Welcome to the real world, kid

SUE CLARK

I was jogging along Santa Ana Avenue the other day, near Newport

Heights School, and I spotted the quintessential sticker on a new SUV

parked in front of a large home.

The graphic was a Christian cross within a Roxy clothing design.

“And there we have Newport Beach,” I reflected. Truth be told, we

live in a predominantly white, affluent and Christian community.

I am only one of those three.

Raising my own daughter in the Heights was interesting on a school

counselor’s budget. Yes, we owned our own small house, but when I

moved onto my street, most folks had concluded I was a renter. I am

not sure why, except I was a single mom with an older car. When the

neighbors realized I owned the house, they appeared relieved.

When my daughter got her first (used) car, I bought it from one of

my students. It was an old Toyota that got her around town and would

not have won a beauty prize.

We called it Babak in honor of its former owner. It smelled pretty

bad, and we had to have it steam cleaned, but it ran. When she’d give

her friends a ride home, they’d walk right by her car in the Newport

Harbor High School parking lot, assuming she had the new Jetta or

Cherokee on either side of it. It was not always easy to live elbow

to elbow with extremely wealthy kids.

I often see parents from my daughter’s graduating class. Many of

the kids are finishing up college and are shocked to find they cannot

return to the area and live the beach lifestyle. One of them, a very

nice girl, told me she had not been able to find a job that would pay

her to live in a nice place in Newport, so she was living at home and

witnessing while something developed.

“Who knew it would be so expensive around here?” she said.

The great thing about college is that the wealthy, white,

Christian kids get to see how the other half lives. They get to see

poor students on scholarships working two jobs and happy to be at

college. They live in apartments with kids from Guam and Somalia and

maybe someone from Malibu, who makes more than their family.

If your child comes back home to figure out what they want to do,

don’t worry. They will have a new appreciation for this life that

you’ve given them, and they may be able to give some good advice to

all of us living in this little paradise.

If they have to work hard at an entry-level job for a while, they

may learn the best lesson of all.

* SUE CLARK is a Costa Mesa resident and a high school guidance

counselor at Creekside High School in Irvine. She can be reached at

tallteachercomcast.net.