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comicteaparty · 4 years

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February 10th-February 16th, 2020 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from February 10th, 2020 to February 16th, 2020. The chat focused on Betrayal by Alex Lewis.

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Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Betrayal by Alex Lewis~! (https://alexmakescomics.com/betrayal/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace until February 16th, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Discussions are freeform, but we do offer discussion prompts in the pins for those who’d like to have them. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic! Whether you finish the comic or can only read a few pages, everyone is welcome to join and chat with us!

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 1

1. What did you like about the beginning of the comic?

2. What has been your favorite moment in the comic (so far)?

3. Who is your favorite character?

4. Which characters do like seeing interact the most?

5. What is something you like about the art? If you have a favorite illustration, please share it!

6. What is a theme you like that the comic explores?

7. What do you like about the comic’s story or overall related content? 8. Overall, what do you think the comic’s strengths are?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Delphina

Just finished reading! I really found the part with Aune's "book of secrets" such a heartbreaking sequence. Alex using the blue pen kind of reinforces the themes of differentness and being an outsider not only in her outside world, but even just in the context of being honest about her own feelings. https://alexmakescomics.com/2019/06/07/chapter-six/

I also really felt for her in Chapter 8, when talking about her relationship with Aune and saying "the more time I spent with her, the more of myself I lost trying to keep up with her. It didn't matter to me at all. I liked myself better when I was with her." Just again, this theme of finding something to define herself when she'd been adrift, but not always in an honest or healthy way. https://alexmakescomics.com/2019/08/11/chapter-eight/

Eilidh (Lady Changeling)

I like the art style - it's very unique!

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

I like the way the comic ends on sort of an open-ended note. It's not very often that we get completed comics here on CTP, and I think this comic's ending is weirdly satisfying in its incompleteness. Like we don't know whether Aune and Alex make up, but we know that they're both open to it, y'know? I also looked into the Harold Pinter play Betrayal (which this comic is partially based off), and it's pretty interesting the ways they're similar and different. Like the story regards a group of friends and their romantic relationships (and them betraying each other, of course), but the main group of characters is two girls and one boy rather than two men and one woman. I'm curious how many of the changes are due to it being partially a memoir of the author's life and how many are the result of just creating an interesting fictional story about high schoolers.

I also really like the comic's use of flashbacks to tell Alex's story - flashing back to her childhood contextualizes her experiences as a highschooler really well.

RebelVampire

I really like in general how the story is told with a non-linear timeline. Not a lot of stories can actually pull them off successfully, because you run a high risk of confusing the audience. However, despite this one time jumping around a lot, it was never confusing. I think I chalk this up to the fact that the focus on the comic is not the plot itself but the relationships. So you don't need to know the timeline exactly to be able to empathize, experience, and understand what is going on in the relationships. So this is something I really enjoy about the comic. I really love non-linear when it's done well, and this is done well in that regard.

What I enjoy about the beginning of the comic is just how damn awkward everything is. Like, everything about their interactions is exactly why ill never go to a high school reunion. Cause there's this expectation to be super impressed with ppl (hence shallow comments) while also being a mind reader (like knowing someone doesnt go by an old name anymore). It's embarrassing and horrible and the comic really hit at some of my deeper social anxieties that while I've grown from, never will quite be gone. So bravo for making benign horror XD(edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Woah, I was not expecting to read a completed comic here! That was a nice change of pace. I really agree with the people praising the non-linear timeline. Using a highschool reunion as a framing device was an excellent decision

I wonder if the main character was gay or asexual?

Alex_makes_comics

Hello, I'm Alex. I made this comic - and I'm crying reading your comments. I've never had people review this book before. Some of the chapters only had about two views before this week so... This is very big for me. Hooboy. In answer to ongoing questions: changes to the Betrayal script from Harold Pinter's play were made to make it fit my experiences. The play is always a question of who is betraying who in a toxic love triangle. It's a jumping off point for me to talk about my memories. I went to see it and it hit a chord, after which I immediately sat down and wrote this. I love how the title of the play conceals who is betraying who: betrayal is a flexible concept. Hiding behind Pinter's words meanwhile ,when I have to, makes it easier to share my memories with others without self censoring. I am always terrified of people I know reading this book! In answer to the question of orientation, I'm bisexual if that helps anyone

RebelVampire

My favorite moment in the comic I would say is the ending. I like that it's open-ended and that there's no clear leaning one way or another. It's kind of up to the reader to judge the events they just saw. Not to mention, I feel the open-ending nature fits the mood of the comic in that relationships aren't straight forward and constantly in a flux. So having the ending be not entirely clear suits that well. As for a favorite character, I'm honestly not sure I could pick one in this case. Everyone is so human and I feel like picking a favorite would kind of be like picking a side. Or kind of like your friends trying to ask you to rank them in terms of how much you like them. That would be a challenge I'm not up for in this case. As for interactions, definitely Alex and Aune. The relationship there is fascinating from the way the story is told, so I'm never quite sure what to make of it, especially when knowing how the relationship sours. And since its through their interactions we get to know Aune, it almost feels like a character study in a way whenever the two interact.

Before I blather too much in one day, one thing I like about the comic is how different the kid versions of the characters look as opposed to the adults. I feel it's more true to life since a lot of adults do change a ton from how they looked at kids. So while theres definitely similarities, the age progression just felt really natural.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I agree with what Rebel said about the age progression feeling natural. If I could describe this comic in one word, I would maybe choose "realistic."

It does a great job of protraying that feeling of growing up and leaving things behind

Emotions and drama that feel so important as a child and as a high schooler turn out to really not matter that much at all

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 2

9. Given the story’s title, in what ways do we see betrayal throughout the story, and which moment stuck out to you the most regarding the subject? What can be learned from the story in regards to dealing with it?

10. What do you think the story can teach us regarding the nature of relationships and how they change as we grow older? In what ways do these events perhaps relate to your own life or what about the storytelling makes them relatable in general?

11. What do you think the story has to say about growing up in general, both in regards to how we change and how the people around us change? If applicable, why do you think coming of age stories like this are important?

12. How do you interpret the end of chapter 10 where Alex and Aune finally interact? What do you think each character is feeling? Overall, do you think their relationship can be repaired after the damage is done?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

12) i didbt read the ending as starting to repair a relationship. I saw it as leaving your past behind. Also she doesn't seem to understand the damage she did to their relationship, so i don't think the main character would want to reconnect

Kabocha

Oh, dang. So I just binged the entirety of this comic, and there's something about this that feels a little... close to home, I guess? I really empathize with Alex -- the feeling of having someone who you love just kind of up and ditch you like that... That hurts. Granted, her situation was a bit more complicated, but... hhh. I think at best, she might go the route of wanting to be friendly with Aune later, but it just isn't gonna work out. That pain still exists, and even if Aune is past it, Alex pretty clearly isn't. And I think it's understandable. It's not a grudge, but more like that kind of awkward avoidance because you don't wanna get hurt again. just... aaaaaaaaaa. This was a very good read. Thank you @Alex_makes_comics.

RebelVampire

I do think what @Eightfish (Puppeteer) touched onto is the comic's strength: realism. Every event in this comic is so relateable since I think everyone can say they've at least been in a similar situation at least one of those times. So it forms a real connection with the reader so easily, thus allowing it to pull on the heart strings. Let's talk about themes and stuff though! So for in regards to betrayal, the moment that stuck out to me the most was the classroom convo between Alex and Aune where Aune is kind of distant and doesn't seem to really like anyone anymore and wants Alex to do break up dirty work. The reason this stuck with me is you can so clearly see it as a betrayal, and yet at the same time, it's such a benign thing. Like nobody is being literally stabbed in the back, nobody is having money stolen, no one is stealing anybody's lover. It's just...distance and a friendship falling apart for various reasons. Which I think is really the sad part. Since rather than dealing with betrayal, I think this story shows the many different forms it can take. And that sometimes its not this overdramatic thing. Sometimes its a slow burn that just singes for hours and hours.

However, I do like the story's maturity in that it shows us relationships are hard and need active maintenance. Cause without that, they fall apart. Additionally, as we grow older, its sad but common place friendships wont last. People change all the times, especially interests. So in the end those changes will drive people apart. At the very least I certainly haven't talked to my high school friends in years since many of them moved, got married, had kids, etc. Even during high school I had friends drift away. And I think these are pretty universal experiences, which is what I think makes the storytelling as relateable as it is.

As for the end, I kind of interpret it as "not ready." From the expressions, I think both Alex and Aune clearly felt awkward. Like the elephant in the room. They both wanted to talk about it seriously, but also both didn't want to talk about it. Too many feelings still fresh, coupled with maybe not enough desire to fix everything yet. So while I do believe most relationships can be repaired given time and effort, both parties need to be ready. And I just don't see that happening yet from how things ended.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 3

13. What are you most looking forward to seeing in regards to the comic?

14. Any final words of encouragement for the comic?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Kabocha

As I said before, I'm really glad I read this. It felt very personal, and it was kinda cathartic to read! It also was kind of nice to see someone else kinda express the awkwardness of meeting again with someone who you felt hurt by. And just... Yeah. Thank you for this comic.

Alex_makes_comics

Hi, Everybody. I'm not sure if this is the last day of Betrayal book club, or if tomorrow counts still, but I wanted to use this opportunity to thank everyone for reading and engaging with my work, before you start on the next webcomic. I have never been through a process like this. Most of the time, I make comics and release them into the internet, never to be seen again. It's a long and lonely process, full of self questioning and self doubt. You've all really restored my confidence. Just knowing that you read and genuinely got what I was trying to achieve is amazing. I was worried about the ending of chapter 11, that it might put readers off, but seeing you all bouncing ideas off each other about "will they"/ "won't they" get back together reassures me that I did the right thing. This was my first completed graphic novel,and I have learned a bit since making it. I am currently working on draft 2, which involves a full redraw. I have about half of the book done. The redraw is going to be 30% more cartoony in style, to give the book a clearer aesthetic. I am aiming for stronger lines and colour themes. I'm also adding new pages throughout. Part of this is to have Aune more visible in the background of scenes between Alex and Jonas, because they're all in one school: you can't avoid people completely in these situations. I'm also making some of the school scenes noisier to play on the "benign horror" elements - thank you for this term, Rebel Vampire! My goal is to redraw everything, update the website, then print a small batch to sell at cons. If anything bugged you about the current draft that you think I have to know, you are more than welcome to tell me. Otherwise, in case you want to know when the new version is out, I have a mailing list here: https://mailchi.mp/e64c62c2d202/alexmakescomics Thank you again for everything. You really don't know how much you've helped me these two weeks. It's been mind blowing.

RebelVampire

What I'm most looking forward to seeing in regards to the comic is just more people finding it. It's a really touching, raw, and personally gripping story. Not only is the storytelling well-done with its use of time, but just overall, its one of the few stories where I can actually say it really got me thinking about life, relationships, and other things. And not a lot of comics can do that.

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Betrayal this week! Please also give a special thank you to Alex Lewis for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Betrayal, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: https://alexmakescomics.com/betrayal/

Alex’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexmakescomics

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #book club #bookclub #webcomic book club #webcomic bookclub #comic tea party #ctp #betrayal #Alex Lewis

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snkpolls · 7 years

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2017 Tumblr Character Popularity Poll i guess

sup so here is my choice ^^ i chose these five because all five of them seem the most realistic and 3 dimensional characters to me.

Eren

Annie

Ymir

Armin

Mikasa

so beginning with Eren; he has been my favorite character in SNK ever since i got into the series, its been about four years and i am still up his ass love him. he is someone who i somewhat identify with yet aspire to be as well. sounds dumb probably but yeah. his mental strength is something i find in real people too very admirable, as well as his persistence and the fact that he fights until the end even if it the odds arent working in his favor at all. he’s not like ‘why should i keep going if the chance of this working out is so thin’, no, he’s all 'i can work this out with whatever little chance is left’ - this boy is a hurricane and such a vibrant, dynamic character - it gives me goosbumps sometimes. i suffered with him throughout his developement and i just like him so much because we started out so similar; we were both impulsive, emotional kids and didnt think before saying smth or acting. i could understand eren from the start. the way he grew up though and is still growing gives me so much hope for myself too - he’s a good learner, he can control his emotions better and he’s actually a rly clever kid in my opinion. people used to look down on him for seemingly being 'all talk but not acting’ and now look up to him - in my opinion not only because he’s humanities hope but because he is such a great, strong person. he radiates that power and its just fucking amazing. this kid is so dear to me and out of all the fictional characters outta books/movies/anime/mangas he has a special spot in my heart. he inspires me and kicks my ass whenever im in the gym or in a mentally challenging situation, like a little voice in the back of my head. sounds stupid but this rly works.

now Annie; i have a thing for ambigious characters. i feel like in our society people tend to see things in black and white and are quick to judge wether or not something or someone for that matter is good or bad. thats just such bullshit and annoys me so much sometimes. ive met people who were so goody goody that it made me hate them. they just didnt want to see that they’ve made bad decisions, have said bad things too because it would be oh so damaging for their reputation. fuck that. nothings just bad or just good. trying to fit into this good role has been haunting me for a while until i realized that people never really show you all their faces. Annie seems like the villain, the asshole, the one responsible for death and misery but does anyone ever think about the fact that she doesnt want to do so? she sure can choose what she does - but that is just hard when certain opinions, patterns etc. have been drilled into your brain ever since you were a child. she is conflicted, she really is. i believe that she is a good person, i truly do. all she wants is to reach her goals and she’s been 'brainwashed’ into doing things in the process that are just horrible and she knows what is considered bad and good nontheless. characters like her are so interesting.

besides that, Annie is a truly strong person. mentally and physically. her determination is so admirable and strong and as a side effect of her being very goal oriented she also dropped giving a damn about how people think she’s a bad person. i feel like she knows that she is not. and that she understands what she does and did is wrong but damn it, she just wants to go home. shes not cold, she just seems really really tired of the weight on her shoulders that is pushing her down. she knows what matters and shows emotions in moments that are important. i love how she can filter trivial shit from the things that matter. and whenever she did show emotions it was so heart warming or relieving for me to see. when she cried because she couldnt catch eren, when she smiled when he showed his respect and admiration towards her by using her fighting techniques or when she laughed when she finally revealed that she was the female titan. my ereannie shipper heart is showing i guess lmao

Ymir; marry me!! is another ambigious character. its clear as hell that she doesnt care about how people see her and i feel like she herself doesnt try to label herself as good or bad anyway. i think without that knowledge she can work things out just fine and thats just so freaking amazing and admirable. such labels aren’t something we should focus on too much and we should just focus on being - then great things come naturally imo.

she, too, knows what matters and knows what doesnt. not only is she super careless and charming /swoons/ with her sassiness (at least imo), shes also incredibly good at reading people and is not afraid to call someones bullshit out. i’ve always liked her a lot and her backstory made her even more interesting. ymir is so clever and a knows how to survive.

a big part of her is also her love for historia and that is another thing i love about her. she openly cares for her and that shows that shes not some arrogant rotten person. she can make anyting work if its for historia. this shows a huge admirable dedication and at first i could hardly imagine her having so much love for someone and caring for someone else besides herself. in her flashback it seemed like she was a rather timid ish kid? now look at the amazing woman she is now - im so so stunned and have a lot of respect for her. another truly great and 3 dimensional character.

fourth is Armin; a lot of my friends dont like him because hes such a 'basic character’ - they mean that theres apparently always a physically weak and 'just’ intelligent character in any story. Armin is more than that. these things sure are true - but hes also a mentally strong person and a good friend. he gives everyone a chance and even felt bad for when he tricked annie, the enemy!, in the episode/chapter where him, eren and mikasa wanted her to lead them through some underground tunnel and she refused. armin is so good natured yet is not afraid to speak the harsh truth (when he called reiner and berthold out for leaving annie behind when they tried to kidnap eren and told them how she gets tortured) or act violently when its really, really necessary (like when he shot the guy who attacked jean on the carriage). he has stupidly good intuition and i admire that so much. he got his shit together and that is in my opinion worth much more than physical strength.

lastly Mikasa; i used to dislike/rather ignore her when i got into SNK. but years ago, i just scratched on the surface of SNK and its characters, last year i started reading the manga though and now that season two is animated i can say that i rly love her. at first i thought of her as another 'basic’ character - physically strong but emotionless to keep up some weird badass image. but she really is badass. especially in the manga shes strong in many ways.

mentally, physically - she not only cares about eren, as i at first thought, she cares about many and she knows how to protect them. she has a clear mind and has her priorities set straight. and shes sure as hell not emotionless - she is one of the characters who had felt the most emotions possible imo and coped with a lot of pain. she coped with so much. what kind of badass deals two times with the loss of their parents and doesnt think 'i dont want to do this anymore’? mikasa ackerman is that kinda badass. ofc shed turn out a little distant, rather cold. but she could have become a cry baby, she could have just given up - but she never did. not even when she thought that eren has been eaten by a titan. like, if her entire universe would seriously only revolve around eren she would have had this stupid thought 'if hes dead then i wanna be with him’ but she did not choose that path. she is so so so powerful, fuck im in awe because of her all the damn time, as im writing this im already about to tear up because shes just amazing. she knows pain so well, yet she doesnt allow it to destroy her.

and, same as with annie, i cheerish the moments she smiled, cried and comforted armin or eren. i even cheerished the moment she snapped when she thought eren was dead and became so reckless because it just made her so much more human in my eyes.

omg i hope this is okay and not too lengthy??? lmao

#submission #thank you for your vote!

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pitz182 · 5 years

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Is AA Too Religious for Generation Z?

Are today’s mutual-aid recovery groups ready to satisfy Generation-next?“More than any other generation before them, Gen Z does not assert a religious identity. They might be drawn to things spiritual, but with a vastly different starting point from previous generations, many of whom received a basic education on the Bible and Christianity. And it shows: The percentage of Gen Z that identifies as atheist is double that of the U.S. adult population.”Released early this year, Barna Group’s Generation-Z Report (Americans born between 1999 and 2015) surveyed over 2,000 13 to 18-year-olds. The oldest of this generation turn 20 in 2019.According to AA’s most recent triennial membership survey, 1% of AA is under 21—that’s about 20,000 sober teenagers in AA rooms right now. What’s my personal affinity with this demographic? It’s two-fold: I have two millennial children and one 18-year-old stepson; secondly, while I am a grey-haired Baby Boomer, I was a teen at my first 12-step meeting. My 20th birthday was 1980, three months shy of my fourth anniversary clean and sober.I was a second-generation AA member and—like Barna’s youth focus group—my worldview seemed incompatible with the old fogies of 12-step rooms. My mother mused about finding god’s will for her from meditation or her daily horoscope. She was such a Virgo, you know. Horoscopes, higher powers, legends of Sasquatch, these were all fictional symbols as far as I was concerned. Reasonable people didn’t take such constructs literally, did they?Bob K, like me, is a second-generation AA. He’s currently between historical book projects; Key Players in AA History will soon have a prequel. Bob’s follow-up research will produce a book about pre-AA addiction and treatment. At age 40, Bob made it into AA as a result of his dad 12-stepping him. He also was uncomfortable with the emphasis on "God." “When I was a month sober, it was ‘God-this, God saved me’ and I was going to put my resignation in. I didn’t think I could stand it in AA any longer. I went to the internet of the day—which back then was the library—and I looked for non-religious alternatives to AA. They had them in California but nothing in Ontario Canada. So it was AA or nothing. If I tried to brave it alone, I’d be drunk; I knew it.”Today, Bob enjoys the likeminded company at his Secular AA home group, Whitby Freethinkers, which meets in the local suburban library just East of Toronto. If I were confronting addiction/recovery as a teen today, I wonder if I would go to AA or NA? If AA was once “the last house on the block,” today it’s one house in a subdivision of mutual-aid choices. Today, newcomers have access to Refuge Recovery, SMART Recovery, Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS), or Medically Assisted Treatment, none of which existed in the 1970s.On Practically Sane, therapist Jeffrey Munn states: “I like to take a practical approach … I’m not a fan of the ‘fluff’ and flowery language that is often associated with the world of psychology and self-help.” Jeffrey came into the rooms at 20, stayed sober for 2 ½ years, relapsed, came back and is now 13 years clean and sober.“I was mandated to three 12-step meetings per week to stay in the program I was in. Since I was young I have been agnostic. I wanted to find a higher power that was common sense-based, but in the rooms I felt pulled towards a more dogmatic spiritual idea of higher power. Back then, I needed to come up with my own conception of what was happening on a psychological level." Recently, Jeffrey wrote and published Staying Sober Without God: the Practical 12 Steps to Long Term Recovery from Alcoholism and Addiction.“I looked at SMART Recovery,” Jeffrey tells The Fix. “I looked at Moderation Management, too—that one struck me as being an organized resentment against AA—I wasn’t feeling it. When it comes down to social support and a practical plan of action, it’s hard to beat 12-step programs. What I try to teach is: if you don’t buy into any kind of a supernatural higher power, navigate the 12-step world, filtering the god-stuff out, working the program in your own way; there is lots that really works.”Barna reports, “Nearly half of teens, on par with Millennials, say, ‘I need factual evidence to support my beliefs.’” Jeffrey hopes Staying Sober Without God—which joins a growing secular 12-step recovery offering—offers the rational narrative today’s youth crave. Barna calls today’s youth “the first truly post-Christian generation [in America].”Certified Master Addiction Counselor David B. Bohl of Milwaukee understands the value of other-oriented care. David tells The Fix: “As head of a 20-bed coed dual-diagnosis treatment center, emerging adults, 18 to 25 years old, came into our care. I wouldn’t say that they universally shrugged off the 12-step approach but almost universally, in reaction to our volunteers, alumni, and traditional AA community, younger clients didn’t want what the volunteers and alumni had. And I wouldn’t say it was the religiosity always. Sometimes it was an age-thing or life approach. So, our recovery management function became that much more important in terms of building individualized treatment that suits everyone.“In the USA, 75% of all residential treatment centers identify as 12-step facilitators,” David tells us. “In the simplest form, our job is to introduce people to the language and the concept of the 12 steps and then to introduce the clients to support groups or people in support groups when they are discharged from acute care.Where trauma is involved—religious trauma in particular—traditional AA language and rituals trigger that shame they feel from negative formal religion experiences.”Let’s put this overbearing religion caution to a real-life test: Suwaida F was the second oldest of 11 children to Somalian refugee parents who fled to Canada in the 1980s.“In Kindergarten I didn’t have to wear a hijab; my parents weren’t super religious. I went to an Islamic school in grade one. It was normal for teachers to have belts with them, they would hit you; child abuse was normalized. They didn’t really teach us that much math, science, history. The Islamic teachers weren’t that educated. My parents took me out and put me in public school. Then, some of my mom’s Somalian-Canadian friends started moving their kids to Egypt. My friends would stay in Egypt two years, finish the Qur’an and the girls came back wearing burqas and head-scarves. Some Muslim friends would come to school in their hijab, take them off and put them back on when they went home. We called them The Transformers.My parents really wanted us to learn the Qur’an; I don’t speak Arabic, so it was difficult. And I never believed it. I asked my mom and dad, ‘How do you know that this stuff is real?’ They got frustrated and mad and said, ‘Don’t ever ask that question again.’ I knew it wasn’t real. Mom got more and more religious. Pictures of her at age 19 -- she wore no head-scarf when she was my age. My mom expected me to be religious and I rebelled. I had to leave home.”Suwaida misses her sisters. She feels unwelcome in the family home unless she is dressed in the Islamic custom and that wouldn’t be true to herself. Away from home, Suwaida found the welcoming community she craved in the booze and cocaine culture.“It wasn’t a matter of having no money; I had no sense of hope. People at work didn’t know I was hopped from shelter to shelter at night. One winter I was told, ‘Suwaida, you’ve been restricted from every youth shelter in the city of Toronto.’” As addiction progressed, Suwaida recalls an ever-descending patterns of compromises, bad relationships and regrets.“Today, it’s like I still never unpack my suitcase; I’m always ready to go.” During a stay at St. Joe’s detox, Suwaida went to her first NA meeting.“At 7 PM, a woman spoke. I made it clear that I thought it was stupid; I wouldn’t share. At the end, everyone was holding hands to pray and I said, ‘I’m not holding any of your hands.’ I didn’t go back. When I was discharged, I went drinking at the bar with my suitcase, not knowing where I was going to stay that night.My second meeting I consider my first, because I chose it. I thought I should go to AA. I googled atheist or freethinker AA to avoid a repeat of my NA experience. I found Beyond Belief Agnostics and Freethinkers Group on the University of Toronto campus. I went there last February. For a while, I had wine in my travel-mug, and I didn’t say anything. In August I felt like the woman beside me knew I was drinking, and I ask myself, ‘What am I doing?’ So, my next meeting, I went sober. I’ve been clean and sober ever since.”Despite the child-violence of Islamic school and rejection from her family, Suwaida isn’t anti-theist. “I do believe in God or in something. I feel like I’m always looking for signs. I don’t believe in a god in the sky but to say there’s nothing beyond all this doesn’t make any sense to me. Sometimes the freakiest things happen. Maybe it’s because I’m a storyteller, I try to make a story out of everything; you think of someone, then they phone you, is that random?I feel a part-of in secular or mainstream AA meetings. My self-talk still sounds like, ‘Don’t share Suwaida, you have nothing to add.’ Maybe it comes from not being able to express myself when I was growing up. I have no sense of self. I guess I have something special to offer but I don’t know how to articulate it. It’s hard; I have limited self-confidence.”“Give them their voice; listen to them,” is Kevin Schaefer’s approach. He co-hosts the podcast Don’t Die Wisconsin. He’s also a recovery coach.“I’ve been in Recovery 29+ years. I’m a substance abuse counselor and I got into addiction treatment through sober living. When I started working in a Suboxone clinic, I came to realize that AA can’t solve everything. I always come from a harm reduction standpoint: meth, cocaine, benzos; I ask, ‘Can you just smoke pot?’ and we start building the trust there.Medically Assisted Treatment (MAT) is geared towards this generation. Most kids coming through my door know a lot about MAT, more so than people in AA with the biases and stigma that they bring. Kids sometimes know more than the front-line social workers. Their friends are on MAT, that’s how they gather their information (not to say their information is all correct). But a lot of therapists don’t understand medication. Medication can be a ticket to survival out on the streets.”The Fix asked Kevin his opinion on the best suited mutual-aid group for this generation.“Most of the generation you’re talking about walks in with anxiety and defiantly won’t do groups.” We talked about the role of online video/voice or text meetings for a tech-native generation. “Yes—where appropriate. Women especially, because from what I’ve seen, most females have suffered from trauma. I have heard women who prefer online recovery; that make sense to me. I’ve been to InTheRooms.com; as professionals we have a duty to know what’s out there. And there are some crazies online.If someone has an Eastern philosophy bent, I’ll send them to Refuge Recovery; I’ve been there. If I can, I’ll set them up with somebody that I know can help them. And let’s not forget that some youth, if Christianity is your thing, Celebrate Recovery is amazing — talk about a community that wraps themselves around the substance user. There are movie nights, food, all kinds of extracurricular activities. The SMART Recovery Movement? Excellent. SMART momentum is building in Milwaukee. They are goal-oriented and the person gets supported whether they’re on Suboxone or, in one case I know, micro-dosing with LSD for depression; they’ll be supported either way. My goal with youth is: ‘Try to get to one meeting this month; start slow.’ Don’t set the bar too high and if they enjoy it, then great.The 12-step meeting I go to, it’s a men’s meeting. There are people there on medication and they don’t get blow-back. I wish more of AA was like this. When I came in, almost 30 years ago now, I saw all the God-stuff on the walls and I thought, ‘Nah, this isn’t going to work’ but thank G… (laughs), thank the Group of Drunks who said, ‘You don’t have to believe in that.’ The range in my meeting is broad—Eastern philosophy, Native American practices, Yoga, I was invited to Transcendental Meditation meetings at members’ houses. I was fortunate to fall into this group. You know, the first book my sponsor gave me was The Tao of Physics—not The Big Book—it was this 70’s book with Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, correlated to physics and contemporary science.”So, as to the question that kicked this off, some mutual aid meetings are ready to meet the taste of a new generation; results may vary. Who’s heard: “If you haven’t met anyone you don’t like in AA, you haven’t gone to enough meetings”?The reverse is true, also. If the peer-to-peer meetings I’ve sampled seem too narrow or dogmatic, maybe my search for just the right fit isn’t over. And if I don’t want a face-to-face meeting, there’s always Kevin’s podcast, virtual communities like The Fix, or I can order one of Bob or David or Jeffrey’s books if that’s more to my taste.

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alexdmorgan30 · 5 years

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Is AA Too Religious for Generation Z?

Are today’s mutual-aid recovery groups ready to satisfy Generation-next?“More than any other generation before them, Gen Z does not assert a religious identity. They might be drawn to things spiritual, but with a vastly different starting point from previous generations, many of whom received a basic education on the Bible and Christianity. And it shows: The percentage of Gen Z that identifies as atheist is double that of the U.S. adult population.”Released early this year, Barna Group’s Generation-Z Report (Americans born between 1999 and 2015) surveyed over 2,000 13 to 18-year-olds. The oldest of this generation turn 20 in 2019.According to AA’s most recent triennial membership survey, 1% of AA is under 21—that’s about 20,000 sober teenagers in AA rooms right now. What’s my personal affinity with this demographic? It’s two-fold: I have two millennial children and one 18-year-old stepson; secondly, while I am a grey-haired Baby Boomer, I was a teen at my first 12-step meeting. My 20th birthday was 1980, three months shy of my fourth anniversary clean and sober.I was a second-generation AA member and—like Barna’s youth focus group—my worldview seemed incompatible with the old fogies of 12-step rooms. My mother mused about finding god’s will for her from meditation or her daily horoscope. She was such a Virgo, you know. Horoscopes, higher powers, legends of Sasquatch, these were all fictional symbols as far as I was concerned. Reasonable people didn’t take such constructs literally, did they?Bob K, like me, is a second-generation AA. He’s currently between historical book projects; Key Players in AA History will soon have a prequel. Bob’s follow-up research will produce a book about pre-AA addiction and treatment. At age 40, Bob made it into AA as a result of his dad 12-stepping him. He also was uncomfortable with the emphasis on "God." “When I was a month sober, it was ‘God-this, God saved me’ and I was going to put my resignation in. I didn’t think I could stand it in AA any longer. I went to the internet of the day—which back then was the library—and I looked for non-religious alternatives to AA. They had them in California but nothing in Ontario Canada. So it was AA or nothing. If I tried to brave it alone, I’d be drunk; I knew it.”Today, Bob enjoys the likeminded company at his Secular AA home group, Whitby Freethinkers, which meets in the local suburban library just East of Toronto. If I were confronting addiction/recovery as a teen today, I wonder if I would go to AA or NA? If AA was once “the last house on the block,” today it’s one house in a subdivision of mutual-aid choices. Today, newcomers have access to Refuge Recovery, SMART Recovery, Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS), or Medically Assisted Treatment, none of which existed in the 1970s.On Practically Sane, therapist Jeffrey Munn states: “I like to take a practical approach … I’m not a fan of the ‘fluff’ and flowery language that is often associated with the world of psychology and self-help.” Jeffrey came into the rooms at 20, stayed sober for 2 ½ years, relapsed, came back and is now 13 years clean and sober.“I was mandated to three 12-step meetings per week to stay in the program I was in. Since I was young I have been agnostic. I wanted to find a higher power that was common sense-based, but in the rooms I felt pulled towards a more dogmatic spiritual idea of higher power. Back then, I needed to come up with my own conception of what was happening on a psychological level." Recently, Jeffrey wrote and published Staying Sober Without God: the Practical 12 Steps to Long Term Recovery from Alcoholism and Addiction.“I looked at SMART Recovery,” Jeffrey tells The Fix. “I looked at Moderation Management, too—that one struck me as being an organized resentment against AA—I wasn’t feeling it. When it comes down to social support and a practical plan of action, it’s hard to beat 12-step programs. What I try to teach is: if you don’t buy into any kind of a supernatural higher power, navigate the 12-step world, filtering the god-stuff out, working the program in your own way; there is lots that really works.”Barna reports, “Nearly half of teens, on par with Millennials, say, ‘I need factual evidence to support my beliefs.’” Jeffrey hopes Staying Sober Without God—which joins a growing secular 12-step recovery offering—offers the rational narrative today’s youth crave. Barna calls today’s youth “the first truly post-Christian generation [in America].”Certified Master Addiction Counselor David B. Bohl of Milwaukee understands the value of other-oriented care. David tells The Fix: “As head of a 20-bed coed dual-diagnosis treatment center, emerging adults, 18 to 25 years old, came into our care. I wouldn’t say that they universally shrugged off the 12-step approach but almost universally, in reaction to our volunteers, alumni, and traditional AA community, younger clients didn’t want what the volunteers and alumni had. And I wouldn’t say it was the religiosity always. Sometimes it was an age-thing or life approach. So, our recovery management function became that much more important in terms of building individualized treatment that suits everyone.“In the USA, 75% of all residential treatment centers identify as 12-step facilitators,” David tells us. “In the simplest form, our job is to introduce people to the language and the concept of the 12 steps and then to introduce the clients to support groups or people in support groups when they are discharged from acute care.Where trauma is involved—religious trauma in particular—traditional AA language and rituals trigger that shame they feel from negative formal religion experiences.”Let’s put this overbearing religion caution to a real-life test: Suwaida F was the second oldest of 11 children to Somalian refugee parents who fled to Canada in the 1980s.“In Kindergarten I didn’t have to wear a hijab; my parents weren’t super religious. I went to an Islamic school in grade one. It was normal for teachers to have belts with them, they would hit you; child abuse was normalized. They didn’t really teach us that much math, science, history. The Islamic teachers weren’t that educated. My parents took me out and put me in public school. Then, some of my mom’s Somalian-Canadian friends started moving their kids to Egypt. My friends would stay in Egypt two years, finish the Qur’an and the girls came back wearing burqas and head-scarves. Some Muslim friends would come to school in their hijab, take them off and put them back on when they went home. We called them The Transformers.My parents really wanted us to learn the Qur’an; I don’t speak Arabic, so it was difficult. And I never believed it. I asked my mom and dad, ‘How do you know that this stuff is real?’ They got frustrated and mad and said, ‘Don’t ever ask that question again.’ I knew it wasn’t real. Mom got more and more religious. Pictures of her at age 19 -- she wore no head-scarf when she was my age. My mom expected me to be religious and I rebelled. I had to leave home.”Suwaida misses her sisters. She feels unwelcome in the family home unless she is dressed in the Islamic custom and that wouldn’t be true to herself. Away from home, Suwaida found the welcoming community she craved in the booze and cocaine culture.“It wasn’t a matter of having no money; I had no sense of hope. People at work didn’t know I was hopped from shelter to shelter at night. One winter I was told, ‘Suwaida, you’ve been restricted from every youth shelter in the city of Toronto.’” As addiction progressed, Suwaida recalls an ever-descending patterns of compromises, bad relationships and regrets.“Today, it’s like I still never unpack my suitcase; I’m always ready to go.” During a stay at St. Joe’s detox, Suwaida went to her first NA meeting.“At 7 PM, a woman spoke. I made it clear that I thought it was stupid; I wouldn’t share. At the end, everyone was holding hands to pray and I said, ‘I’m not holding any of your hands.’ I didn’t go back. When I was discharged, I went drinking at the bar with my suitcase, not knowing where I was going to stay that night.My second meeting I consider my first, because I chose it. I thought I should go to AA. I googled atheist or freethinker AA to avoid a repeat of my NA experience. I found Beyond Belief Agnostics and Freethinkers Group on the University of Toronto campus. I went there last February. For a while, I had wine in my travel-mug, and I didn’t say anything. In August I felt like the woman beside me knew I was drinking, and I ask myself, ‘What am I doing?’ So, my next meeting, I went sober. I’ve been clean and sober ever since.”Despite the child-violence of Islamic school and rejection from her family, Suwaida isn’t anti-theist. “I do believe in God or in something. I feel like I’m always looking for signs. I don’t believe in a god in the sky but to say there’s nothing beyond all this doesn’t make any sense to me. Sometimes the freakiest things happen. Maybe it’s because I’m a storyteller, I try to make a story out of everything; you think of someone, then they phone you, is that random?I feel a part-of in secular or mainstream AA meetings. My self-talk still sounds like, ‘Don’t share Suwaida, you have nothing to add.’ Maybe it comes from not being able to express myself when I was growing up. I have no sense of self. I guess I have something special to offer but I don’t know how to articulate it. It’s hard; I have limited self-confidence.”“Give them their voice; listen to them,” is Kevin Schaefer’s approach. He co-hosts the podcast Don’t Die Wisconsin. He’s also a recovery coach.“I’ve been in Recovery 29+ years. I’m a substance abuse counselor and I got into addiction treatment through sober living. When I started working in a Suboxone clinic, I came to realize that AA can’t solve everything. I always come from a harm reduction standpoint: meth, cocaine, benzos; I ask, ‘Can you just smoke pot?’ and we start building the trust there.Medically Assisted Treatment (MAT) is geared towards this generation. Most kids coming through my door know a lot about MAT, more so than people in AA with the biases and stigma that they bring. Kids sometimes know more than the front-line social workers. Their friends are on MAT, that’s how they gather their information (not to say their information is all correct). But a lot of therapists don’t understand medication. Medication can be a ticket to survival out on the streets.”The Fix asked Kevin his opinion on the best suited mutual-aid group for this generation.“Most of the generation you’re talking about walks in with anxiety and defiantly won’t do groups.” We talked about the role of online video/voice or text meetings for a tech-native generation. “Yes—where appropriate. Women especially, because from what I’ve seen, most females have suffered from trauma. I have heard women who prefer online recovery; that make sense to me. I’ve been to InTheRooms.com; as professionals we have a duty to know what’s out there. And there are some crazies online.If someone has an Eastern philosophy bent, I’ll send them to Refuge Recovery; I’ve been there. If I can, I’ll set them up with somebody that I know can help them. And let’s not forget that some youth, if Christianity is your thing, Celebrate Recovery is amazing — talk about a community that wraps themselves around the substance user. There are movie nights, food, all kinds of extracurricular activities. The SMART Recovery Movement? Excellent. SMART momentum is building in Milwaukee. They are goal-oriented and the person gets supported whether they’re on Suboxone or, in one case I know, micro-dosing with LSD for depression; they’ll be supported either way. My goal with youth is: ‘Try to get to one meeting this month; start slow.’ Don’t set the bar too high and if they enjoy it, then great.The 12-step meeting I go to, it’s a men’s meeting. There are people there on medication and they don’t get blow-back. I wish more of AA was like this. When I came in, almost 30 years ago now, I saw all the God-stuff on the walls and I thought, ‘Nah, this isn’t going to work’ but thank G… (laughs), thank the Group of Drunks who said, ‘You don’t have to believe in that.’ The range in my meeting is broad—Eastern philosophy, Native American practices, Yoga, I was invited to Transcendental Meditation meetings at members’ houses. I was fortunate to fall into this group. You know, the first book my sponsor gave me was The Tao of Physics—not The Big Book—it was this 70’s book with Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, correlated to physics and contemporary science.��So, as to the question that kicked this off, some mutual aid meetings are ready to meet the taste of a new generation; results may vary. Who’s heard: “If you haven’t met anyone you don’t like in AA, you haven’t gone to enough meetings”?The reverse is true, also. If the peer-to-peer meetings I’ve sampled seem too narrow or dogmatic, maybe my search for just the right fit isn’t over. And if I don’t want a face-to-face meeting, there’s always Kevin’s podcast, virtual communities like The Fix, or I can order one of Bob or David or Jeffrey’s books if that’s more to my taste.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241841 http://bit.ly/2B5JhVm

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emlydunstan · 5 years

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Is AA Too Religious for Generation Z?

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241841 https://www.thefix.com/aa-too-religious-generation-z

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trendingnewsb · 7 years

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How the middle class hoards wealth and opportunity for itself

American society is dominated by an elite 20% that ruthlessly protects its own interests

When I was growing up, my mother would sometimes threaten my brother and me with electrocution. Well, thats not quite right. In fact, the threat was of lessons in elocution, but we wittily, we thought renamed them.

Growing up in a very ordinary town just north of London and attending a very ordinary high school, one of our several linguistic atrocities was failing to pronounce the t in certain words. My mother, who was raised in rural north Wales and left school at 16, did not want us to find doors closed in a class-sensitive society simply because we didnt speak what is still called the Queens English. I will never forget the look on her face when I managed to say the word computer with neither a p nor a t.

Still, the lessons never materialised. Any lingering working-class traces in my own accent were wiped away by three disinfectant years at Oxford University. (My wife claims the adolescent accent resurfaces when I drink, but she doesnt know what shes talking about shes American.) We also had to learn how to waltz. My mother didnt want us to put a foot wrong there either.

In fact, we did just fine, in no small part because of the stable, loving home in which we were raised. But I have always been acutely sensitive to class distinctions and their role in perpetuating inequality. In fact, one of the reasons I came to the United States was to escape the cramped feeling of living in a nation still so dominated by class. I knew enough not to think I was moving to a socially mobile utopia: Id read some of the research. It has nonetheless come as something of a shock to discover that, in some important respects, the American class system is functioning more ruthlessly than the British one I escaped.

In the upper-middle-class America I now inhabit, I witness extraordinary efforts by parents to secure an elite future status for their children: tutors, coaches and weekend lessons in everything from French to fencing. But I have never heard any of my peers try to change the way their children speak. Perhaps this is simply because they know they are surrounded by other upper-middle-class kids, so there is nothing to worry about. Perhaps it is a regional thing.

But I think there is a better explanation. Americans tend to think their children will be judged by their accomplishments rather than their accents. Class position is earned, rather than simply expressed. The way to secure a higher status in a market meritocracy is by acquiring lots of merit and ensuring that our kids do, too. What ones parents are like is entirely a matter of luck, points out the philosopher Adam Swift. But he adds: What ones children are like is not. Children raised in upper-middle-class families do well in life. As a result, there is a lot of intergenerational stickiness at the top of the American income distribution more, in fact, than at the bottom with upper-middle-class status passed from one generation to the next.

Drawing class distinctions feels almost un-American. The nations self-image is of a classless society, one in which every individual is of equal moral worth, regardless of his or her economic status. This has been how the world sees the United States, too. Historian Alexis de Tocqueville observed in the early 19th century that Americans were seen to be more equal in fortune and intelligence more equally strong, in other words than they were in any other country, or were at any other time in recorded history. So different to the countries of old Europe, still weighed down by the legacies of feudalism.

British politicians have often felt the need to urge the creation of a classless society, looking to America for inspiration as, what historian David Cannadine once called it, the pioneering and prototypical classless society. European progressives have long looked enviously at social relations in the New World. George Orwell noted the lack of servile tradition in America; the German socialist Werner Sombart noticed that the bowing and scraping before the upper classes, which produces such an unpleasant impression in Europe, is completely unknown.

This is one of many reasons socialist politics struggled to take root in the United States. A key attraction of socialist systems the main one, according to Orwell is the eradication of class distinctions. There were few to eradicate in America. I am sure that one reason Downton Abbey and The Crown so delight American audiences is their depictions of an alien world of class-based status. One reason class distinctions are less obvious in America is that pretty much everyone defines themselves as a member of the same class: the one in the middle. Nine in ten adults select the label middle class, exactly the same proportion as in 1939, according to the pollsters Gallup. No wonder that politicians have always fallen over each other to be on their side.

But in recent decades Americans at the top of the ladder have been entrenching their class position. The convenient fiction that the middle class can stretch up that far has become a difficult one to sustain. As a result, the modifications upper or lower to the general middle class category have become more important.

Class is not just about money, though it is about that. The class gap can be seen from every angle: education, security, family, health, you name it. There will also be inequalities on each of these dimensions, of course. But inequality becomes class division when all these varied elements money, education, wealth, occupation cluster together so tightly that, in practice, almost any one of them will suffice for the purposes of class definition. Class division becomes class stratification when these advantages and thus status endure across generations. In fact, upper-middle-class status is passed down to the next generation more effectively than in the past, and in the United States more than in other countries.

One benefit of the multidimensional nature of this separation is that it has reduced interdisciplinary bickering over how to define class. While economists typically focus on categorisation by income and wealth, and sociologists tend more towards occupational status and education, and anthropologists are typically more interested in culture and norms, right now it doesnt really matter, because all the trends are going the same way.

It is not just the top 1% pulling away, but the top 20%. In fact, only a very small proportion of US adults 1% to 2% define themselves as upper class. A significant minority about one in seven adopts the upper middle class description. This is quite similar to the estimates of class size generated by most sociologists, who tend to define the upper middle class as one composed of professionals and managers, or around 15% to 20% of the working-age population.

As David Azerrad of the Heritage Foundation writes: There is little appetite in America for policies that significantly restrict the ability of parents to do all they can, within the bounds of the law, to give their children every advantage in life. That is certainly true. But then Azerrad has also mis-stated the problem. No one sensible is in favour of new policies that block parents from doing the best they can for their children. Even in France the suggestion floated by the former president, Franois Hollande, to restore equality by banning homework, on the grounds that parents differ in their ability and willingness to help out, was laughed out of court. But we should want to get rid of policies that allow parents to give their children an unfair advantage and in the process restrict the opportunities of others.

Most of us want to do our best for our children. Wanting ones childrens life to go well is part of what it means to love them, write philosophers Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift in their 2014 book Family Values: The Ethics of Parent-Child Relationships. But our natural preference for the welfare and prospects of our own children does not automatically eclipse other moral claims. We would look kindly on a father who helps his son get picked as starting pitcher for his school baseball team by practising with him every day after work. But we would probably feel differently about a father who secures the slot for his son by bribing the coach. Why? After all, each father has sacrificed something, time in one case, money in the other, to advance his child. The difference is team selection should be based on merit, not money. A principle of fairness is at stake.

So, where is the line drawn? The best philosophical treatment of this question I have found is the one by Swift and Brighouse. Their suggestion is that, while parents have every right to act in ways that will help their childrens lives go well, they do not have the right to confer on them a competitive advantage in other words, to ensure not just that they do well but that they do better than others. This is because, in a society with finite rewards, improving the situation of one child necessarily worsens that of another, at least in relative terms: Whatever parents do to confer competitive advantage is not neutral in its effects on other children it does not leave untouched, but rather is detrimental to, those other childrens prospects in the competition for jobs and associated rewards.

The trouble is that in the real world this seems like a distinction without a difference. What they call competitive advantage-conferring parental activities will almost always be also helping-your-kid-flourish parental activities. If I read bedtime stories to my son, he will develop a richer vocabulary and may learn to love reading and have a more interesting and fulfilling life. But it could also help him get better grades than his classmates, giving him a competitive advantage in college admissions. Swift and Brighouse suggest a parent should not even aim to give their child a competitive advantage: It would be a little odd, perhaps even a little creepy, if the ultimate aim of her endeavours were that her child is better off than others.

I think this is too harsh. In a society with a largely open, competitive labour market, it is not creepy to want your children to end up higher on the earnings ladder than others. Not only will this bring them a higher income, and all the accompanying choices and security, it is also likely to bring them safer and more interesting work. Relative position matters it is one reason, after all, that relative mobility is of such concern to policymakers. Although I think Brighouse and Swift go too far, they are on to something important with their distinction between the kind of parental behaviour that merely helps your own children and the kind that is detrimental to others. Thats what I call opportunity hoarding.

Opportunity hoarding does not result from the workings of a large machine but from the cumulative effect of individual choices and preferences. Taken in isolation, they may feel trivial: nudging your daughter into a better college with a legacy preference [giving applicants places on the basis of being related to alumni of the college]; helping the son of a professional contact to an internship; a single vote on a municipal council to retain low-density zoning restrictions. But, like many micro-preferences, to borrow a term from economist Thomas Schelling, they can have strong effects on overall culture and collective outcomes.

Over recent decades, institutions that once primarily served racist goals legacy admissions to keep out Jewish students, zoning laws to keep out black families have not been abandoned but have been softened, normalised and subtly re-purposed to help us sustain the upper-middle-class status. They remain, then, barriers to a more open, more genuinely competitive and fairer society. I wont insult your intelligence by pretending there are no costs here. By definition, reducing opportunity hoarding will mean some losses for the upper middle class.

But they will be small. Our neighbourhoods will be a little less upmarket but also less boring. Our kids will rub shoulders with some poorer kids in the school corridor. They might not squeak into an Ivy League college, and they may have to be content going to an excellent public university. But if we arent willing to entertain even these sacrifices, there is little hope. There will be some material costs, too. The big challenge is to equalise opportunities to acquire human capital and therefore increase the number of true competitors in the labour market. This will require, among other things, some increased public investment. Where will the money come from? It cant all come from the super-rich. Much of it will have to come from the upper middle class. From me andyou.

This is an extract from Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That is a Problem, and What To Do About It by Richard V Reeves (Brookings Institution Press, 2017)

HOW TO STAY AHEAD – OR PLAY FAIR

As parents, we naturally want our children to flourish. But that laudable desire slides into opportunity hoarding when we use our money, power or position to give our own children exclusive access to certain goods or chances. The effect is to strengthen class barriers.

1. Fix an internship using our networks. Internships are becoming more important but are too often stitched up privately. Its worse if theyre unpaid. Instead: insist on paid internships, openly recruited.

2. Take our own kids to work for the day. Children learn what work is from adults. Instead: try bringing somebody elses kid to work, perhaps by partnering with local charities.

3. Be a Nimby. By shutting out low-income housing from our neighbourhoods with planning restrictions, we keep less affluent kids away from our local schools and communities. Instead: be a Yimby, vote and argue for more mixed housing in your area.

4. Write cheques to PTA funds. Many of us want to support the school our children attend. This tilts the playing field, however, since other schools cant do the same. Instead: get your PTA to give half the donations to a school in a poor area.