Affluenza

I must have been living under a rock during 2013 (I admit I was detached from the news and in my own little world of dealing with acne, working a lot, and figuring out who I was) because I missed the big "affluenza" case of Ethan Crouch, who killed 4 people by driving into them but his lawyers argued "affluenza" due to his rich upbringing making him unaware of societal standards. I hope not to raise Baby Girl Yan under affluenza conditions and afflict her with it, and I wouldn't consider our family "affluent," but there are some privileges I get to enjoy because I'm upper-middle class that might have me think differently than the average person. I have the luxury of watching Jeopardy, learning about trivia, playing fantasy baseball (I spent way too much time this past week looking at baseball stats during the fantasy baseball playoffs), having weekends off, being able to buy anything I want from Amazon that I want.....these are privileges that only a select percentage of the population in the richest countries can do, and I'm afraid it's made me pretty soft. I really felt it recently when I told my local Subway sandwich artist to "not work too hard" and go out and enjoy the nice weather we were having...he replied that he can't he has to work......later I found out his work day can be from 8AM to 9:30PM at night, and he does this to help support his family in Nepal; he can't take any days off. I've been so accustomed to being able to dictate my own hours, work when I want, get paid a good salary because of my advanced education and social standing that I've lost some empathy for the people my parents were when they came to America, and that I got a taste of my first few years of childhood (before we moved to the suburbs)... the lower middle class of America doesn't think about babymoons to Bora Bora (one of my law school friends just got back from one this past week) or going to the LLWS, Little League World Series, or have time to be on Jeopardy subreddit, or go see the newest movie releases like Spiderman Brand New Day or the new Jason Statham movie....the lower middle class probably works on the weekends or is recovering from a long work day. Speaking of affluenza....we're thinking about sending Baby Girl Yan to daycare, another middle-class luxury of sending your kid away to let strangers take care of them so I can focus on my own life. It's intimidating not only because baby has intense stranger danger that we don't know how she will handle being away from parents for 8 hours or so at a time, but I also don't know how I will handle not being near baby for hours at at time. (I'll probably be OK, but even me, a pretty callous person, will think about what baby is doing when she's not with me). Getting sick will be a big deal (a real sickness, not affluenza. Maybe influenza). And speaking of LLWS: I checked another bucket list item off my list, a very affluenza- related list (things get added as I got more comfortable with my social standing and economic status in life). I will say most of the people who attended also suffer at least a little from affluenza; very privileged to do Little League and be on ESPN at a young age, takes a lot of work from parents, so I admire the parents who make sacrifices for their kids, but also it's a very upper-middle class, suburban thing to be in Little League, at least in the US. There were international teams from Mexico, Japan, etc., but baseball is kind of a symptom of affluenza. If you have time to go to baseball games for 3 hours (getting to and back from stadium makes it more like 5 hours) just to watch some guys play a kids' game and drink beers, eat ballpark food while sitting.... you have a pretty privileged life. Alas, for a baseball fan, it's a pretty dreamlike scenario: a small town in the middle of rural Pennsylvania called Williamsport, PA, on an exotically named river called the Susquehanna, 2 little league stadiums built right on top of a hill from one another, former MLB players coming by all the time to support the kids.....it's definitely one of the highlights for a baseball fan, and I just regret I wasn't able to participate as a kid, and Baby Girl Yan probably won't neither...unless she REALLY likes baseball.