July 25, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I had heard about GRIT here and there. Mr. Plastic Picker and I send our kids to a fancy prep school. Mr. Plastic Picker had been a scholarship recipient from the top prep school in his area that was a feeder into Princeton, and he loved his experience. When we had our two children, it was one of those non-neogtiable things. He wanted our children to go to a similar independent school. As two MDs, we could afford it. As a product of a strong suburban public school program, it has always felt odd to have my kids in private school. They have done well though and more importantly they have strong connections in their school community, so we have committed to having them finish their education there. If you asked me to total the costs, I think I’d have a heart attack. But we can afford it because we still have a savings rate of over 50% our net income and we both work. Private school is our one indulgence and I actually try to dissuade other parents from it.

As a parent I’ve heard of the idea of Grit around the internet and school emails. Honestly, I just ignored those emails and discussions. It seemed to me the only people who talked about Grit were not living very hard-working lives. But then this morning I visited Retireby40’s blog, and he reposted an article about his Grit score and I was intrigued. https://retireby40.org/what-if-you-have-no-grit/ I took the test, I got a 5 out of 5! I am not surprised. I have a lot of Grit, as do most of my siblings.

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