"Keeping up with the Joneses" is an idiom in many parts of the English-speaking world referring to the comparison to one's neighbor as a benchmark for social caste or the accumulation of material goods. To fail to "keep up with the Joneses" is perceived as demonstrating socio-economic or cultural inferiority.
Read more about Keeping Up With The Joneses: Origins, Social Effects
Famous quotes containing the word keeping:
““... But don’t you think we sometimes make too much
Of the old stock? What counts is the ideals,
And those will bear some keeping still about.””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)