The Babysitters wealth

[supernatural babe]

I was wondering about this and thinking why they all don't live in Kristy and Abby's neighborhood. I mean they all live in one of the most affluent states. Not to mention the job titles their parents work, tend to bring in tons of money under normal circumstances. (Lawyers, investment bankers, vice presidents in NYC) Stacey has lived on both the upper east & westside and neither of these places are cheap to live in.

[greer]

Welcome back! Haven't seen you here for a long time.

I've blogged about this a few times (http://blog.stoneybrookite.org/2007/11/05/real-millionaire/ ; blog.stoneybrookite.org/2009/03/26/child-labored-mcgill-secret-millionaire/). My guess is that there's money, and then there's MONEY. Also, I can see Richard and the Kishis both being frugal enough to not want to spend a lot of money on a big showy house. But it is confusing that Kristy's mom was a struggling single mother and lived on the same block as a successful lawyer (Richard) and investment banker (Mr. Kishi). It was always pretty clear that Stacey and Dawn's dads, at least, were pretty well off. The kind of house that Dawn's dad has in Orange County and then the full-time housekeeper he hires, both Dawn and Jeff going to private school in CA, Stacey's parents living on the UES and UWS and also going to a fancy private school and taking all sorts of vacations... And then Abby's mom as a publishing exec was somehow able to afford a gigantic house? I do also see Abby's family having family money--her grandparents had a house in the Hamptons and threw a big fancy party every summer.

I think to live in Stoneybrook in general you had to be well off, but those who lived in Kristy's neighborhood were megarich. Also, my mom worked at Princeton University in the seventies, and she said that the town was very snobby. So I can see Ann growing up and not really having a good understanding of what "middle class" really means in the United States since she is from such a wealthy area herself and her parents seem to come from pretty upper class circles. Like her mom went to Mt. Holyoke, I believe, and I'm pretty sure that for that generation, only a girl from a wealthy family would be sent to that kind of fancy private college. Her father is pretty well known as a cartoonist; he worked for the New Yorker and I came across his name a few times when I interned there one summer. (Here's an article on him: blogs.princeton.edu/graphicarts/2009/03/martin.html)

So all in all, I think Ann wrote what she knew about, and she wrote about a well-to-do white collar town where everyone's parents were doctors/lawyers/execs.