Just Add Water Kennedys by Polyestra

Write an essay about the American dream and "class jumping." How are the two interrelated? What is class jumping, according to Polyestra? Do you agree with Polyestra that this strategy for success is seldom successful in America? If you know of a family or person who has "jumped class" or obtained the American dream, discuss the strategies that were helpful in the "ascent."

Polyestra describes the way her parents saw the American Dream as "Two out of millions who erased themselves for the homogeneity of TV-inspired blandness, smiling into cereal commercials like adoring fans" (165). The stratagy for class jumping was to put it on your children to help propel you forward. Polyestra's parents were supposed to become rich to ensure a nice retirment for their parents, and when they had children it became their job. Her parents enrolled her and her sister in a private school for as long as they could afford it, in dance classes to teach them how to be "proper" and trying to push them into a class where they didn't belong. Even when they did come into money where her father was doing well at work, they tried to buy their way into the upper middle class, where they clearly didn't fit in. This is clearly not the best way to try and jump classes, by waiting for your children to make it big. Most people don't make it out of the class they were born into anyway. I believe I learned in sociology this morning that only 2% manage to clearly break that invisible barrier.

In a way you could say that my parents jumped classes. They were from the working class growing up. The city they lived in was know to be rich, but they lived in the poorer area of it, jokingly referred to as the "golden ghetto." My mom was one of 4 kids, and they often ate bread and soup for dinner because it was the cheapest and they couldn't afford much else. My dad grew up 3 streets away, where it was along the same lines, although there were only 2 children in his family.

Now, we live in Dublin, also know to be a rather rich city. My dad has a very successful job and looking at our lifestyle, I would say that he managed to break through to a different class. My mother married into it, but my father knew that is what he wanted. He found ways to work himself through college and has advanced in every career that he has had. Most of this comes from his hard work and determination, which he has continued to teach my brothers and I. It is possible to change the direction of your life.