A discussion at neighborhood book club the other night: being the "poor people" at the school-that's pretty funny considering we all live in houses worth 1million dollars, most of the people there have advanced degrees (including 2 MD families) and no one appears to be "struggling" in any way.  We all take nice trips, drive expensive cars and have tons of "stuff" -yet compared to some of the other  really wealthy people at the school, we are decidedly middle class.  And listening to the other women, clearly this has been a topic of conversation within their families.  I don't know if I feel immune because my kids' friends are all like us (or I know they have "less" than we have), I certainly don't feel like our family wants for anything, plus I just don't care.  I don't feel the need to keep up with other people.  And there's also the fact that I have WAY more (and my kids have much more) than I had growing up.  In retrospect, I had a perfectly fine house, we took trips, I went to a private high school and college-but it felt like we were definitely the "poorer" people.  Maybe because of my parents' insecurities regarding money and status.  And it seemed like all the other parents in Dominican were lawyers, doctors-and since neither of my parents graduated from college, I'm sure it was a weird thing.  I also can't help but realize that this is the other side of the coin from living in an expensive suburb for your kid:  there's so much homogeneity.  And everything becomes about comparison because everyone has so much.  If we all lived in a more "mixed" area, the schools would be crummy but there wouldn't be that weird feeling of consumerism and keeping up with people.