Top Models!

While reading a previous issue of Vogue, I flipped to an article featuring Gisele Bundchen. The article was talking about how she just had a baby and was trying to remove herself from the entertainment business for a while to rest. She talked about how every once in a while she would travel with her baby and her husband to a jungle in Brazil and live there for a while. As I was reading this, I thought to myself, honestly how many people are able to say that they need a break from life and just escape to a beautiful house in the middle of no where?

Obviously this is a very distinctive example of the difference between classes. The fact that Gisele has enough money to build a house in the middle of a jungle tells us that she is capable of doing what most people cannot. The fact that she is able to just leave her job and not go to work for a couple of weeks tells me that she’s someone who does not have to worry about money. Growing up in a working class family, there has never been a day where my parents did not have to work to support us. When I was little, I remember wanting to go shopping on a Sunday but my parents told me that we couldn’t because they had to work that weekend. Besides the fact that my mom cannot find a job because of the economy right now, I do not remember another time when she got to stay at home for a prolonged period of time, nor do I remember her taking an actual vacation.

It saddens me that there are some people who are stuck in lower class statuses and has to work extra hard to provide the basic necessities for their family. Then there are those who just have to do a few runway shows and they can make a couple grand. I’m not saying that Gisele didn’t work hard to make it to where she is today, it just bothers me that there can be such a big disparity between lower class and upper class people. It wasn’t as if my parents are lazy people who never worked hard, but the language barriers they face as immigrants from another country makes it so much harder for them to find work here. Although Gisele is an immigrant herself, she got her start in her own homeland before making a mark for herself in the United States. The connections she made while she was on top in Brazil made it that much simpler for her to come here and settle into the culture of upper class America. I guess that is just the way life works.