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!

odd. I would have said "my teachers" meaning the teachers who teach me as opposed to all the teachers in the school.

You asked how they referred to all their teachers.

Undoubtedly you probably call a child's mother "mum".

So ask a question. I'll answer. You don't want to though because you've already made your mind up, haven't you?

Quick to attack other people but you ought to start with some self reflection.

Are you mostly Roman Catholic, or is there a mixture of belief systems, generally?

no but if it was a group of mothers and the comon denominator was that they were mothers, I would call them "The mothers" and I know that Midwives will talk about "my Mums"

I am always sussy when someone of whatever race or eithnicity says "Its cultural" or "we prefer to do it that way" babies are not born with preferences or knowing about the culture that they are born into, they are taught it by their elders. I also think that there are certain values that are (or should be) common to all...like no stealing, no violence, no bullying and so on.... but apart from that it always concerns me when "we prefer it" or " its cultural" is another way of saying "we remove choice"

Don't you realise that you also have cultural practices that are normal to you and not to others?

Yes but in my experience admittedly nor detailed, my life defining cultural norms aren't visited on children in the same way that has been described here, or at least that is my impression. To be clear, as I have said I have had a fair bit to do with local Gypsies (their word) and it doesn't seem to be as rigid here so i don't think its a case of my saying "oh they all do this" Marriages outside the community are not uncommon or surprising. What the girls choose to wear is the same as their non Gypsy counterparts. Children are not removed from school although they may decide to leave. So far as I am aware, educational effort is as expected as it is in non Gypsy children. I certainly had plenty to to with the older generation, although none of them lived a travelling life, and while their interior decoration choices were generally as I would have expected, immaculate and lavish, they seemed to make the same use of NHS and social care services as the rest of my caseload. My point is that saying "we prefer" or "its a cultural norm" suggests to me, at least, that individual choice or the possibility of change is ruled out or frowned on.

Yep. "Culture" is mostly a fancy word for telling other people, especially female ones, what to do.

You stole my line, @whymadam —
You gotta have hope.

This might sound a silly question to you, but I’m in California & honestly don’t know - does your town provide trash cans for the Travelers while they’re there?
I saw a show on tv briefly and saw the before & after of (what looked like a big football pitch) (is pitch correct?) and it was a terrible mess. I don’t remember if there were trash cans or not.
I also remember a show about Traveler weddings where they behaved beautifully.
That tiny part where it showed the mess after they left the pitch left me heartsick.
Shameful. Absolutely no excuse whatsoever for leaving behind a gross mess like that - ick.

Anyhow, I don’t know! Would you please fill me in on a few detes? Thank you so much!

This. Crab bucket.

Save your pity. We live like queens.

I can assure you the very last thing in the world I want is to have what you have convinced yourself is equality. It most certainly is not.

@ThejoyofNC don ‘t think girls live like queens if they don’t have the opportunity to have education

@Elsvieta would it be ok, if the women themselves told you, this is our culture, we're proud of it, we're happy in it, we want our children to feel belonging in it, and we don't want your culture to be forced on us? Or do you kinda want to tell those women to reject their culture and, let's say, get a "proper" education.

I went to university and I loved it, and I did really well. But I hate when outsiders, almost invariably not from minority cultures themselves, sum it up with a smug "misogynistic", or "violent", or "very religious" or whatever, with no clue how much respect and freedom and safety I associate with being a woman in my own community. And these outsiders have no genuine curiosity either. It's almost as if they've already been told what to think...

The last thing women from minority cultures want is white feminism. We have enough to deal with, more often than not with our men as our allies.

@ThejoyofNC I don't know if you're a traveller or what, but your posts are great (the ones I've read anyway).

Good luck to you here. I feel too angry to stick around, but I agree with you.

I’m interested in how people apparently spot travellers just by their looks and clothing. I worked with a couple of girls years ago and was recently told it was very obvious they were from the gypsy community, but to me they didn’t look much different from a lot of young kids around us back then. Bit confused about it!

Gypsies and Travellers are two separate groups and have different styles. I think gypsies might have more conservative ideas when it comes to clothing?

For those that are so curious about what travellers wear and are genuinely interested about the culture and what a traveller/gypsy women and girls look like why don’t do you just download tiktok and see for yourselves? There’s tonnes of traveller/gypsy influences on there.

@DreamTheMoors yes, there are usually trash cans / rubbish bins at eg. Football pitches, parks and the like, but not enough for, say, 100+ random people to rock up unannounced and camp on what is essentially not a campground. There are also things called bin bags, and it beats me why rubbish can't just be put in these, bagged up in one spot to be collected. This alone imo would surely go a long way to improving the situation around relationships.

I don't want a culture to be forced on anyone. I do think though that there should be choice. I am not generalising. I have seen the way that Gypsies live where I live and they do seem to have more choice than eg the OP's comment that "the women take care of our old people because we prefer it like that" I don't expect anyone to reject their culture but I do think that their culture should respect and accept the choices that individuals make and not expect everyone to follow it because "we prefer it that way" or "its our culture" People as individuals should be personally and individually entitled to choose how they live within the legal framework of the land. By this I mean not choosing to live by or choosing theft, violence, abuse and so on. And I am in no way accusing any ethnic group living in the UK of making those illegal choices as a group. By all means choose how you live for yourself, but you have no right to choose it for your children. I speak from similar personal experience. it was not an ethnic or religious group...I'd describe it more as a socioeconomic group from a specific geographical area.

@Blueyrocks you had the chance to go to university and had that choice. Another poster had said her DC are not going to Secondary school because she doesn’t want them to go. Also said adult DC don’t leave home unless they get married. Where is the choice for those DC?

You've been scammed. Your entire life, worth and everything revolves around education. You send your young adults to get thousands of pounds into debt for degrees they'll never use or pay for. Your kids can't afford to leave home. All because of this sacred education you care so much about. We could have it. We don't want it or need it. Those who feel differently, are not imprisoned.

I definitely agree with you about getting a degree for the sake of it, but there are other forms of education that are not expensive useless degrees. It seems to me, from what has been said, that those choices are taken away too. Posters have said they will never let their children live away from home until they marry so I guess that means they can't leave home either. There seems to be a very narrow view of sex education and what is taught in schools which means that children will be removed from school whether they choose it or not, indeed that they will be raised in the expectation of they will do and the path their life will take. Again we are back to choice removal in the name of culture.

So as a 52 year old woman who loves being single & childfree - would I have been expected in your culture to spend my life living with my parents & presumably become their carer eventually?

It was me who said that. Of course we have expectations for our children as you do for yours. But as I'm sure you're aware sometimes they don't do what is expected of them and do something else entirely different.

I simply wouldn't allow mine to go to secondary school. If they expressed a desire for GCSEs then I'd facilitate them achieving that. But again, not in a school.

You seem to be under the impression that there is something wrong with all of this. You simply cannot understand how people could be happy and prosper in a life so different to your own. I think you are very narrow minded.