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.

So if you came from a working class background with a working class accent you would change it to appear posh because?

Probably because, regrettably, she would be judged by her accent and not taken as seriously in a professional environment. That shouldn't happen, but it does and I've seen it more time than I care to remember.

My parents split when I was very young. My dad was a multi millionaire, my mum completely poverty stricken in crap housing

One week I would be on a yacht in the med the next with mum deciding between heating or food.
I think it's made me more rounded

Basically, what Andro said.

I have a natural northern accent. Many many people assume that means I'm not well educated, don't have the right presence to speak publicly in a professional context, won't get cultural references. I have an Oxbridge degree and postgraduate qualifications. I've had people flat out not believe me on this front because I don't sound like I went to Oxford.

It's shit, but it's life.

Also, what about us without the right accent to fit the "situation" or "company"? Are we of no class? If it is so important and a massive class signifier then what does that mean for us with foreign accents.

From my observation, 90% if not more of the UK are middle class with working class backgrounds. It's all a brouhaha with some people trying to feel more important than others even though there is no basis for their air of grandiose.

OH is a Geordie. When he first went to university no-one could understand him so he had to moderate his very strong regional accent. He now has a generic "North of Watford" accent, and a first class degree, an MBA and a PhD.

I love regional accents, especially Welsh, Scottish and Geordie ones. I do think, however, that there is a difference between, for example, a very strong Barnsley dialect which is full of grammatical mistakes, and an "educated" (for want of a better term) Barnsley accent where is is clear that the person is from Barnsley, but has had the benefit of a decent education. This unpalatable view is based on personal experience BTW.

Andro, Speakout: I don't doubt what you say. In fact I know this to be the case. My question is rhetorical. I want to highlight, perhaps too awkwardly how ridiculous it is and to show how racist and xenophobic this cultural bias is and how it is likely to lead to the wholesale exclusion of others.

However, by being complicit the problem will continue. I will never change my accent. It's this ridiculous view that needs to change. Judging people by accents or background is absolutely ignorant. It should be a thing of the past. Encouraging and celebrating diversity and inclusion brings not just financial wealth to a country at the macro level or companies and homes at a more micro level but it also expands knowledge and experiences.

Snap, Alaaya, but my situation is compounded by the fact that my ‘natural’ working-class accent is not UK, and has frequently been subtitled by the BBC, as apparently incomprehensible to British viewers. Hard not to adapt, even if unconsciously.

Lonciera I am of the view that an accent is different from speaking correctly (ie getting your grammar right). Accent and grammar isn't the same thing.

Aren't the same thing

I am on your DSs side here. Nothing as tedious as WC people with a chip on their shoulders commenting on others using long posh words etc

I read it as her family not accepting who he is and he had to hide to fit in (driven by a dislike of her OH family)

Whilst some of what he said could be construed as snobby not being accepted by half his family as the person he is must be tough

Agreed entirely, Weights, but while I am in no way attempting to sound like the Queen Mother, I simply would not have been taken seriously on the job hunt in this country in a field which is dominated by privately-educated people.

I once had someone at a dinner party try repeatedly to try to ‘trick’ me into admitting that I hadn’t gone to Oxford, but some kind of secretarial college in Oxford (because the friend giving the dinner had introduced me as someone she’d met at Oxford) — he literally couldn’t get his head around some9ne who spoke like me having gone to an elite university

There's a lot of reverse snobbery on this thread, and a complete glossing over of the fact that OPs family are behaving rudely to her son and mocking him for being different to them.

I can understand this. My family are, for want of a better word "posh" (as described by DH's friends and family). It took about 3 years before the same jokes or jibes stopped being made quite so much (or maybe just went over my head). We've been together 15 years now and other than us being rural whereas all his side prefer cul de sacs and new builds, it's all much of a muchness.

I've just always been myself and if they laughed at me that was their issue. I was always on best behaviour when we visited PiLs and kept my thoughts to myself.

I think we have all the close royal relatives on this thread.

My accent varies depending on who I'm around. Somehow (NO idea how) I ended up with quite a posh "BBC English" accent that's unlike my parents or school friends(!?) but I go a bit whatever region I'm in or around, without being conscious of it. It can be embarrassing to catch myself doing it, and the combi of my own accent + somebody else's can = something sounding entirely different! But I thought that adjusting an accent and vocabulary used was just a thing that most people did unconsciously, in order to lubricate social siruations?!

I think it's lovely that the OP's son is able to have this type of conversation with his mother, and hopefully she has been able to give him some pointers about how best to work social situations, because at 18 he it's still figuring this out. Oxbridge can do weird stuff to both students and people who interact with them (snobbery & reverse snobbery), so is guess it involves that playing out a little.

My family is very similar - my DM family are very 'working class' my DF family are very 'middle class'. I always liked the diversity personally - and seeing the difference between the two has helped me to choose my own path in life! I think your son needs to accept the differences and be thankful for a family that loves and cares for him no matter what their backgrounds are!!

Me and DH are from different backgrounds. His family are southern, posh, rich and are right wing. My family are northern, working class, less well off and very left wing. My family constantly reference (negativity) his background beliefs etc and the fact they think I have become more like DH’s family. PIL never say anything disparaging about myself or my family and would never look down on working class people. IME there is more reverse snobbery out there than at actual snobbery.

Isitmybathtimeyet, while I agree with the rest of your post, I just wanted to clarify the following:

this 'posh people are at home everywhere with beautiful manners is an utter canard

The quote that I and others agreed with was about people with real class being at ease with anyone and respectful to everyone, not about posh people. I know quite a few working class people who fall under this description and several 'posh' people who certainly don't.

HairyDogsFeet

"Your mother is Kate Middleton isn't she?"

No. But her grandmother-in-law was a cousin of my paternal grandmother (I say "was" because my grandmother is, sadly, no longer with us - if she were, I actually think she would love MN!).

I was always... always raised to embrace both sides of my family, though. My son-of-a-miner grandfather, actually, was the one to fully teach the message that we're all people, we're all worthy of respect - whilst my posh grandmother encouraged us to stop bickering and love one another, because we're family...

Which, frankly, both are messages that everyone needs to learn: stop arguing with our family over petty matters, and respect others because we've all been there/are there/will be there.

A lesson which the OP and her son need to grasp before it's too late.

He sounds totally jammed up his own arse op. Must be a disappointment.

Your family sound a nightmare OP. I'm sorry for your son.

They need to get over their chip and live and let live.

I've got sympathy for the son.

Often at Christmas there's plenty of booze about and a host will say, 'Have whatever you like, there's beer, gin, whisky, I think there's some vodka.'
And you go, 'Can I have a glass of white wine?'
At which point people might go 'Ooh, you drink wine now, do you?'
It's just a drink. And if your hosts don't have any they need to say, 'Sorry we haven't got any - and it moves on.'

Long words can be tricky. But if somebody uses a longish or unfamiliar word, there's really no problem in saying, 'What does that mean or can you say it again.

There's a lot of big stuff going on politically. So to talk about Brexit or whether May can survive as Prime Minister, seems to be quite a reasonable thing for many people to have on their minds.

I think yes, it can be a bit uncomfortable when someone in the family has experiences that are unfamiliar. But I think caring relatives would try to make a connection. Does nothing that difficult about asking, 'Do you enjoy your course? Is your accommodation comfortable? Have you made friends? Do you cook for yourself or is there a canteen where you eat?'

Obviously it's great if it's two way and the son asks his older relatives about what they're doing. But it's helpful if older people are able to model kind and caring behaviour.

[grin]@Stealthpolarbear. You would think, would you. Yet the overwhelming majority of British people are middle class from working class backgrounds. Never mind that nearly all are working class as the must work to fund their everyday living.

The reality is that some have done well for themselves in terms of each generation doing better than the previous one. That's a good thing and for all the family to celebrate improvements generation after generation. However, they choose to conceptualise improvements as class elevation and this malarkey about posh and poshness. I have observed than one man's posh is another man's chav or gauche.

Really lots of pretensions nonsense but indeed many here seems to have made a transition from "working class" to ultra poshness a la upper class.

I must have missed the quote you refer to about 'posh' people
LonginesPrime

This was the one I saw and which has been pant-wettingly referred to a number of times with 'yes' and '^^' and 'this exactly': It didn't talk about working class people with 'class' at all.

People with real class can fit into any situation, without judging those who might be considered to be of a lower social status than themselves

Notice how it talks about people of lower social status? So it's not saying people of a lower social status can be 'classy' at all. Just those people of a higher social status who are nice to people who aren't.

I realise the poster you are replying to specifically referred to posh people. But I'm not.

It's so cliched on Mumsnet that so many people know of dukes and duchesses who you'd never know were nearly royalty and wear motheaten jumpers and have black labradors in their bashed up Land Rovers.

They bond with gor blimey types at steeple chasing before going back to scrape mould off their cheese and snuggle up with another jack russell instead of putting on the arriviste central heating.