My Upcoming Conversation With Isabel Cowles Murphy About Children and Privilege
Tuesday June 17th at 2 pm EDT
I’ll be talking with friend and fellow writer
who writes personal essays that I’m always eager to read at her Substack .Here is the link/invite to our Substack Live Tuesday June 17th at 2PM EDT.
After my conversation last week with Natasha Joukovsky1 about why the fertility rate has fallen, it will be especially interesting to talk to Isabel who has four young children and lives in an affluent NYC suburb whose natural beauty she often features in her writing.
Isabel set out our topic as follows:
“David and I will discuss the challenge of raising children in atmospheres of advantage, which, David suggests, has gotten harder in the last twenty-five years. What interests me most, though, is why we’re squeamish about privilege in the first place. Is it because privilege = power and we don’t really want to give that up? And can we talk about our privileges without becoming performative or disingenuous?”
Repeating the link/calendar invite for convenience.
Is this at 2 or 5 eastern? Confused. Thanks
I hope I catch this,by luck or chance. Id like to sneak a thought. My 3 least favourite words now 'CONVENIENCE' 'INFRASTRUCTURE' and 'PRIVILEGE' but the last one had slipped my mind. The thing is (I'm in UK) lots of people are UNDERPRIVILEGED. Some people are PRIVILEGED. So what word fits the people in the middle. It's total nonsense. If anyone who isn't in rags and homeless is 'privileged' then is living in a modest two up two down terraced house being privileged. The other thing is (why cant I write short comments?) I know someone who lives like a bag lady (it's not me) but is financially OK for sure. And I've known people who to me seemed affluent,and they were,from hard work,but they saw themselves as 'working class' like their old mates from school. It seems to be that everyone thinks the ones just above them are where rich starts,as in 'bad person not going to heaven ' rich. It's an interesting subject. Also there is a converse side to bringing up wealthy children to be nice people. There are people who take a pride in inculcating in their kids a ridiculous pride in being poor. It's kind of political,it's fake and I know because I was a kid in that sort of household (but it was really more one parent than the other). Property is Theft. Wot about The Workers.