Son finds it difficult having posh and not posh sides to the family?

[arrian]

Hello, hope you are all having a good christmas. Just had an interesting conversation with 18 yo ds in the car home from relatives.

He was saying he finds it really difficult having two very different sides to the family
. I think it’s exaggerated, or more obvious by the fact that he saw both my family and dh family today.

I was brought up on a council estate, went off to university, got myself a fairly good professional job. I am much better off now than when I was growing up. My sisters didn’t move from the town.
My parents are both very through and through normal caring working class.

My DS adores his grandparents, but complains they’re a bit boring sometimes. They’re your stereotypical northern, ex-miner brexit voter. Even in my view, quite close minded, but still lovely as family.

DH on the other hand has had a very different upbringing. He went to a top boarding school, and comes from a family that has always had a fair amount of money. His family are very educated, professionals and spread all over the world.

My DS is more like my husband, as he was brought up in a stable home in a nice area and we both had decent jobs. He is currently at Cambridge, following the foot steps of many of his paternal family members and so has a good topic to chat about.

In my eyes, I’d deffo say that DH was a posh git.

My son has told me that he finds it difficult moving from one social setting to the next.

He gets funny looks from my side if he uses a long word, drinks wine, or offers an opinion on something in the news etc. They’ll make half joking comments about him being posh. My dh plays it down completely, and imitates their behavior.
Yet my son said it’s not fair that he should put a false face on.

Don’t get me wrong, he has a great laugh with my family, yet says they’re “boring” and finds conversation to be quite uninteresting; “sandra from the shop is going to Salou, she said it’s lovely”.

It doesn’t help that my parents hate my in laws with a passion, as they think they’re snooty, and will always have more money to spend on gifts, meals out.

Oh and this reaction from katekat made me feel for the OP's son.

My posting: When I came home from university, I very much became aware that my middle-class parents had quite a narrow range of conversation. It was very factual. 'I went to X'. 'I saw Y'. 'Item Z is worn out and we have to replace it'. At university, I'd got used to conversation that was much more speculative and playful - and I found this kind of conversation had all sorts of interesting possibilities.

Her: Is this gem for real?! 😆If so, comedy gold!

Is it automatically 'comedy' if a poster uses words that of several syllables - and then legit to send her up, even though she/I may have been recalling experiences that weren't funny.

(Interesting thread all the same, with lots of thoughtful and/or genuinely funny posts.)

Agree with Newcastle being posh.

Lonicera I switched to Politics ( which was my minor) within a couple of weeks and enjoyed it after that!
I mostly hung out with DH and his STEM geek friends anyway
I considered Durham too but felt it was too “oxbridge wannabe” ironically

Going back a few posts, I do apologise for using the word 'posh' when the comments were about 'real class', but I very much inferred from that quote, as others also did, that it referred to people from the higher levels of society. There is some odd idea out there that truly upper class people don't care about class at all and that's just nonsense!

When I went to Oxbridge, I realised very quickly that it got an adverse reaction from most people I knew at home, and that I wasn't entirely comfortable with the sort of people who thought it was a good thing. So I would just name my college when asked where I was/had been at uni. Most people just nodded politely (while having no idea at all where I was referring to) and we moved on happily. I remain half embarrassed to tell people twenty years later. When I started my first proper job, I was working alongside a (lovely) public school boy, and our new colleagues knew that one of us was Oxbridge. Everyone assumed it was him. When I was applying, one of my uncles heard me say where I was hoping to go, and asked whether I meant for a picnic.

I also get the northern/southern thing. My (northern) FiL just will not stop banging on about me being a southerner and therefore posh. The fact that my northern half was the far better off side of my background,and my southern family existed in the sort of poverty he has never remotely experienced, is not something I can be arsed to raise with him; it would be pointless. But I would never go to his house and start cracking idiotic jokes about northerners.

To clarify:

I totally approve of using words of one syllable and those of more than one syllable. My mirth was caused by the content and the tone!

Look, it was actually incredibly painful to go back from university having discovered this new world where people talked about books and films and ideas and really enjoyed talking to people. And I wanted to share this with mother and father because - in my innocence - I thought they might be interested and want to know about this world, and even share about it.

And if I mentioned a wonderful film - this was when TV only showed Hollywood/commerical stuff - and why it was good, my Dad would just glower and my Mum wouldn't listen to anything I said but just ask when I'd finished, 'Did you have anyone nice to go with?'

It still makes me feel tearful when I think about it. But hey, if a Mumsnetter thinks that's hilarious - well, great. I hope you feel really pleased with yourself.

Harriet I understand what you mean and I think we'd get on well in RL so if you're a weirdo then at least you're not alone!

Sorry, Harriet.

Cool. Thanks Kate. Merry post-Christmas to all. Here's to an amiable and fun Mumsnet New Year.

I am sorry for your personal experience HarrietSmith. It does sound painful, but it is just that - your personal experience. It's not mine and it's not that of many others.

Others of us who come from working class families experienced exhilarating conversations, improving literature and cinema and visits to cultural delights before we left home. Some of us didn't even go to university and yet we somehow became familiar with the films of Jean-Luc Godard.

It really isn't true that people who come from humble backgrounds know nothing and are just waiting to be enlightened. I'm not going to be insulted by that; instead I'll pity for you for not experiencing that kind of childhood.

It is true that we all benefit from an environment that encourages learning and discussion and that broadens when we leave home and meet others. It's disappointing if our parents are threatened by us moving away from their views but that has nothing to do with social class.

The germ can start on a council estate where you eat your tea on your knees in front of the telly. At least it did round my house. In more privileged homes, sometimes the germ never takes hold.

PS Sometimes I watch Die Hard. It depends on my mood but it's always on my list of Christmas movies.

I thought one of the points of going to University was to broaden your outlook and learn how to interact and get on with everyone, regardless of background?

I never had a problem at that age and sometimes it just meant I had to adjust accordingly to some situations. I enjoyed the variety tbh.
I remember people telling me I'd gone a bit posh though.

I also think there are massive generalisations here that are very funny. Because all middle classes are fascinating conversationalists aren't they, worldly wise and fountains of knowledge ?

Oxbridge is that rarefied bubble - it's privilege at it's best and worse. It's not real life.

But I really dislike in general those people with a stick up their backsides who think they are special because they went to Uni. They still haven't quite got over it and they still can't talk to people from all backgrounds. They have a huge sense of superiority which amuses me. You see it a bit on here.

Wow. I'd be concerned about his lack of manners tbh. Humility and acceptance obviously aren't on the curriculum at either his previous school or current university. Emotional intelligence would enable him to socialise in many different circles. They are his family fgs, and he's going to struggle socially if this is indicative of his behaviour towards other people.

I thought one of the points of going to University was to broaden your outlook and learn how to interact and get on with everyone, regardless of background?

The ability to interact with everybody, regardless of background, is not the same thing as having to to tolerate the company of people with horizons that are very different to your own for days in end. I can cope with my FIL for a 3 hour meal one every couple of months but I would feel desperate had I to spend days in end with him.

Wow. I'd be concerned about his lack of manners tbh

Whereas grandparents making fun of their grandchild is the epitome of good social graces?

Grandparents can indeed have awful manners! We have racked up the examples over Christmas. Some are just for giggling at in private after the event, but sometimes grandchildren are quite right to point out to their grandparents that they should behave respectfully.

Oxbridge is that rarefied bubble - it's privilege at it's best and worse.

Not absolutely sure from the social/conversational point of view, that it's so bad. When I've visited my relative who is studying there, I've been very struck by how friendly the people they lived with have been. They've always said hello and made very easy small talk Whereas some of the young people of that age I've met in other contexts have still been stuck in a kind of late adolescent awkward grunting mode.

There's some nonsense on this thread. DH went (caught up with the toffs both in Latin and table manners and made lifelong friends across the board), DS went and DD is there. Both have made friends across the board. Both are pretty chilled and normal and if they are asked what they are doing as dd has been whilst home this hol by a variety of people from the GP to the window cleaner the response has been "oh wow, well done, are you enjoying it?"

DH was lower middle but parents originally working class and obsessed with their children's education. My family are posh - land, money, privilege. I dropped out of uni.

What DH didn't have 30 years ago was the innate confidence and self assurance to work a room and be at ease with everyone. Eventually his intellectual technical skill shone through and most people want him in the room for that. I am still much much more at ease with dealing with the builders than DH.

Having said that MIL will make endless digs about my family and my lack of uni due to the enormous chip on her shoulder but I usually just take the p back now and that seems to be the best way. Can't have with a half empty glass MIL, here let me fill it; "now look there are 20 roasties in the dish but just take what you need".

Sorry you think my actual lived experience is nonsense, Ohtheroses. I'm glad your children have had such a positive reaction though.

He needs to adjust to real life and real families . You should be able to help him

Having read the whole thread, I agreed with much and disagreed with a lot too. The only point i found missing was that the sort of teasing meted out to the 18yo may by no means be confined to that between different classes. Learning to deal with being teased for being different is a really useful skill to acquire. The more gracefully one can respond, the better. If he can learn to judge his response, ideally 'giving as good as' he gets without giving offence, he would find it a lot easier to fit in with people from different groups.

The grandparents may, in their clumsy way, be trying to find common ground with him. Was he really never teased in the playground about anything? The only explanation my parents ever offered me was that 'different people do things differently'

Sometimes i find some particular kinds of teasing hurtful but mostly I recognise it is a bonding exercise and try to put up with it with good grace. Dealing well with teasing requires a measure of self confidence and is often an early marker of success.

Noticing that different people pick on different things to tease, so that it usually tells you more about them than about the object of the tease , can be helpful to bear in mind too.

My friend’s son is at Newcastle BikeRunSki and has met a few hooray Henrys. Unfortunately the ones he came across were very snooty about his Barnsley accent.

HarrietSmith I think the problem was your parents specifically. I used to be able to have those kind of conversations with my parents, and DD can have them with us.

I think you're right that my parents had some specific difficulties. I think my father, who had actually been very keen to get me a 'good' education, then had a very negative reaction when I gained a place at a 'good' university. Essentially he resented it. He didn't want to know about my course. He never drove me there or visited during terms.

Looking back, it also seems to me that my parents - my father is now dead - were necessarily neurotypical. They were extremely locked into their own rituals and routines and hugely incurious about their children's lives.

(But it does mean I can sympathise now with a young person whose attempts to communicate with older generations don't seem to be going brilliant. It's great when older people can make the effort as I think the young need this sort of model at a time when their own social skills are still evolving.)

Tweety, why are one side of the family more “real”?

HarrietSmith my parents were very similar to yours and it was only at university that I really realised just how much confidence and knowledge I would have got from a household that actually talked about things. My father was very bright but had grown up without the chance for any education himself after 14, and while proud of me on one level, was deeply jealous of me on another. My brother's own failure to go to university or have a career was something he was far more comfortable with and he made that clear. He also never came to visit me, although would make the trip almost as far as my uni to go to a country pub nearby that he'd discovered after initially dropping me off. I remember begging him to ask me a question after we hadn't seen each other for months, and him thinking hard and then saying 'did you hear that Frank Muir died'?