Does the UK begrudge success?

There were a few reasons why I have chosen to privately educate my son.
Wrap around care both myself and my husband are working full time and I wanted to continue to do so as I love my job and worked hard for it. Sport - DS is very sporty and the school offered great support with a lot of training/ games - a lot of hours playing the sport that he loves. And last and the most important reason, local schools are rubbish where we live, no grammars nearby and son is very academic and I did not want to be bullied for this . He does have an academic scholarship but it is not relevant in this context as percentage reduction quite small .
Also you make it sound that private schools are only in the UK. Where I come from (former communist country) there were plenty of 'private' schools as well with fabulous facilities reserved for members of the communist party children. Some other sort of privilege but nevertheless a privilege.

In what way does identity politics erode your argument?

@Workworkandmoreworknow geez I really don’t know anyone who thinks people not earning six figures must be “lazy and stupid”. I’ve never come across anyone who doesn’t value and respect nurses, teachers and tradesman etc for their skill and hard work.

The OP hasn't said anything at all to indicate that they experienced poverty or went without in any meaningful sense though.

She says her parents went without holidays and nice clothes (not unusual, plenty of people's budgets don't stretch to these things); lived in a 2 bed flat (cramped, but not that unusual, and in the past there was less obsession with children having their own bedroom than there is these days); and had to work a lot so she attended after school club.

The "hell" which she describes is emotional and physical abuse, not poverty.

Ambition and success are two different things. Ambition is working hard to realise your dreams, as well as having ambition for any children you have.

People can be successful because they're born with a silver spoon in their mouths. Doesn't mean they're ambitious.

@TarantinoIsAMisogynist on some level I get what you’re saying, but that assumes that parents are making rational decisions or have the same perception about what constitutes a basic living. I don’t know the ins and outs of the situation but I remember my aunty feeling obliged to feed some private school children in her building, because she was worried that they wouldn’t be able to eat. Children don’t have any say in this decision-making so their experience of the powerlessness of poverty is not necessarily any less real.

@MCOut Yes I do know that of course, but my reply was getting way to long to cover every eventuality and my Dad realised that also. I think from his pov he was thinking of his family who worked and died in the heavy industries, including his own father who died in an accident in a steelworks at 38 when he was only 2 years old, the compensation his mother received wasn't even enough to cover her relocation costs back to her home town. Now we have a lot of conversion around colonialism and the exploitation of other countries and people by the British Empire and we see it on TV and online but in the 80s it was really an academic realm or for activists and my Dad left school and 15 and just wasn't versed in these ideas at all. He used to be anti-gay marriage as well but again he came to realise he was wrong on that and actually proudly attended at the wedding of two women who live on our street (and are good friends of his) when gay marriage was legalised.

I think my point is that these feelings are normal in a society with deep injustice at its core and that they are then used to deflect that anger away from where it belongs. As you say you agree with most of that.

It's not a binary question of being privileged or not, you can be privileged in one aspect of your life, and not in another.

You had parents who invested in your future success, made sure you had a good education. And they obviously weren't poor - nobody can afford 3 sets of private school fees without being reasonably well off, regardless of how much they scrimp and save elsewhere. You never went without or experienced real poverty.

All of that represents immense privilege.

You also experienced DV. That's obviously not a privilege - it causes trauma and affects your relationships through to adulthood. But it doesn't cancel out the other privileges that you did have.

You may be less privileged than your schoolfriends who were wealthier and didn't experience DV, but you are far more privileged than a child who experiences DV, real poverty, and whose parents don't care whether they get an education or not.

@bonafidetidy I mean, his honesty counts for something, but let us not pretend that the ancestors of those immigrants were not also forced to contribute to the success of Britain rather than their own countries and nations.

Everything you’ve said I agree with though.

What led you to pay for your son's education?
I am not trying pick a fight, just curious. I don't advocate communism, but I do struggle to justify private school in the UK so I wanted to ask what it was that made it important to you.

Yes and particularly Mumsnet Tera hate successful people. How dare people earn six figures etc etc. so much jealousy. We should be encouraging higher pay not dragging people down. If someone has worked hard to get into that kind of role and you havent, it's not their fault is if love

sod all to do with jealousy and everything to do with the assumption that anyone not earning 6 figures is both lazy and stupid. All those earning 6 figures presumably expect the lower paid police, fire people and paramedics to turn up when they call? And expect their children’s schools to be fully staffed with qualified professionals who care about their job? They want to be served their Starbucks with a smile and the supermarket to be fully stocked? Someone needs to be doing those jobs. My beef, such as it is, with higher earners is not their earnings, but their assumption they are somehow more worthy, almost better than the rest of us. It is the level of entitlement you see with those six figures that bothers many, not the 6 figures themselves.

I’m actually surprised at your experience. I’m not saying this to invalidate it because I believe you. In my experience half of the private school girls that I knew, had similar backgrounds to you. I met them because once they hit sixth form they transferred to the local grammars. There were of course immigrant girls who had wealthy parents but at the time I wouldn’t have thought it was a majority. There are quite a few threads on here of Mums who are really sacrificing to do this for their children.

So just a note to read all of what I write before responding, below is my Dad's unvarnished view of from a long time ago and not something he feels at all now.

I recall my Dad telling me that he did feel angry in the 1980s when he was really struggling financially to see recent immigrants driving about in flash cars with the narrative that they had recently come to the UK, started up with nothing and made their fortune through hard work alone in a few short years. It just didn't make sense to him as he worked hard, was intelligent and made loads of sacrifices as did my mum to make a better life for themselves and their kids and financial success was difficult to come by. He was from a very poor working class background and said he would look at these suddenly wealthy immigrants and think, my ancestors built this country, fought in two world wars to protect it and yet I can't get ahead no matter how hard I work.

My Dad didn't have it in him to hate anyone and I think in time he did manage to become successful in his business, he also learned that not everyone who came to the UK arrived poor and that many immigrants did struggle same as him.

I think it does illustrate though how these feelings can be leveraged by bad actors in society to create more division and resentment. I also think its interesting from the opposite angle in that often people who do succeed see it all as their own hard work and fully deserved on their own merits and that if other people struggle or don't do as well that is their own fault as opposed to acknowledging the good fortune and privileges they may have had.

I always admire my Dad for being open to me about his feelings at that time and how he out grew them over time.

The UK is a highly stratified society where even making it financially through work and money grants you proper access to the next class up, opportunities are still limited here and life can be very hard for the large cohort working poor it makes sense that people are directed to resent immigrants for example as it draws attention away from those actually in power and from the kind of fights that would actually make things fairer for all.

It depends. Personally I like to see people who do well, I don’t even mind a bragger. People should have the space to feel proud of themselves and their circle when someone has achieved, and this is irrespective of their background. Privilege doesn’t mean that somebody hasn’t earned their success.

That being said, I take a major issue with how this world disadvantages some people.
So I have a problem with people who have not experienced poverty or discrimination belittling struggles that they will never face. I also have a problem with those who have achieved in spite of difficulties, pretending they are not the exception, or even sometimes the recipient of helping hand. When either of these behaviours is combined with a willingness to kick away the ladder for others…

I'm in my late 40s, my husband is late 50s.

Having no tuition fees was definitely good fortune for me (see my latest post) but on the flip side, I also had no parental contribution save the twenty quid my Dad gave me when he dropped me off.

I imagine you will get some shit for that as any reference to SAPG usually ends in people being called cunts, but I thank you as I was turning it over in my head trying to work out what was wrong.

I accept that I was lucky to have gone to university at a time when there were no tuition fees. I'd have been drowning in debt otherwise. As it was a took a "gap" year and worked two jobs to save up (no digging wells in Africa for me.)

Thats another area where privilege/luck plays a part. Did you see the thread recently where a parent asked if £500 a month was enough to give their student child (in addition to paying his rent 😮)? My parents dropped me off at halls and my Dad gave me £20. That was the extent of their financial contribution to my high education. My student loan covered my rent but that was it. I was on my own for the rest. I had a PT job lined up in my university town before I even moved there. Worked FT every summer. In my gap year in Europe I taught English. I've never not worked.

If you want to think of me as lucky, knock yourself out.

'Decades' so how old are you?

So what 65hrs? My DH is more than that I don't seem him Monday to Friday, sometimes Sunday -Friday due to the work he puts in. We had our first DC when he was still qualifying to be an Architect, so working in the day, studying at night and the weekend. I have a Masters degree, I have further qualifications that I studied for in Privacy/info sec field but due to our age we had tution fees to pay off, no windfall in house prices for us and not even enough rooms to hoise our children at first. We are still the lucky ones! However, hard work does not equate to wealth, it just doesn't.

Thank you. My kids have had it drummed into them that they need to work hard for everything they want.

I think my council estate was a shock to them, to be honest.

As is typical with these comments, nobody ever comes back to elaborate on their lies!

I live in the US; my house (still mortgaged) has appreciated but not at UK rates. We have retirement savings but the bulk of that is not passive appreciation.

If your definition of privilege means having an asset that appreciates in value, then everyone with a savings account is privileged. I don't agree with that definition.

As I said, do I think my kids are privileged? Absolutely. My husband and I? No. Decades of 65 hour weeks of work and study. Though of course, if you want to opine about luck I'd quote Samuel Goldwyn: "The harder I work, the luckier I get."

The trouble with these threads on MN is that those who are wealthy really want to believe it is their choices, their intelligence, their hard work that has afforded them their wealth, they always circumvent the stated facts and data that wholly disprove that premise.

If you want higher wages for everyone, how the hell do you expect to achieve that if you disregard the history, the 'wealth' advantage derived from corporate welfare. Stop stating emotionally driven platitudes ans acknowledge the facts. Personally, our combined income is close to 6 figures so It is more rubbish spouted about envy and jealousy they is impossible to read. The system is fucking rigged just admit it? Why can't you admit it and then we would get somewhere with your higher wages for everyone desires!

I don't think people begrudge success as much as get annoyed by some of the attitudes prevalent amongst the successful. Typically we hear a great deal more about their hard work and sacrifice than we do about the good fortune that will inevitably have played a major part in that. Very few successful people have got there without some advantage or good luck, yet there is a stubborn refusal to acknowledge it, which is unfair to the countless people who also work hard and make sacrifices but don't enjoy the same success. For every bootstrap millionaire you will get millions of poor people who remain trapped in their poverty. I don't begrudge the success of the one in a million, but do get irritated by the fiction it's there for the taking if you just work hard enough and make wise choices.

Everyone has a job by their own efforts. Our company needs everyone to perform well, so having jobs isn't down to a few winners but collective effort.

What I'm referring to is a few individuals pushing people to celebrate some people we dont know very well.

Maybe because of these winners the company is successful and everyone benefits indirectly by having a job at the end of the day.