We moved our kids to a private school during covid since our public schools shut down for a year. The school was expensive but we can afford it. We noticed immediately that the academics were miles better than in our low socioeconomic area public school and our young kids really enjoyed it and quickly made friends. Everything has honestly been great.

However, I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten to know the parents of my kids friends, I’ve realized that while they are wonderful people, successful, and always happy to help and serve, they don’t (generally) share the same level of humility as the families in our public school. There are a lot of “keeping up with the Jones’” attitudes, etc.

We are going to be moving our kids back to the public school next year. We feel like it’s worth sacrificing some of the academic and other advantages in order for our kids to have a diverse experience with a majority of kids that come from backgrounds very different than their own. We feel like that will help them build attitudes and character that will serve them far more than what they would get at the private school.

Obviously this is just for our family, but it has been easy to observe the unique challenges among families that don’t even have generational wealth. These challenges are very common in wealthy families, probably a majority IMO. And I’m not talking about “ruined” kids here, but just some negative attitudes.