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!

The community. Everyone always wishes for a village when rearing the children. Also the big families and cousins and the importance of family and culture

Have you ever travelled around ( as a child, I mean), or did you always live in one place?

Ok.

Do you feel if children from travelling families stayed in education longer they would benefit from this ?

I stayed in school and went to college. A 'proper education' is subjective. We teach our children to cook, clean, rear children, how to work hard from a very young age, how to farm and grow our own vegetables. They don't teach this in school to the extent you need for adult life. Most children in my community are in school now and it's a minority to have children pulled out of school at secondary school age.
It's also worth noting that travellers are subject to a lot of racism and discrimination which has an impact on the children being in school

I have worked since I was 18, I was at school and went to college and worked my way up the career ladder in my 20s

Are rates of domestic violence and violence towards women higher than in other communities? I had a preconception that women would find it harder to leave bad relationships due to cultural stigma. As a related / follow on question, what would happen if a woman left her marriage? Would she be shunned?

And another (you did say AMA lol) - based on other tight-knit communities, do you have practices where people can be expelled or shunned from the community?

I follow a couple of Irish travellers on social media, they’re switched on, funny women.

The travelling community is traditionally a closed one, not dissimilar to Judaism being closed practice as a religion. Do you think that social media could be harnessed more broadly by travellers to inform outsiders and dispel misconceptions?

It depends on the community. Only one of my parents is a full Irish traveller. It's a lot more common now than it was even as recent as a few decades ago. Most of us are settled in houses with a small minority who still live on the road

Yes I think so. It's not as black and white as this but my daughter won't be pulled out of school. Only a few members of my family have pulled their children out. Most stay in full time education until 16 and sometimes go to college or university

What's your view of police and what do you think the community view of police is like. Do you cooperate with them, would you call them?

I did as a child because my dad had seasonal work but I was very young. We settled in a house when I was 5 but occasionally took the trailer but we stayed in the UK

Just solidarity . My daughter's dad(my ex) is an Irish Traveller and the prejudice is appalling. My daughter is 19 now ad she is more into her roots and I encourage her .

Is there anything you dislike about your community?

There’s a family of travellers in my son’s school, they disappear around the end of march and come back in October. Is this quite common?

Travelling communities are small and often under represented. There are of course families and women who experience domestic violence just like any other group of people. The travelling community experience a lot of prejudice and often get the police called on them when it's not needed. When it comes to the police we have a fear of being judged or stereotyped and we have to work our trust up to people outside our community and even more so with the police

But hypothetically if I saw a crime being committed out and about I would call the police

When I was a regular stripper and gypsies came in (usually when there was a fairground or something such as on nearby) they would spend a lot of money, were very very polite and respectful and extremely generous!

I don't know if that sort of thing is disagreeable in your culture but regardless I do want to commend your men for their respect for the sex workers who danced for them, including me. Never had to watch your back or where their hands were going as you did with a lot of customers, sometimes more so from certain cultures unfortunately.

My question is, are there rival fights among men? I know a friend of mine who was dating a young man years ago said he was 'gearing up for a fight' with a cousin who had fallen out with him, and there was to be a large audience for it, a proper organised thing. But this was a good 15 years ago! And I am not sure if he was the same culture as you, albeit he did refer to himself as a gypsy.

Sorry I didn't see the last bit
For a member of the family to be put out they'd need to be not sticking to core traditions by bringing shame to the community
It's not as black and white as it used to be. The divorce rates are lower in my community but something like a divorce or being gay wouldn't mean an automatic put out. Some communities are much more traditional than this but it's slowly changing over time
Any child abuse or sexual abuse would mean they would be put out

Yes this is common in communities that live on the road. A lot of the work is seasonal for the men

That's so lovely that you encourage that for her

Well I wonder why the OP feels MN is prejudiced against travellers.

Do you think life is getting easier or harder for your community? Where I live any common ground is being built upon, there seems to be less space for everyone.

The prejudice we experience and the assumptions people have over us
The pressure to be religious and some pressure from wider family to remove my daughter from school which I won't do

How do you have such strong Irish accents (which I love btw) if you go to local schools?

I work in mental health and there are always drives to enable the travelling community to access mental health services (and the NHS as a whole including drug and alcohol services), how do you manage mental health in your community rather than accessing mainstream treatment
this post to me is so interesting by the way