Jinjer 52: She and Her Narcissistic, Lazy Husband Are Riding on Coattails

[HerNameIsBuffy]

Continued from here...

Thanks @SassyPants for the thread title.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Coconut Flan

[The Mother Dust]

Quoting @apandaaries from the previous thread 
 

Quote

Lots of excellent points here about legacy admittances and the structural difficulties of moving up educationally.  It saddens me to see so many limiting their higher education to local, less expensive schools,  though. Education should be a well-funded right.   If any of us hope to see a doctor when we're elderly (or, you know, have a functioning society), then we'd better fund education for the youth today.

Higher education fees for public universities have risen astronomically as public funding has slowly been eroded.  (Except Alaska, where they just took 40% of the funding in some sort of slash and burn mania.  @Maggie Mae I'm so sorry for your state.  Everything I've read from higher ed publications has been terrifying, and many educators who haven't been eliminated are working on their escape plans.)

Since we're on the subject of Harvard, there have been a lot of discussions about whether or not they should even be charging students fees, since their endowment is massive -- like $40 billion massive. 

It's been an idea floated in a number of areas: https://money.com/harvard-free-tuition-endowment/

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/editorials/ct-harvard-free-tuition-edit-0130-20160129-story.html

Also noteworthy is the theory that if Harvard stopped charging, so would other Ivies (as though that'd be a bad thing). 

I'm of the opinion that we should be putting more public funding back into higher ed, and lowering fees for all students. We need an educated population, especially those who are motivated in that direction already. I also applaud the idea of private universities funding most students. Loans are an abomination, run by predatory companies who take orders from DeVos.  It's a terrible system.

It's also worth remembering that Ivies aren't the be-all, end-all of intelligentsia.   Jared Kushner's father bought Jared's admittance, and he certainly wasn't the first father to do so: https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/11/18/report-kushner-got-into-harvard-after-dad-s-donation Only took $2.5 million to overlook Jared's flaws! And enhance Kushner's resume and network,  to the detriment of the nation.

NYU and (I think Columbia?) have recently made their medical schools tuition free.

Edited January 21, 2020 by The Mother Dust

[meep]

Jinger posted on instagram about her surprise birthday party. Have we seen her in a dress that goes above the knees already? If only just barely. Is it just me or does she look like she's wearing slippers?

[AussieKrissy]

1 hour ago, meep said:

Jinger posted on instagram about her surprise birthday party. Have we seen her in a dress that goes above the knees already? If only just barely. Is it just me or does she look like she's wearing slippers?

She wore a pretty high tennis skirt 

[JermajestyDuggar]

The surprise party posting seems weird. First of all, I don’t think any of her family was there. And second, they are posting about it a month late. These two post about every tiny thing that happens in each hour of their lives. Why did they wait a month to post about a party?

[Seculardaisy]

1 hour ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

The surprise party posting seems weird. First of all, I don’t think any of her family was there. And second, they are posting about it a month late. These two post about every tiny thing that happens in each hour of their lives. Why did they wait a month to post about a party?

I’m gonna be that person for a second and say maybe she’s pregnant and they thought the photos were telling? Maybe an announcement is around the corner? 

[marmalade]

1 hour ago, Seculardaisy said:

I’m gonna be that person for a second and say maybe she’s pregnant and they thought the photos were telling? Maybe an announcement is around the corner? 

Except she looked as skinny as ever in her suit at the G3 conference last week.

[Melissa1977]

3 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

The surprise party posting seems weird. First of all, I don’t think any of her family was there. And second, they are posting about it a month late. These two post about every tiny thing that happens in each hour of their lives. Why did they wait a month to post about a party?

She is an adult woman living far from her family. I don't think it's weird not seeing relatives there. Her parents would find the party too *modern* and her siblings are busy at home. 

I agree that the posting time is weird. Maybe they hadn't good pictures for some reason and had to wait for someone sending them? And not a single picture of Jeremy.

[AussieKrissy]

11 minutes ago, Melissa1977 said:

She is an adult woman living far from her family. I don't think it's weird not seeing relatives there. Her parents would find the party too *modern* and her siblings are busy at home. 

I agree that the posting time is weird. Maybe they hadn't good pictures for some reason and had to wait for someone sending them? And not a single picture of Jeremy.

#blessed

[meep]

Jeremy did post about the party but included a picture with him included. lol

[Cleopatra7]

To go back to what @SilverBeach was saying in the previous thread, I agree that authority figures in the black community need to emphasize academics among the youth, but I would also say the same is true for those in white communities. Americans, regardless of race, do not value or respect intelligence. If adults don’t value learning for learning’s sake, why should we expect kids to act any differently?  If schools put more resources into football than academics, why should we be surprised that so many graduates are functionally illiterate? The Duggars and their ilk are unusually ignorant, but it’s really more a matter of degree than kind that separates them from the rest of the American public.
 

Speaking from personal experience again, I have noticed that whites in private schools think they’re the second coming of the Algonquin Round Table, when they’re really more D-list Animal House. The prime difference is that they have been socialized to “play the game” and operate under the assumption that they’re going to college at a young age, while for poorer students of color, college is optional and generally not a realistic expectation. There’s a lot more to getting and staying in college than having good grades and high SAT scores.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

1 hour ago, Cleopatra7 said:

The prime difference is that they have been socialized to “play the game” and operate under the assumption that they’re going to college at a young age, while for poorer students of color, college is optional and generally not a realistic expectation.

I want to thank you and @SilverBeach for taking the time to have this conversation and point out that which isn't readily apparent to those of us who haven't experienced it.  

To the quote above, I think this is huge.  In my community (neighborhood, schools, family, social circles) not going to college wasn't an option.  The only conversations were about where you would go, not if you would go.  I don't know one person from my high school who didn't go to college.  

A lot of life is about expectations.  I think we need to address two things when it comes to our society as a whole and that's to make college affordable and attainable for every person who wants to go, and also to have more vocational options that pay a good wage for those who want/need a different track.

[AprilQuilt]

2 hours ago, Cleopatra7 said:

Speaking from personal experience again, I have noticed that whites in private schools think they’re the second coming of the Algonquin Round Table, when they’re really more D-list Animal House. The prime difference is that they have been socialized to “play the game” and operate under the assumption that they’re going to college at a young age, while for poorer students of color, college is optional and generally not a realistic expectation. There’s a lot more to getting and staying in college than having good grades and high SAT scores.

You've put your finger on something I've been thinking about for a while now.  I went to a grammar school in the UK (so, still a state school with no fees, but a selective intake based on academic achievement/potential) and had dinner with a few schoolfriends a little while ago. I came away really seeing the differences that must always have existed between us: friend A is a white middle-class daughter of doctors; B, the daughter of West African immigrants; C, a white daughter of a single immigrant mother and working-class British father with no university graduates in the family.

For B, getting into our school was a huge, huge deal. It totally changed what kind of education she had access to and what options might be available to her. It had been really important to her family that she get a place, and they prized hard work and study. I remember her being a really serious student. C agreed that it opened doors for her, but it was sort of an accident - her family were quite baffled by/critical of it, she was generally chaotic and not well supported in her study, and she left at 16. For the doctor's daughter, this was the sort of elite education she was ALWAYS bound for, and if she hadn't got a place at the school, her parents would have paid for her to go private. Like it just went without saying that she'd go to a prestigious school, get good grades, go to Oxbridge, and it would have taken a seriously dramatic mis-step to get her off that course.  Yes, she worked hard, but to a model that had existed for generations in her family, while the grammar school context was quite new to B and C's families.

As an 11-year-old child I simply had no idea. Once we shared that '[School Name] Girls' identity, I never really looked past it to see where my peers differed from myself (I fit closest to girl A's description, but not precisely), and hadn't a clue what tremendous effort some of their families had put into getting them where I had been put without too much deliberation. I guess it reflects well on the school that it never occurred to me to think of anyone as 'different', but I wish also that there had been more space for us to share our various truths. It was a very multicultural, immigrant student body, but somehow that never felt reflected - we were all kind of assimilated.

For what it's worth, A, B and C all went to Cambridge and now occupy basically the same milieu, although A has bought a viciously expensive London townhouse with family help; B puts a lot back into the now-gentrifying area of South London where she grew up; and C is a free-spirited drifter who has lived all over the world. Even so, their children will grow up with more similarities than differences. 

[apandaaries]

@Cleopatra7 I agree completely. And in how many high schools do we have coaches teaching classes they’re barely qualified for, just so they can stay on as coaches? My daughter had the most burnt out high school English teacher last year — they listened to an audiobook of To Kill a Mockingbird! But he was apparently a fine basketball coach for the boys’ teams. ?

It’s also fascinating to me to notice cultural differences. A Black friend from Montreal compared her experiences to those of her American cousins — totally different values, expectations, and educational outcomes (and I believe Canada’s excellent education system has a lot to do with this). 
I still remember taking GE classes at a university famous for its sports. A handful of folks would attend the lectures, but the class would be full on midterm and final days...not to mention that student athletes had free tutors available in any subject they needed. 
I get that athletes have different schedules and whatnot, and the support they need is different, but it’s also challenging as a student to see the various perks that they get without feeling like the attempt at scholarship is less valued than athletics.

I’d also bet that as a society, we could name more quarterbacks than philosophers or theories. I suppose these facts also helped get us to the spot where we now have the orange menace in the White House. 
God bless America. Lord knows we need it.

[Idlewild]

11 hours ago, meep said:

Jeremy did post about the party but included a picture with him included. lol

But of course..

No acknowledgement hashtags for the party so presumably they weren’t able to get someone to organise it for free. 

[artdecades]

I think the post about her party was weird because she said how Jeremy invited all her really close friends. She hasn't even lived in LA for a year. How close can she be with these people? Then again, in their culture they marry people they have known for a few months so her idea of closeness may be skewed.

[VeryNikeSeamstress]

Jinger's party dress is cut in a way that it could work as a maternity dress. Doesn't mean she's pregnant, but...

Edited January 23, 2020 by VeryNikeSeamstress

[patsymae]

"Some poor parents stress education, it's a stereotype that they don't care. "

 

There are towns in the US where the McDonald's fills up every weeknight with parents and kids so the kids can do their homework, since either the family doesn't have Internet access or the whole neighborhood doesn't have broadband.

Doesn't spell "not caring" to me

[HerNameIsBuffy]

31 minutes ago, VeryNikeSeamstress said:

Jinger's party dress is cut in a way that it could work as a maternity dress. Doesn't mean she's pregnant, but...

Babydoll dresses/tops make everyone look pregnant no matter how thin.  It’s the cut.

[jillsdopplerofdoom]

The attention seekers probably didn't release the photos for so long because they wanted to stir up speculation as to why they didn't post them for so long.

Edited January 23, 2020 by jillsdopplerofdoom

[squiddysquid]

That elite "humanistic" education and the entitled brats it produced had a major downside for them when the applied for the medical school entry exam.

The Med Uni had an Info day for prospective student explaining the details of the exam and there was a row of elite jerks who were all like. We're from this and that school, why do we even have to take the test, of course we'll get in... We didn't see any of them later

I switched from one of those "elite" (public) junior highs to one focusing mainly on biology and science , that got a lot of side-eye. Like that Eco-hippy school etc. we'll guess what bio comes with a lot of genetics and anatomy with a hefty side helping of chemistry and physics - your basic premed courses (though at the time I didn't think about medschool - I was just a huge science geek)

Being fluent in French and reciting literature didn't help you when taking an entry exam for medschool. I got in with minimal effort, while everyone from that elite place failed - same story the year after that. (granted I was the only one from my class applying for med school, while the half of the elite class students tried to get in).

That cocky "I'm going to study medicine" attitude didn't help either. Not as in if I get in - even their parents would just say "Oh yeah he'll go to med school".

A friend of mine is an (Muslim, female) immigrant who applied for medschool too. Her parents pushed their kids to study hard, cause they said that's why they came here, so their kids could have a better life. I think it's also the reason Eastern European countries fared well after joining the EU, education was always highly valued, even during communism.

The only assholes that gave me trouble were the pre med anatomy professors. They were a "special department" you had to show up in suits for the exams, stand up and clap for the professor at the beginning and the end of the lecture... And the first questions they asked was "hands up, which of you enjoyed a classic education - big Latinum and ancient Greek - ahh there are my students" you would loose points in the Anatomy exams for using wrong grammar - like getting Latin plural wrong - Well, assholes. Thankfully they have nothing to say after premed - and get ridiculed by surgeons (who use different 'latin" terms for anatomical structures, yeah petty and fucking confusing - it's all a huge dick measuring contest.

[BernRul]

@ShesCrafty I want to tell you a story about my coworker. Her first year teaching she overheard a parent talking to one of her students.

"I'm sick of all these white teachers coming into our neighborhood and saying the kids can do anything they want. That's not true "

At first she was offended. She thought, of course my students can do anything they want. But over time she realized that parent was right. She came from a privileged background; our students don't, and are at a disadvantage. 99.99% will not be able to do whatever they want.

im not the one limiting these kids. I'm not the one who cut the funding to their schools, and who has stopped wages from going up. I bust my ass every day to give my kids my all while getting paid peanuts, and have always encouraged them and tried to keep motivating them. But I would be lying if I pretended they have a fair chance. I pray, every day, they beat the odds, while knowing that unless there is radical political and social change, it is less likely.

@nausicaa I can't now because I'm on mobile, but if you want I can post links later showing the increasing income and wealth gap,  the incarceration rate for the poor and black, the funding for rich schools versus poor and working class ones, the decreasing middle class, and other related statistics. I don't think I'm being hyperbolic.  I think it's the ugly reality that we don't want to face. As an avid history lover, I'm convinced without radical change, America's class conflict will implode on itself. 

 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

3 hours ago, BernRul said:

At first she was offended. She thought, of course my students can do anything they want.

That whole concept needs to stop across the board.

No one can do anything they want.  I grew up with a fair amount of privilege but I was never going to be a professional basketball player or ballerina because my talents lie elsewhere.

The kid who struggles with math to a serious degree is going to have a hell of a time in most STEM careers, but could excel brilliantly in other areas.

Kids should be encouraged to find their personal gifts and aptitudes and find their own unique path.  The whole you can be or do anything is just a cliché and so obviously incorrect as to be pointless.  

What everyone can do is find a way to contribute to the world with their talents and strengths and make a life for themselves and a better place for others.  That's what should be encouraged.

[PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea]

13 hours ago, squiddysquid said:

That elite "humanistic" education and the entitled brats it produced had a major downside for them when the applied for the medical school entry exam.

The Med Uni had an Info day for prospective student explaining the details of the exam and there was a row of elite jerks who were all like. We're from this and that school, why do we even have to take the test, of course we'll get in... We didn't see any of them later

I switched from one of those "elite" (public) junior highs to one focusing mainly on biology and science , that got a lot of side-eye. Like that Eco-hippy school etc. we'll guess what bio comes with a lot of genetics and anatomy with a hefty side helping of chemistry and physics - your basic premed courses (though at the time I didn't think about medschool - I was just a huge science geek)

Being fluent in French and reciting literature didn't help you when taking an entry exam for medschool. I got in with minimal effort, while everyone from that elite place failed - same story the year after that. (granted I was the only one from my class applying for med school, while the half of the elite class students tried to get in).

That cocky "I'm going to study medicine" attitude didn't help either. Not as in if I get in - even their parents would just say "Oh yeah he'll go to med school".

A friend of mine is an (Muslim, female) immigrant who applied for medschool too. Her parents pushed their kids to study hard, cause they said that's why they came here, so their kids could have a better life. I think it's also the reason Eastern European countries fared well after joining the EU, education was always highly valued, even during communism.

The only assholes that gave me trouble were the pre med anatomy professors. They were a "special department" you had to show up in suits for the exams, stand up and clap for the professor at the beginning and the end of the lecture... And the first questions they asked was "hands up, which of you enjoyed a classic education - big Latinum and ancient Greek - ahh there are my students" you would loose points in the Anatomy exams for using wrong grammar - like getting Latin plural wrong - Well, assholes. Thankfully they have nothing to say after premed - and get ridiculed by surgeons (who use different 'latin" terms for anatomical structures, yeah petty and fucking confusing - it's all a huge dick measuring contest.

I'm curious where you are because (from the outside; I'm in earth sciences), medical school in Ontario is pretty much dominated by students who have an undergraduate degree in Biology, Life Sciences, Applied Health Sciences etc. In fact, Ontario has made an effort to broaden the backgrounds of the incoming students on the hope that Arts students may have better empathy!

I think the actual requirements to get in aren't that science-heavy; certainly 2nd-year Organic Chemistry is required but I don't think that many other sci classes are.

Ontario also doesn't have any private unis (unless they're bible colleges) and many uni students here in southern ON are the kids of immigrants. Many of those immigrants want their kids to be Drs/lawyers/engineers, sometimes regardless of the kids' wishes and interests.

The one equivalent of a "snooty liberal arts degree" here might be the Arts and Science degree from McMaster U. It had a high admission average, and many who graduated went on to be professors, lawyers and maybe doctors. However, the ones I knew didn't come off as snooty and most were middle class or upper middle class.

I guess the real snooty types go to Queen's U in Kingston and/or to the US!

[BernRul]

24 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

That whole concept needs to stop across the board.

No one can do anything they want.  I grew up with a fair amount of privilege but I was never going to be a professional basketball player or ballerina because my talents lie elsewhere.

The kid who struggles with math to a serious degree is going to have a hell of a time in most STEM careers, but could excel brilliantly in other areas.

Kids should be encouraged to find their personal gifts and aptitudes and find their own unique path.  The whole you can be or do anything is just a cliché and so obviously incorrect as to be pointless.  

What everyone can do is find a way to contribute to the world with their talents and strengths and make a life for themselves and a better place for others.  That's what should be encouraged.

I agree with this. Especially because a lot of special education students don't fit the "typical" education mold but have their own set of gifts and unique ways of looking at things.