Millionaire Mom Reveals Shocking Rules of Elite Parenting Society
The 52-year-old author warns of “money flying out of your wallet.”
Andrew Kelly/Reuters
Actress and writer Jill Kargman is exposing the baffling rules she encounters in her social circle of wealthy moms.
The 52-year-old Upper East Sider shared her experiences with expensive social gatherings on the Thursday, Oct. 15 episode of the Financial Tea with Mrs. Dow Jones podcast.
Kargman, best known for creating and starring in the sitcom Odd Mom Out, said befriending other Upper East Side mothers in New York City came at a price.
Harry Kargman and Jill Kargman at the 2024 Met Gala in New York City.
Andrew Kelly/Reuters
Kargman, who has three children with her husband, millionaire Harry Kargman, recalled raising them in a wealthy Manhattan neighborhood. To please her two daughters, she befriended other mothers at their school.
“These moms would have a sit-down lunch for 14 people, like, all the time,” Kargman said.
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Extreme wealth is neither new nor unfamiliar to Kargman, the daughter of the late businessman Arie Kopelman, who served as president and chief operating officer of Chanel from 1986 to 2004.
Kargman said she constantly got invites to birthday lunches at upscale restaurants like La Goulue on the Upper East Side, where diners order high-end truffle fries for 28 bucks a pop.
“They’re having like a rosé lunch, which I can’t do because I’m working,” she said. “And then you’re like all splitting it and Venmoing everybody $200, but you’re funding their rosé.”
Jill Kargman at the 69th Writers Guild Awards New York Ceremony in February 2017.
Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
Beyond paying for luxurious lunches, Kargman said the celebrations had another pricey element.
“And then there’s also the group gift component where they’re like ‘Venmo me $250,’ and then they present her with like a f---ing Chanel bag at the table.”
The most affordable handbags from the French luxury fashion house cost multiple thousand dollars.
Jill Kargman said the mothers in the group were expected to pitch in for expensive birthday gifts like luxury handbags from Chanel.
Charles Platiau/Reuters
Eventually, the $450 lunch parties became too much for Kargman.
“I did it for many years,” she said. “And that’s a huge money flying out of your wallet thing because you have the, you know, $150 prix fixe, plus tax, plus everything. It winds up being like $200.”
Kargman added, “And then the group gift, you’re like giving one 16th of an Hermès tote or whatever the f---.”
“It just got so crazy honestly,” she said. “It felt like something that I should do that I didn’t want to do, and I just stopped.”
“Odd Mom Out” was a sitcom created by Jill Kargman that ran from 2015 to 2017. Pictured here on set with guest star Drew Barrymore in 2016.
Barbara Nitke/Bravo/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
Kargman also said she was not reaping social benefits from these get-togethers.
“I’m not even having quality time because it’s so many women,” she said. “I’m always better one-on-one. I don’t like group meals. And they also take like 3 hours.”
Experiences like these inspired Kargman’s 2007 novel Momzillas and her 2026 comedy film, Influenced.
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