There's an irony that the fictional Karen and the real people she represents probably don't get. The allegedly elite private schools most upper middle class parents send their children to are hardly elite and certainly not top tier. Most "white flight" private schools are expensive but they are rarely selective. If you can afford the tuition, you can get in, with no social connections or political pull, and only mediocre academic prowess. These schools are closer to public schools in the advantages they confer than to something like Phillips Exeter, and the white flight students, like their parents, are social climbers consigned to the upper middle rungs of the ladder--never the top.

Karen's kids will have brief, unsuccessful marriages, reach the peak of their boring careers before they're 50, get laid off, and become professional alcoholics and a bane to their children and grandchildren. In her old age, Karen will wonder how they managed to squander the wonderful education that she sacrificed to give them.