Based on the charts we described in class, I would describe my family’s social class as upper middle class. Combined, I think my parents make approximately $150,000 a year. My parents are both public school employees, and not in particularly wealthy areas. My mom is a school social worker and my Dad is a high school teacher. I think that, as a family surviving off of income from the public school system, my family is incredibly rare. I am lucky enough to be able to be raised in an environment where my parents income protects me and allowed me the space to struggle with my mental health for a very long time without the added pressure of needing to find a job to help support myself and my family. It is something that I think about often when considering how my social class has advantaged me.
I dropped out of college after a graduated in 2021 because my mental health was the worst it had been in a decade of very bad mental health. Because of my parents income, I was able to have the luxury of suffering at home without having to think about how I would eat or where I would live. It is hard to think about how much worse my mental health could have gotten if I were facing poverty in addition to what I was going through. As a mentally ill person, I am so very lucky to be of a higher social class and so very angry that there are so many people who have to worry about so much while also dealing with poor mental health. (not to mention how poverty creates conditions that lead to negative mental health outcomes)On campus, I don’t think I’ve talked to anyone of a noticeably higher class than I. My brother, who attends U of M Ann Arbor, has certainly shared stories of students who are from very wealthy families and have had very cosmopolitan lives and many opportunities growing up that seem pretty unfathomable when thinking of how most of students at Wayne State live.
When hearing about these very wealthy students, you can’t help but think of how many more obstacles people of lower social classes must go through in order to get to the same place. I have definitely met people on Wayne State’s campus who are of lower social class than I am, and it really makes you reevaluate the school system in general. There are some students who have to put in so much work to survive financially outside of the work that they are expected to complete inside the classroom, while there are other students who just have their school work to focus on who are judged academically the same as the people who have to work outside of school. It makes me frustrated that that people look at things like academic honors programs and grade point averages and don’t consider how different people simply did not have the same opportunity to even dedicate time to school work. It makes me think of just how elitist it can be to have such a complex built up about doing well in school and getting good grade because everyone simply did not have the same resources to rely on while they were in school. I am, once again, very lucky to have had the resources financially to focus on school and do well. If I had to work to support my family while I was in school like some of my friends had to, I don’t think I would have done as well.
