To wonder why this is 'common'?

Yes a lot of people do still view it as 'common' ime

Sounds like the kind of thing my mum would say. Years ago her nickname was Hyacinth Bucket.

Where I live everyone sits outside on the frontage. We have a chat with the neighbours or anyone else going by. I find it friendly and don't care if it's thought to be common.

I’ve never really thought about it but yes, my grandmother saw it as something ‘not done’ except by certain people. Those who sometimes have a mattress or couch outside.

Honestly who cares though

there are lots of things people used to think of as 'common' that are now very normal - eating and drinking in the street, for example.

I agree with you - telling someone else they are common is a bigger indicator of lack of class than the original behaviour!

You should buy your neighbour a Nicky Haslam tea towel (if you are rich). He issues them regularly but I am not sure he’s ever named sitting in a front garden as common. Much more likely to list “telling people they’re common” as common. https://nickyhaslamstudio.com/shop/ols/products/the-new-nicky-haslam-tea-towel-2024

I love seeing people sat out front, watching the world go by, chatting to their neighbours. Got a lovely community feel to it.

Lots of people who live in my village sit out the front. Gives them a chance to have a chat with neighbours walking by, it’s really nice .

She was joking! It was probably common once. Our kindest and most entertaining neighbours do it all summer drinking Fosters and chatting to passers by.

I’ve never heard that. I think of it as quite American as we used to sit on our porch steps with a drink when we lived in our first apartment in Chicago and had no proper outside space, lots of our neighbours also did the same. In London I’m not tempted as the front of our house faces East and our back patio is a little sun trap.

I was told it was common but I can see 2 houses across the road where the garage doors are open and the men are doing stuff in them and I don’t think that they look common at all so I have no clue why. I have just come in from my front garden having done a couple hours of gardening - maybe I’m common too?

I laughed in surprise and said 'Oh, am I being common?' to which she laughingly agreed I was!

Well, she wasn't being horrible to you. God knows why you've taken this to heart.

I'm her age. When we were young, class markers were a massive thing to the generation before us - and even bigger for their own parents' generation.

So we, like our parents, bumbled through life making our own choices but always with the background noise of all the things deemed 'common' or 'bourgeois' (another social sin).

Eating on the go? Common. I do it, but plenty of my contemporaries still can't bring themselves to.
Mentioning the toilet? Most of us do this now; our mothers battled against "powdering their noses" as needing the loo was common.
Getting drunk? Eeeuuww, common! Of course, we all did it without shame.
Pleather. You can call it vegan leather, I can see it's often beautiful, but I haven't got over thinking of it as 'common'.

There's a mountain of this stuff. She was just telling you, in good humour, she feels inhibited by the old-fashioned judgement of sitting outside your house as 'common'. You should've invited her to join you 🙂

I’m not sure - it’s one of those random things like eating in the street 🤣

At the end of the day, you aren’t harming (or affecting) anyone else - you go for it

We don’t know that OP isn’t sitting on the front step in a string vest smoking a fag.
Legs akimbo.

The only people I ever see sat out the front are smoking. Most people use their back gardens for reading/relaxing etc but its your house do what you want

Yes, I was told it was common, along with eating and smoking in the street and men walking around with no tops on. However that was more sitting on the front street when you didn't have a garden and using either dining chairs or a sofa you had dragged out.

My Mum always said it was “common” but I don’t think someone having a cup of coffee and reading falls into that category tbh. I have seen one family sitting out in a sofa they’d pulled into the street and setting up a paddling pool, I’m torn on that one. On one hand yes, it’s not great especially as people had to walk round them on the pavement but also, they had no back garden and the kids loved it, they weren’t really harming anyone and there was a pavement in the other side. Not what I’d do, but those kids would remember the fun they had.

I think it goes back to the days when folk sat on their front door step having a fag.
What you describe sounds lovely

I guess because wealthier people would have private gardens ?

However, we live in a little street of 10 houses with huge big back gardens and also front lawns and a few of our neighbours put benches out during COVID and they've kept them there since and occasionally sit out still and it's made the street feel so much more friendly

I think as long as you’re not sat on a sofa in a string vest you’re fine

your neighbour is a rude woman

It’s a hang over from the past when if you were rich you had a large house and back garden to sit out and entertain in whereas if you were poor you only had a yard and would sit out the front to chat to neighbours.
Obviously these days it’s a load of rubbish.

We were never allowed to play out the front of the house because my Mum believed it was common! So I guess your neighbour is right!

I don’t think she was being rude (not there to hear tone, obviously). She was commenting on how her upbringing still affects what she chooses to do, even though times have changed, and then she laughingly agreed when she thought you were being lighthearted and ‘playing along’. If she really thought you were ‘common’ or that it mattered in any way, she’d not have stopped to talk to you.

I think people sitting out the front is lovely.