To find middle class parents insufferable?

So no drug use around you growing up and an excellent education. Sounds like you had a pretty sheltered upbringing @Whyarepeople That's the difference between a 'rough' area and a rough area.

many cultures will sacrifice everything to send their dc to the best school they can. Yet somehow in the UK some people think that’s a problem

I’m not sure the people you are describing are ‘middle-class’. They sound more like the sort of people who are mortgaged and loaned up to the eyeballs and only two months’ salary away from becoming the precariat that they despise.

They don’t really hate the lower classes, they are just terrified that it would only take a redundancy and a missed lease payment on the Discovery and they would be joining them.

Having been a teacher I can tell you they absolutely do say that, loudly and proudly.

I am very much WC, though I would not have called myself that before moving to the UK as Ireland isn't obsessed with class.

My point was lost on you so I'll explain it again. I grew up in an area that was so 'rough' there is a whole tv show on the BBC making fun of how rough it is, called Young Offenders. It's the type of place MC MNers would definitely sneer at. I went to state schools, which were fine because the Irish education system isn't a heap of shit like the British one - everyone gets a good education no matter where they live. Despite growing up in a 'rough' area the place I encountered drugs was Bristol Uni - a uni that is filled with MC wannabies with huge chips on their shoulder about not being at Oxford. The idea that being in 'naice' areas shields you from drugs is just stupid.

To add I did have MC job, largely because of my good Irish education which meant, like everyone else, it didn't matter where I came from, I had the same opportunities as everyone else. Applications to uni in Ireland are anonymous so the situation with Oxbridge where a lot more of a certain class were getting in wasn't actually possible.

But that's similar to putting disruptive kids withSEN in mainstream and letting the disrupt the whole class all the time. But people don't say " oh I want my. kids to go where's there isn't SEN kids"

Yes, MC cannot afford private schools nowadays and are increasingly anxious.

I think people conflate the umc with the mc, there’s a big gulf of money between them!

The irony of WC people saying "been there, hated it, don't care what MC say, no way I'm sending my kids to those shitholes" whilst champagne socialists are parading their bleeding hearts and telling about their first MC encounters with drugs and violence at their MC jobs in their 20s or 30s is certainly lost on many people here.

There are so many good reasons why (some) people don't want their kids to go to (some) state schools that have nothing to do with academic privilege. They the state school system isn't great in lots of ways. And the people who can afford to opt out are people with more money.

The arseholery is a result of competitiveness and insecurity. I grew up in a grammar school area - all fine and dandy in primary school until the last year and a bit, when awareness of who was expected to pass the 11 plus and who wasn’t became apparent to the children (in those days, everyone in the primary state sector in the locality was entered to take the 11 plus, regardless, you didn’t opt in and were only opted out if you had an obvious learning disability). At the point this separation became apparent (teachers started selecting what tables you sat on, etc, etc), the bullying started, but very much in terms of the minority who were expected to get into the grammar schools being told they were posh and stuck up, not the minority telling the majority that they were common and stupid. If you are obsessed enough with class that you have chosen to classify a group of people whose behaviour irritates you as middle class, as though their behaviour is the defining feature of their social class, then you really are part of the problem, not the solution.

I'm not sure where the 'how nice for you' comment came from. I was sharing an experience, just like you were.

the first time I saw hard drugs was when I worked at Bristol University

How nice for you. The first time I saw heroin smoked was when I was 11 at the delightfully down to earth comprehensive I was sent to. The day we moved to the leafy suburbs and I got to go to a "naice" middle class school was one of the happiest of my life.

I completely agree with op, we’ve sent our kids to our local secondary which is one of the ‘roughest’ in the city, we both work in the city in a well paid industry where some people look at us like we are mad lol. But the teachers are to the same standard, the school has lovely facilities and there’s nothing wrong with being around people from different backgrounds. There’s a distraction factor sure but as they get older that gets less.

Oh, it was a shit state school so he was really unlucky. His parents were new to the area and hadn't thought about catchment at all- they just thought all state schools were fine having lived in another country for a long time. It was bad luck because there were other, better state schools in the area.

On the class thing, it's interesting having an Irish accent because people struggle to 'place' me. Of course when they find out where I live, the snobs show themselves very clearly.

I went to a dreadful West Yorkshire comprehensive where we had two stabbings and violence threatened daily.
I did everything possible to avoid any future children of mine having to go to that (or an equivalent) hell hole daily. It was awful and I hated school.
i was also brought up in an area where my friend and I were set upon walking home for looking at someone the wrong way.

The references to drugs made me think. I grew up in one of the 'roughest' parts of my hometown (if you've seen Young Offenders, a lot of it was filmed near where I lived) and the first time I ever saw hard drugs was when I worked at Bristol University. I went to a houseparty thrown by one of the senior lecturers (her husband was a barrister and their house was huge). At one point she asked her 17 year old daughter if she 'had anything' and off the daughter trots and comes back with some pills, which she a lot of the other senior staff took. A fellow WC staff member and I just stood there, not knowing what to do. I was so thankful when he suggested we leave.

To this day I can't believe they did it. The blatant flaunting of drug taking, using their own child as a supplier. Those idiots are the same people who would sneer at the 'rough' parts of Bristol and consider themselves above it, despite the fact that the utter twats were funding the drug trade that blighted those neighbourhoods. The hypocrisy was beyond, it makes me angry still.

I had to laugh at the reference to Rotherham, as though it's a barren wastleland that no one comes out of alive!

Yeah, apparently Oxford refuses applicants with a Rotherham postcode. 🙄

Haven't read the full thread, but I grew up in Rotherham, and there were 6 of us from there in my year at my Oxford college (from different - state - schools).

I hate doing school run in my north london suburb so I guess I probably agree with you.

Just wow . . . you are so judgmental Op, do you think you might be the problem here?

Rotherham?

DS was tutored for the 11+ went to a SS West Kent grammar thence( with 4A*s @ A level) to Oxbridge is about to graduate with a 1st in Stem subject. He also had amazing sporting and extra curricular experiences, was surrounded by bright motivated peers and wonderful teachers.

The comprehensive 10 minites walk from the house has been in special measures for most of intervening 11 yrs. I don't care that many of the primary school Mums disaproved, I wpild do it all over again tommorow.