

[not too late]

Untalented and unconnected people should not go into the arts.

I loved the arts and did lots of painting, but never considered it as a career ever.

Look at 1/2 ∑ He is pretty good with a camera and has done some nice paintings and he wasn't fool enough to think he should not keep any other options open.

[not too late]

Nothing new under the sun. Chicks in the arts are whores.

Justinian's wife, an "actress"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodora_(wife_of_Justinian_I)

studio arts girls:

http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/04/intercourse-and-intelligence.php

[asdf]

ProleMadeGood,

Again, good comment.

The biggest losers are their fathers, who work some megacorp job back home so little Suzie can screw around in NYC with a tiny tiny % chance of actually doing anything with it. I've worked with guys living crappy lives so little Suzie had the perfect liberal arts experience and perfect young 20s subsidized city living. If it was genuine love I think I'd be more foregiving, but mostly they just seem to be sackless betas that can't say no to any of the women in their lives.

[berkeley]

On the west coast, asian parents have a better model. What some of them do is actually buy the apartment building or house in which the daughter lives while at college, then sell at a profit when they graduate.

[hbomb]

@Lexus Liberal, "How does that benefit your singing?"

what do you think gets him more tail: lead singer + state school or lead singer + ivy league?

[TMS71]

Vampire Weekend is not some tiny indie rock band eeking out a meager subsistence living out of their van. They are a big deal. Maybe the parents are thinking they'll strike gold again or maybe they just feel like they're playing with house money. Also, talent is genetic so if she has anything like her brother's talent she has a much better than average chance to make it.

[Turambar]

The NYT opines:

"Oh, to be 20-something and female in the third millennium. Granted, the job market does stink. And the sex is truly demeaning, though not unfamiliar. (What Nora Ephron described in a 1972 review of a grim piece of nonfiction called “The Girls in the Office” as the “rampant masochism” of modern young women is a plotline that runs from Mary McCarthy to Rona Jaffe, Helen Fielding to Lena Dunham. Why that has not evolved is beyond confounding.) "

Is anyone else confounded? Yeah didnt think so.

[Anonymous]

Her brother's band is very well known and he is probably a millionaire. Assuming his parents also subsidized him while he got his music career off the ground, perhaps they think it is worthwhile to give his sister a similar chance. Even if she fails, a 50% success rate isn't bad.

[n/a]

I think I would rather shoot myself than to be an artsy hipster with a mom who makes a spreadsheet and a brother who is probably an even bigger hipster douche.

[RandomMedStudent]

Quite a lot of people in my medical school class have tuition & living expenses paid by their parents. If the parents are affluent, they could see subsidized living in NYC for a few years as equivalent to a professional school. Of course, the success rate in the arts is much lower than in medicine, but so what?

[GMR]

Interesting dichotomy with this other NYT article about Williston, ND, where the unemployment rate is 1%. The condescending comments are amazing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/opinion/collins-where-the-jobs-are.html

[sestamibi]

I went to high school with her father. Amazing that she turned out that cute.

[superdestroyer]

Ms. Koenig is an NYU alumnist. That means 200K plus of tuition. http://nyulocal.com/on-campus/2010/09/09/nyu-alum-goes-viral-with-nerdy-sexy-video-fuck-me-ray-bradbury/

I guess they are good examples of what is wrong with female based humor: self-center, relationship oriented, and vulgar.

[DaveinHackensack]

What TM571 said. Definitely playing with the house's money now.

[ice hole]

What I learned from the article:

Cute girls with liberal arts inclinations from upper middle class backgrounds generally want a "meaningful" career, not just a job. A career somehow affiliated with the arts -- even if not as an artist -- is meaningful, and prestigous, just not lucrative. If they can miraculously land such a job, they will then bitch endlessly about the low pay, as if they had no idea going into it that this would be a low-paying job.

It's tough to make a living as an artist, and more specifically as a writer. Still, it's appealing to dream about.

It's tough to make a living in New York, and more specifically in Manhattan, and most specifically, as an "arts person." Still, it's appealing to dream about.

Careers in the arts are best pursued by people with a generous financial cushion provided by their parents. (This was true even for John Milton, btw.)

Cute girls in their 20s like to have lots of romances, romantic dramas, "asshole guys" (alphas) to vigourously screw and then bitch about, "dud-dates" to bitch about, but probably not screw -- though maybe indifferently and out of boredom, and a herd of beta worshipers to string along, but never to screw. This, collectively, constitutes their "love life."

Thank God for the NY Times. Otherwise, I never would have known.

[Peter A]

"Emma’s older brother graduated from Columbia and is the lead singer of an Indie rock band."

That's sort of like writing "Chris Jagger's older brother is the lead singer of an blues rock band."

Vampire Weekend are huge - they don't even count as an Indie rock band at this point. It is actually very disingenuous of the New York Times to treat the Bass/Koenigs as a "normal" New Jersey upper middle class family when the son is actually a major name in the pop music world.

[Peter A]

" If you wanted to become a garage band singer, then don't go to an Ivy League college."

You have no clue how this works, do you? It's all about connections, and musicians from Ivy League schools, or the tier right below (Amherst, Swarthmore, Wesleyan, etc.) get linked into a whole circuit of producers, managers, promoters, and A&R people that your average Slash wanna-be has no idea even exist. And since rock critics these days tend to have Ivy League literature degrees, they tend to react favorably to Ivy League rockers. It's hard to understand the critical lover for an indie band like "Dirty Projectors" for example if the Yale connection didn't exist. And then when your band burns out in 4 or 5 years, like most bands do, the Ivy League kids move on to marketing, promotion or whatever. An Ivy League degree won't make you Bono or Bruce Springsteen, but it will give you a good shot at actually making a solid career in the music industry.

[n/a]

"Quite a lot of people in my medical school class have tuition & living expenses paid by their parents."

And the douchebags will come out of medical school as even bigger douchebags claiming that "their hard work alone" is what got them their careers. Your comment pretty much destroys the conservative notion that "where ever you end up in life it's because of what you did or didn't do".

[RandomMedStudent]

I'd say if parents want to transmit wealth to the next generation, paying for medical school is an excellent option. Otherwise, the kid will have to get loans (which accrue interest) or may not go to medical school.

I'd never pay for a career in the arts, though

[nebbish]

n/a,

It isn't possible for most people to work a part-time job during medical school. The schools even discourage it. To attend a private med school in Manhattan, the only kind on the island, without parental support would require hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans on top of whatever the loans they've already accumulated from undergrad. I am acquainted with a few physicians who had to take the loan route, and the outcome isn't pretty. Money has been tight for them well into middle age.

[Jeff]

Holy cow, Vampire Weekend, is douchey as all hell. Maybe it is the sheer enormity of my testicular fortitude that turns me off to wimpy dudes who lack the true spirit; all I know is that whiny music stinks. But if lots of people like and enjoy Ezra's music, then I suppose he is talented. But this brings me back to the case I made a few posts back on nursing as a prole job and Ivy League types who must protect their sense of self via the promotion of classism.

As people have noticed many Ivy League types dominate in the managerial positions in the arts. However, we can clearly see that artistic ability is broad across the class and IQ spectrum. In fact, the best artists are likely not to be from the upper class because that strata is so small. This presents the smug, self-centered, Ivy graduate with a problem. He seems himself as so much better. But then comes along, not Ezra, but trailer trash Axle Rose who has more talent and 100x the je ne sais quoi of Ezra and everyone in the managerial ranks. What then, what does the Ivy douchebaggery do then? They only retrench into their feelings of superiority (it is noted that Westerners when confronted with oppositional evidence only dig deeper into their position) and promote more and more class warfare to the betterment of none of us.

Also, what kind of mom is more worried about her daughter's drinking than her riding the cock carousel? I suppose the kind that keeps her maiden name and has never bothered to understand that men and women are different.

[HS: I've previously discussed the fact that music is the one area in which the most successful people usually do NOT come from elite backgrounds. It's the opposite with acting, visual arts, and everything else.]

[RandomMedStudent]

http://www.advisory.com/Daily-Briefing/2012/07/20/For-women-primary-care-does-not-justify-cost

For women, it is not economically justifiable to go into primary care. After factoring in the cost of medical school and loss of wages during school and residency, it is economically better for women to become physician assistants (PAs). Male doctors work more and make more money, so it is still economically better to do primary care rather than be a PA (by not much though).

The skyrocketing cost of medical education has meant that even medical school is "not worth it" if you don't get into one of the high paying specialties... Today's medical students know this, hence the ever intensifying competition to get into high paying specialties.

I go to a med school that is part of a rich Ivy, so I was able to qualify for generous financial aid. Plus my parents help out. I only bear a fraction of the total cost of medical school, and I'm very grateful. That still doesn't mean I want to do primary care, but I'm glad to know that I won't be screwed even if I fail at doing something more lucrative.

[HS: A lot of what people do isn't based on pecuniary details. A woman may prefer the prestige of being a doctor over being some doctor's assistant.]

[asdf]

Jeff,

They don't care. Long after some white trash musician blows through their cash on the rock and roll lifestyle the Ivy Leaguers will have squirreled away the management promotion fees on them and a thousand other "talents." It is like when I played poker professionally. The house doesn't care who wins, they get their cut no matter what.

[RandomMedStudent]

[HS: A lot of what people do isn't based on pecuniary details. A woman may prefer the prestige of being a doctor over being some doctor's assistant.]

This is very true. Living in Manhattan, pursuing higher education, and things of this sort sometimes do not pay off. However, they impart status, increase the likelihood of landing a good spouse, etc.

[nebbish]

HS,

The woman physician won't feel very prestigious when she is working 80+ hours per week during internship and residency and getting crapped on by patients and attending physicians for not much more than hamburger money. For that matter, I doubt she would feel pretigious during medical school since she would lack both the title and any income. Prestige only comes when a physician is finished with training and earning money. If there are crushing loans, it's delayed even further. From what I've seen, medicine sucks the life out of you without any rewards until you're too old to have fun in life.

[Randommedstudent]

I thought about the issue of medicine sucking the life out of me before i decided to go to medical school. That often happens but not necessarily. Plenty of ppl have fun while in school and in training. U need to take yourself not too seriously and pick a lifestyle specialty. That's what i am doing.

Oh and patients only crap on you if you let them. You have to be alpha and not give in.

[Scarlet Knight]

For those who don't know Vampire Weekend, their song Holiday was played ad nauseum because it was featured in an ad for Tommy Hilfiger.

If you watched TV during the 2010 holiday season, you have heard this song.

[Just Speculating]

"Cute girls in their 20s like to have lots of romances, romantic dramas, "asshole guys" (alphas) to vigourously screw and then bitch about, "dud-dates" to bitch about, but probably not screw -- though maybe indifferently and out of boredom, and a herd of beta worshipers to string along, but never to screw. This, collectively, constitutes their "love life."

For a lot a guys, their 20s is a beta stage. When they hit their 30s and even their 40s, many of them become Alpha guys with money that these young women find attractive. Add to the fact that men look more manly when they get older, which women prefer over their boyish classmates in school or their youngish male collegues at work.

[Flico]

She is, fortunately, part of a small minority, but quite common in New York.