Unsurprising to anyone with a brain, free access to books and safe people with whom to discuss those books is great for teens' emotional wellbeing and development. www.tcpress.com/blog/young-p...
Something is missing from the debate over educationally suitable literature
Precisely why I adore chocolate-covered pretzels ^.^
I do realize that I've gotten off-track of the original point of this post, and I apologize. But schools where the answer is "throw money at everything" are....yes, toxic, toxic, toxic.
(God, now I'm remembering how hard teen!me tried to find cheaper alternatives, only to have friends still want the pricier option. For example: I couldn't afford to go to Lisa's Tea Treasures, so suggested we all dress up and make our own scones/tea sandwiches and do our own. They noped that. Sigh.)
Anyway, I'm not doing a good job explaining this in the character limit, but the point is: YES, it is deeply awful when wealthy public schools simply expect parents to fork over money for, say, a class trip abroad. I have spent a lot of therapy unpacking my feelings about money because of it.
The GUILT of it--of KNOWING I was intensely privileged and intensely ungrateful--was such a heavy thing, especially during lonely periods like the summer everyone was in Edinburgh. I resented so much all the knowledge and culture I missed because I didn't have the money my immediate peers had.
Teen!me was torn apart knowing how ungrateful I was...but also couldn't stop comparing when I was walking everywhere while everyone else was given cars; when I couldn't go on the "lifechanging" class trip to perform in Edinburgh; when I sat around restaurants eating nothing while friend ate, etc.
Ah, this is my neck of the woods, too. I grew up in Saratoga, which meant I was VERY privileged but also much LESS privileged than everyone in my immediate vicinity, and let me tell you, it FUCKED with me something bad.
Been a while since I read a first sentence as simple and brilliant as THE RITUAL, by Adam Nevill's: "And on the second day things did not get better."
Me: "Yeah, I'm driving 2 hours north tonight so that I can take an all-day spinning workshop tomorrow!" Therapist: "Surely there are loads of spin classes much closer to you?" Me: "....Not that kind of spinning."
