Writes Lucy Boyle, in "'I’m Sorry You’re in This Beautiful House We Pay For!'/There’s a glut of middle-aged children living with their parents in the Hamptons for the summer" (New York Magazine).
I'm interested in this tale of petty woe not because I've ever stayed at any beach house owned by my parents — I have not — but because we — in the midst of our summer here in our year-round home — took the half-hour drive out to the American Players Theater last week and saw "Uncle Vanya."
The troubles in "Uncle Vanya" were nothing like what we're seeing with these "middle-aged children" in the Hamptons. They're irked by rules about using coasters, taking out the trash, and not stealing things. Boyle gets a psychotherapist to analyze the parents: "When the house is full of the grandkids and the grandkids’ and kids’ friends, they’re kind of in the background. One way they can become the foreground and say ‘I am here’ is to foreground their ownership and possession.'"
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46 comments:
First!
Ug! Parents and their sanctioning.
Cutting the bread wrong puts me over the edge every time. It's not rocket science.
Why do you keep pushing the ludicrous rantings of anxiety-ridden narcissist women? I thought you were a feminist?
Nothing about the smug certainty that she will inherit that house. I think she already sees it as hers.
I blame the parents. If you only pop out one or two, you have to put up with their entitled whining. You have walked yourself into a monopoly / oligopoly child market. Do the sensible old fashioned thing and pop out six or seven and you're in the driver's seat. You can just do without the whiners unless and until they shape up. And while they're still whining uncontrollably they're still popping out grandchildren - a meagre supply to be sure - but you get the grandchildren at zero whining cost.
I'm a dish Nazi ever since the smug houseguests condescendingly explained the running of the hot tap for ten minutes while dishes were hand washed and and sorta dried with a dirty dish rag was the eco-friendly option and the dishwasher was 'not their way'. Now the lesson on not only using the dishwasher but how to load it is an activity you must choose to opt-out of at the beginning of your stay...
...next up- Mandami proclaiming summering in the Hamptons is a right of all New Yorkers with the requisite confiscation to follow...
btw you don't short the market at a moment of crisis, you do it preceding the crisis. Not the easiest way to earn that Hamptons home either. Let me introduce to to something called 'carried interest'...
I can't afford a second home either, so we just rent an Airbnb for a week during the summer.
What was the point of specifying that the bread was artisan and crazy expensive? Is she trying to show off that she at least speaks the language of wealth, even if she doesn't have it yet?
...personally I'm a fan of the generational summer home. Glut's got nothin to do with it...
Out east? weird.
Out west. Back East.
Like saying down north. Or up South.
How many of NY Magazine readers can relate to this? And how many are just reading a wish fulfillment fantasy?
We have a “summer home” (🙃) that we are happy when we can share it with our family. Kids, grandkids, dog is a kind of chaos I can live with for a while. Anytime I think this house needs to be cleaned I remember how I feel when they are all gone.
Everyone does their own laundry, helps to cook and clean up. Even the grandkids. Everyone lets grandma rearrange the dishwasher however she wants. I have only 1 piece of furniture that will get rings from sweating glasses so I just pile up coasters on it.
It’s nice when your place is comfortable and not a showpiece. My sympathies for those poor folks in the Hamptons.
This article should be entitled "How to extend family holiday tensions from one week to an entire season."
Next up: The first-world trauma and microaggressions of top-roll vs. bottom-roll toilet paper hanging.
Looks like today is 'Althouse does NYC day.'
The bodega owners story has a down-scale vibe, since that's their customer base and the story's focus is on how the little guy gets screwed (bonus -- you get to pick who qualifies as the little guy, the bodega owner or its customer) . The Filipovic 'no baby for us' story is the oh-so-common Manhattan, two-career couple saga. And the Hamptons 'inter generational' thing presents a 'Manhattan by the beach' story -- by definition, a very upscale saga with all the resentments and psychodrama that goes with it.
Forget Chekhov. This is Woody Allen and Tom Wolfe territory. Just another day in Gotham.
**"I haven’t made the right career choices, shorted the market at a moment of crisis, or robbed a bank"**
Noteworthy that 2 of 3 are humble brags. She's not rich because she's a good person.
**"apparently, I saw bread too 'wavily' and ruin the rest of the loaf for straight-slicers"**
It's beneath her to be considerate of other people. No wonder her mother doesn't like having her around. Who would?
Will there be a split between young people who can only get a summer house through inheritance and young people who also know that they can't ever afford a summer house on their own but want to make sure that nobody else will have one?
I recently stopped going around paywalls (it's very easy using archive) when I heard a rabbi remark "To steal in public shows disrespect of man. To steal where no one can see you shows disrespect of God."
RC--Maine is Down East.
I believe that it has something to do with the prevailing southwesterlies causing Maine to be downwind from the rest of the east coast ports.
I have a summer house. It's called a "hotel room", and I have 17.5 million of them, all kept in order by my minions.
"Nor'easter" is very confusing because weathermen in New England use it to describe any big snowstorm, wherever it comes from and whichever way the wind blows. "Sou'wester" may be used in Maine, but I haven't seen it outside of Kipling's "Captains Courageous" in 7th grade.
No humans involved
If you’re in my house you use coasters. Yes, I can afford to have end tables and coffee tables and other wooden furniture refinished, but I an remember when the wife and I had to scrimp to buy those pieces, and when we absolutely could NOT afford to have them refinished.
So spoiled.
When I was a tyke, my grandad used to rent a huge beach house on the New England coast, then our family and the first cousins would swarm it for the 2-3 weeks that he had it rented. Having the kids and grandkids to the beach / lake / mountains etc is not a new concept in the world of the middle class.
If you have a second home, and it's in a beach / lake / mountains / camp setting, you shouldn't be worrying about getting water rings on the furniture.
Finally, if you're a kid getting this kind of largesse from your parents, the very worst behavioral thing is to be ungrateful and spoiled. It makes it clear to your parents that they have failed, and they're stuck with a conflict of wanting family time with people they're a little disgusted with.
RC: Exactly my thought. It distracted me.
A sou'wester is a hat. And nor'easters usually come from the northeast, because that is where the cold water is. A big storm coming from the southwest is a tropical storm or a hurricane.
If they inherit the house I hope they get enough cash/stock as well to support maintenance/insurance/lawncare/etc. sounds like they may not on current income. But they can probably turn it into an air BnB.
I still hope to be wealthy enough some day to use “summer” as a verb.
LOL Bagoh -
I own everything at Costco - I just have then store it for me.
Even the poorest Russian and Czech immigrants I've known all owned little dachas back home, which they mostly built for themselves, always with a crude sauna and meat smokehouse. The ones described to me had maybe a few lightbulbs, no tv, indoor and outdoor wood stoves and firepits. Families slept in one room, foraged for berries and mushrooms, fished, and sang together over home-made sausages and Slivovitz.
That, rereading Middlemarch in a bumpy sleeper car again, and experiencing ice fishing, are my entire bucket list. Also, giving Al Sharpton everything he deserves.
I remember when Montauk had a few cheap motels, one Chinese takeout, and a seafood restaurant where we were the ones who ate the big sharks. Gosman's Dock was an actual lobster dock where you had to sit outside and fight off seagulls for your fries as you ate your one lobster a year. Paul Simon could sometimes be seen walking overly-poetically on the beach, but nobody bothered him, out of respect. The Hamptons were an exit ramp to pass, still just sedate and expensive.
Just to be 100% clear, some people do cut bread too wavily and consequently make it hard to get the next few slices straight. When a full-grown adult, asked to help throw some lunch together for the hungry horde, can't cut bread right, the term used these days to describe that is "weaponized incompetence".
This reminds me not of Chekhov but of the times that Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer went to the beach. Shrinkage!
"weaponized incompetence" might be a little harsh. If you have only eaten pre- sliced bread, it does take some practice to be able to free cut a good slice. Same with turkey carving.
Fran L. once said that she summered where she wintered.
At my age it's dangerous to spring and fall.
New York, Yew Nork
You gotta choose one
Rich people problems. Serious disconnect from real world problems for middle-middle income householders.
I sat next to two women at our little city's townhall meeting regarding proposed new zoning ordinance, which would prohibit more than 20% of side-yard to be used for kitchen gardens and entirely outside of front-yard setbacks. We're a working class small city, not some fancy-pants suburb or posh resort town. Both women are moms with small children, married and in their early 30s. Both noted their own kitchen gardens, in front and side-yards are absolute need, to supplement their grocery-purchases. Household expenses are a real concern Meaning, they need to EAT what they grow, and they GROW what they can eat. I was humbled. Our own city council, though mostly working-class or 1st-generation college graduates themselves, none a millionaire, happily approved prohibition of kitchen gardens.
"Our own city council, though mostly working-class or 1st-generation college graduates themselves, none a millionaire, happily approved prohibition of kitchen gardens."
Sounds like the dream of HOA officials all across the country.
I fondly remember my grandmother’s cottage on Lake Ontario. But I don’t think that I would want to own such a cottage. Even if the ownership of such a cottage provided a location at which my dog could roll in dead fish. No, ownership of such a cottage would be too time consuming and inconvenient.
The lake place up north was common in Wisconsin and Minnesota. There was a ritual to closing it up every fall and opening it up every spring, and having a local guy to keep an eye on it over the winter. The ideal was not to be burdened with one of these, but to have good friends who were, and were happy to have you up for the occasional weekend.
"tcrosse said...
The lake place up north was common in Wisconsin and Minnesota. There was a ritual to closing it up every fall and opening it up every spring, and having a local guy to keep an eye on it over the winter. The ideal was not to be burdened with one of these, but to have good friends who were, and were happy to have you up for the occasional weekend."
We had a place up nort' in Hazelhurst, about 7 miles south of Minocqua on Lee Lkae. Started as a summer place and then was winterized and expanded. My parents sold their place in the Chicago suburbs and moved up there in retirement. With their passing ownership went to my two sisters and myself. We remodeled and expanded it, most of the work was done by me. It was really a sweet 4 br place by then.
Most of the upkeep was done by me, plus putting in and taking out the pier, leaf removal, and the million of things that a lake home in a harsh climate require. I spent most of my time up their fixing things, not a lot of fun especially as I got older.
Then a few years later my sisters were up, and went out to dinner, and they came home to the place on fire. Total loss. I used my portion of the insurance money to buy them out with idea to rebuild, but that really wasn't feasible. Sold the land and that was it.
So many great memories up there, both as a kid and as an adult with kids. I still miss it, but then I remember what a burden it had become and it softens the blow.
Here in Philadelphia, it’s very common for middle-class families to have “a place downah shore.” Usually New Jersey. Maybe their grandfather the cop bought a little house in Wildwood decades ago, and fixed it up, and it’s stayed in the family.
People have a whole ‘nother hometown in a way, with family and neighbors who have been seeing each other over the summer for years.
I can't see the article. Is this person complaining that her parents are annoying in her parents' own house?
Also, bragging that you have access to a vacation home in an exclusive area while also bragging that you're a better person than the people who can afford vacation homes in the exclusive area?
So, it's a 2026 version of "On Golden Pond"?
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