Oh no! I sound so middle class! How embarrassing....or not

[TangerineCandyfloss]

Hi,

Just a light hearted one, but does anyone else get slightly irritated when people tell you how mortified they are at being/sounding middle class, but go into great detail as to why, leading you to believe they're probably not all that "mortified".

Example: "dd asked me today - mummy, can we have sea bass with capers tonight? It's my favourite fish" Oh, I was so embarrassed! How middle class do we sound?!lol"

Now, don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with a child liking sea bass...or quinoa...or kimchi or anything else "middle class" sounding, but why do some people pretend how embarrassed they are, only to tell you or everyone on social media?

It's just obvious that they're not embarrassed at all, so actually has the complete opposite effect.

Does anyone know what I mean?

It's such a blatant humblebrag. My friend does it 'Oh, little Quinoa won't eat school dinners, she has to have hand-crimped gyoza for lunch, wrapped in bee-friendly linen.'

Meanwhile, Quinoa is licking the fucking dog bowl.

I just see it as a cringeworthy attempt at trying to 'impress'.

@UnderHisAye

It's such a blatant humblebrag. My friend does it 'Oh, little Quinoa won't eat school dinners, she has to have hand-crimped gyoza for lunch, wrapped in bee-friendly linen.'

Meanwhile, Quinoa is licking the fucking dog bowl.

Licking the dog bowl

@UnderHisAye, haha I love how your example child is actually called Quinoa! Assuming just for the purposes of this thread thread

These mortified ones are usually the most aspirational MC ever. They tend to use the word posh to describe things they have or make a point of only carrying certain branded carrier bags.

Haha yes! It was the first wanky word that came to mind for some reason

Quinoa's cousin Kombucha meanwhile has moved in with her boyfriend, and they have gotten heavily into McDonalds and Kombucha has therefore been cut off until she can see sense. Well, almost cut off, Mummy and Daddy are still paying for her organic veg box and sending Waitrose vouchers in the hope she will one day she will get the help she needs and come back to them.

Maybe they should talk to Auntie Sriracha and see if she'll help out.

Or Uncle Cavolo Nero?

Or their cousins Chipotle and Guacamole

They tend to use the word posh to describe things

Chipotle? How very declasse.

I used to live in Surrey and my DC grew up loving stuff like smoked salmon and sushi. Then we moved, and I went a bit more normal.

I only noticed how far I'd fallen when an old colleague (a magazine editor) tweeted to ask for advice on what to give her kids for dinner. I replied recommending my DC's new favourite thing - the Southern Fried Chicken box from Aldi. Later, I checked the thread and she'd ended up making them something like pomegranate-stuffed halloumi, on a bed of wild artichokes. I felt so common!

It's a humble brag. Really what they want everyone to think is ooh, gosh, isn't Veronica an amazing mum, her children have such adventurous tastes and that must be down to her superior parenting skills, if only my child was as cultured as little Quinoa**.

Humblebrags are funny, though I've seen plenty threads on here where some deny anyone humblebrags and they're obviously just sharing a funny situation.

**name stolen from PP

My favourite is when they emphasise how much their child loves beans on toast. Quinoa just loooves it! So funny! It's her favourite meal

Oh, right. In that case I was probably guilty of humble bragging when DD was little. She was an unusual child with a very unusual taste in food. She hated anything typically kid friendly like fish fingers, sausages, meat balls, cheese pizza etc. It was such a pain as these are the most common items on a kids menu but she just wouldn't eat it.

Instead she loved sashimi, oysters, seaweed salad, carpaccio, truffle salami etc.

So yea, I was often complaining about what a pain in the arse it was to feed her as she only liked expensive and hard to find food. Didn't realise people thought I was bragging,

Well, once I'd bought some smoked salmon trimmings from Aldi - they were really really cheap, in fact cheaper than ham, and my then-preschooler DS loved them. On the way out of playgroup (at the Sure Start centre, so very not posh) he chirps up loudly "MUMMY CAN I HAVE SMOKED SALMON FOR MY LUNCH" and I did actually want to die at the looks everyone gave me. He just sounded like Little Lord Fauntleroy.

i've been called posh because of my accent but i don't give duck what others think in that respect [or any other for that matter]

I don't think I've ever caught myself saying anything that could be perceived by others as 'middle class'.

But thinking about class isn't one of my preoccupations, so who knows?!

Ds claims that white bread makes him gag, and only eats seedy stuff. He also only likenaice ham.
Thankfully I have a dd who eats anything, including cheap ham in the shape of a bears head so I get away with it

Were you 'complaining' loudly and frequently about your child's extremely refined tastes on social media though, Swedish or was it more a case of friend says 'hey want to take the kids to McDonalds' and you say ah sorry LittleSwedish won't eat it what a pain, how about the local Italian (or wherever you can buy oysters and carpaccio?!) instead? The latter is cool, the former not so much IMO as it really serves no purpose other than to stealth brag, fair enough to ask once maybe, but surely there's only so much advice you can ask for about your's child's restricted diet of exclusively middle class foods? And surely you didn't only feed her on the things you mention, your bank balance must be dire if so? Surely she also ate something that's a middle ground between nuggets and sashimi, er, bread and butter or an apple maybe?

SwedishK
Given there's a whole world of food between the offerings of a typical children's menu and truffle salami, it probably depends on how you said it. Most people manage just fine feeding their children things other than pizza and chips.

If it's "it's a pain in the arse going out because DC would rather have the adult meals as she doesn't like pizza" then nobody would bat an eyelid.
If it was "it's so difficult to fees DC because they'll only consider truffle salami and oysters" then yes it probably did trigger inward eye rolls.

There are quite a few women in my village here,who have moved up from London , to live a more rural life here. They seem to think that we are all peasants here. They randomly post on the fb community pages, and one this week said, Hi all villagers, I would like to share with you all, a fabulous recipe that I have used for a while, but understand that many of you might not have heard of some of the ingredients I have to use, But my family absolutely adore this meal. and yours will too.

We do have some great bakers and cooks in the village ha ha, but now we have our own replica Nigella in our midst..

I totally know what you mean OP

Lol at Aldi chicken box 😂 that’s something I’d probably give the kids for a treat tea and my very organic whole foods friend would be absolutely disgusted with me

Oh God. The British and their class signifiers.