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!

I asked a question about religion, but it didn't get answered. Perhaps it got lost in the other stuff.

What was your question?

I can't respect any culture that does not respect individual choice or who judges the actions of women differently from the actions of men. if individuals choose to live like that, then fine but to raise their children that way, not fine.

What happens if you are gay?

Great, I suppose you’ll leave the thread now and move along..thanks for stopping by.

Another random one that occurred to me, I'm sure I've seen on tv that people leave plastic coverings on their soft furnishings. Is that a regular thing, and does it not make them weird and crackly to sit on so you're not getting the full comfort? Or is it a load of rubbish and hardly anyone does it.

There are loads of gay/lesbians in our community.

Is this from the Irish Travelling Community or Romany Gypsy Community? Is there any difference between the two in terms of animal husbandry? Thank you.

Why's that then?
Oh yeah.
Lived experience = racist.
Sounds familiar....

I don’t plastic anything anymore. But yeah people do and sometimes they plastic there kitchen sides too. It’s just to keep things clean and preserve/protect them. And no not uncomfortable at all

Being gay is still very controversial to be honest. Not so much amongst the younger ones and there are quite a lot of openly gay young people in tiktok etc now but majority of their hate comments are from their own community.

But for the majority, they couldn't just come out and say they were gay and carry on with their life.

Are you mostly Roman Catholic, or are there other denominations? Do you find that younger members of the community are more likely to be atheist, or not?

why would I do that?

Thanks. To be fair my best friend at school's parents plasticked their hall runner, which I did find very odd, but they had a giant poodle who liked mud, so it made a bit of sense. Not travellers but clearly couldn't deal with his mud habit....

From my experience everyone is mostly Christian or catholic and the same for the younger ones.

Thanks

Do you think that's problematic? And is it improving? I feel sad for them.

no need for you to be here. If I didn’t respect a community/culture I wouldn’t be interested in asking questions or seeing the answers.

because tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner. I obvs don't comprend enough yet to pardonner.

My mum did this back in the '70s...Many people did at that time.

We were late 80s/early nineties, and I'd never seen it before or since. He was a lovely dog but mad for mud, and his tail would frequently sweep ornaments onto the very thick for a reason shag pile carpet in the living room. And wake us up when we had sleepovers in there.

We didn't even have a dog. I recall that Mum ordered ours out of the Brian Mills catalogue.

Our settee and armchairs all had loose covers and arm covers made by Mum.

Random questions:
Are marriages arranged by family or is it pretty much up to the couple who they marry (I know marriage within the community would be encouraged)?
If children leave school after primary, do their parents encourage them to continue with any academic things, e.g. reading, maths etc?
If not, and you left school at 11, do you think it would be useful to have a better understanding of those kind of things?
Do many travellers have cats or animals other than dogs or horses?
Do they generally have more children than average (3+)?
Kids and technology - what access do they have? I guess if they are removed from school because if the worry of outside influences then perhaps less than the average child?
A bit more controversially, as you say most men work in trades, do you think most pay the appropriate taxes or is most work done cash in hand?

I appreciate you can only answer from your experience and not talk for all travellers. And sorry for long list!

I don't know about Irish travellers but gypsies don't have arranged marriages
Most people only see a need for being able to read and write well
Quite a lot of people also keep pet birds
It's probably more common than in wider society to have 3+ children I'd say, although I think families are smaller now on average than in past generations
There will be some tradies who avoid taxes, but I think that it's pretty impossible these days as virtually nobody pays in cash anymore. That's one of the most annoying stereotypes

Definitely problematic but thankfully improving