I come from a gypsy / travelling family AMA

[TowerTumble]

I have name changed for this. I see so much misconception and ignorance around the travelling community and towards families like mine. I've started an AMA so if you have any questions to try and stop this misconception I'll answer everything I can!

This is what I mean. How can you even make that statement generalising a whole community. I’m a gypsy, all five of my children go/went to school, 3 went on to leave secondary and attend college. I have another in year7 right now who is top set in maths. It’s people like you who paint every traveller/gypsy with the same brush and it’s disgusting, you should feel ashamed tbh

You can get genetic testing done to check if a potential couple carry the same conditions. This is common in the Jewish community as they have ethnicity specific diseases. If the test shows they are both carriers then they wouldn't proceed with the marriage. I'm assuming Travellers don't do this? I know a woman and she lost a brother to a disease and her husband's sister also has it (and will die from it sadly). Would this put a couple off from marrying each other?

If it’s not obvious to non travellers then why are we sometimes told to pay for aloud food upfront in restaurants? Followed around shops, and often refused services like hair/ nail appointments?

I'm sorry @transitvanwoes "my women", "a lot of my women". Are you telling us you own other women? Could you elaborate about why you think you have ownership of any other woman or group of women? I can't quite compute why another woman would refer to others in that way except to be spectacularly reductive.

I thought the same when she didn’t correct the posters posting about fair ground people.

@babylamb4 another poster seems to be talking about community not just her attitude towards education, marriage so I was responding to that.

Obviously I don't own any women, it's something we say in work about women we work with, in the same way when I'm in a children's project I say my/our children, to show I'm specifically talking about women/children in the project rather than in general. This is considered inclusive and our women like it. ETA: in this case it's intended to be reductive - we cannot talk about Traveller/hindu/disabled women because this is general,vwe can only speak about the experience of the women in our project, ie our women.

if young traveller girls are removed from school before high school, they clean all day/take care of kids, what do their mothers do ? (as they are now doing their jobs?)

why is education not valued? surely every child should be offered an education and at 18 then married off/work or go to uni if thats what they choose?

i feel like they are set up to fail and only allowed one path in life, which is sad

I’m really sorry you both experience this. I’m not a traveller. Not everyone is a racist wanker.

Are you an Irish traveller OP or Roma maybe?

The traveller families who have settled in my area often have very good businesses. I can think of one family in particular that deals with scrap metal and hires out skips.

Another one seems to have many business interests. I still chuckle over the time a 12 yr old pupil offered me a ticket for his lap dancing club in Edinburgh: "You get your first drink free!"

I politely declined, but did ask whether he really owned the club. "Oh, aye! My dad put it in my name!"

The same family also owned a slots machine arcade in the town.

Why do you regularly take girls out of school?

Why did Travelers not get licenses for scrap metal dealing?

As I mentioned in a pp, I had a situation where a Traveller girl loudly claimed that only she was a 'real Gypsy' and that Roma were not.

I was teaching when she burst into my room and had a go at a Romany girl in the class. I don't know what had precipitated this, but she seemed to take umbrage at the Romany pupils in the school referring to themselves as gypsies.

The Scottish/Irish Traveller community was long established in the area; the Roma had arrived much more recently.

Another time, I had to haul one of the Traveller boys off one of the Roma lads. (They were both about the same age - 12 or 13.) The bell had just gone for the end of the school day and the best that I could manage was to hang onto to the Traveller boy long enough to let the the other lad get away.

I did note that the male members of the SLT had conveniently gone deaf at the time, though the women in the office had heard the commotion. Thanks very much, Headie!

I wrote up the incident but I'm not aware of much being done about it.

In Scotland, many supposedly typical Traveller names just sound Scottish to me.

Do men also cook and clean, or just women?

Common Irish Traveller names are Mongan, Stokes, Ward, Connors, McDonagh. If an Irish sounding man phones a hotel in London to book a wedding and gives his name as Paddy Mongan they are going to highly suspect he is a Traveller and will probably reject the booking.

Didn't Center Parcs get into trouble for that?

However, they could just be non Traveller names. Silly really.

I used to work in the NHS. its common to talk about "my patients" or "my clients"

That seems truly shocking to me. Surely they are women with whom you work rather than "your women". My children had a primary head who referred to "my children" when speaking about pupils. Parents were not impressed. It was inappropriate.

I agree with you about generalisation. TBH I thought this was a bit of a strange AMA when the OP said "We prefer it that way" I think it was about the women taking care of their elderly. I mean its a noble choice but what about the women who don't prefer it that way?

Yup. Apparently Stuart is a common Traveller name in Scotland - but there are many more people who have that name and aren't Travellers.

A reasonably well-known Traveller in Scotland was writer and raconteur Duncan Williamson, but I don't think that all Williamsons are Travellers.

Interesting thread, pity the OP left.

@ThejoyofNC, I have a few questions in you don't mind.

I know mental health difficulties are still somewhat stigmatised with the travelling community. Given the important on family, is infertility also stigmatised or is IVF ever considered?

I live in Irish and in the last 10 years there seems to be a big uplift in the number in the number of female travellers stating in education to and including third level? However, all of the male travellers seem to leave early. Any particular reason that's it's nearly all women?

Final one, any female traveller I know has very long hair. Is this just a community preference orvis there any meaning or symbolism associated with it?

No, and Stuart and Williamson are very common names, throughout the UK. You can't make that assumption.