Things you thought were normal if you grew up working class

[Anycrispsleft]

Inspired by that "thought it was posh, turns out it wasn't" thread, I wondered if anyone else remembers stuff from a working class childhood that you thought everyone did and actually no it was just us?

Mine is playing with stray dogs. I was an adult before I realised that approaching strange dogs is meant to be dangerous. In my estate there were two strays (and one owned dog that would escape his garden) and they would chum along with us when we were out playing. We'd feed them crisps. (Luckily for the dogs I think we figured that crisps were more appropriate food for dogs than chocolate, as they were more salty and a bit like meat.) It would never have occurred to us not to befriend any other creature of the street. There was precious little else to do, why wouldn't we add a dog or two into the pack?

Using a tea bag three times

Oh god the chip pan, my mother setting the kitchen on fire with it (twice) and the fire brigade coming out

I haven't read the thread but surely if you thought those things were normal, then they were normal - at least among the working class?

If you grew up thinking something in your family was normal only to discover as an adult that it wasn't normal at all, for anybody, then that probably had nothing to do with your class and everything to do with having batty parents.

If the characteristics, behaviour and the material aspects of ones childhood are also largely shared by a grouping eg working class then you do belong to that group. It’s a group characteristic & experience.
Eg
Local authority housing
Lack of money
Shared linguistics
Shared attitude
Shared experiences

Viva, yes those experiences which are widespread ARE normal amongst the working class, but the point is that children growing up within them (or the norms of any class or region or cultural group or whatever) often think they are the norm ACROSS the whole of society. Where children spend most of their time with one group, they can remain unaware of ‘how the other half live’ for many many years. It’s only when they become aware that they spot the things that are perhaps unique or particular to the group or class or whatever the grew up in, including those that were perhaps very different to those experienced by large proportions of the population.

I said earlier, it’s the same kind of thing as looking back at the last in general and seeing how life (for all groups) is different today. You only gain that self-awareness in a wider context once you come out of the narrow context of a working class or middle class childhood, or an Asian childhood, or a childhood of the 60s or the 80s or whatever decade you grew up in.

Absolutely, the things mentioned on these threads were the norm for many working class childhoods and families. But they weren’t the norm for the whole of society.

Absolutely, the things mentioned on these threads were the norm for many working class childhoods and families. But they weren’t the norm for the whole of society.

Actually some of them were.

Which ones?

I always remember an Adrian Mole book of his later years speaking about his childhood and saying he never asked ‘what are we doing today’ at the weekend....there was no point because the answer would have been ‘nothing’. Children spent their feee time hanging around and playing out or playing inside whilst parents got on with jobs. Dad was always maintaining the car or mending something or gardening. Mum was always in the kitchen or perhaps sewing. They always seemed to have plenty of jobs to do and entertaining us or ‘enriching us’ wasn’t on the list.

I was first aware of being different from other families around age 10 when invited on playdates to friends homes and they'd get changed into fashionable clothes on arrival, I didn't have any fashionable clothes I had awful ugly home made clothes or hand me downs. Having to copy their behaviour because the first few times I made mistakes where my manners weren't upto scratch.

Also around the same time at school we'd been asked on Mondays to write a diary of our weekend. Some sort of writing exercise I think. Halfway through the school year the teacher got cross with me, called me lazy for always writing the same thing. I told her that's because every weekend was the same. My dad fixing the car or doing the gardening and my mum taking us on an hour's journey to see my grandparents, where we'd spend a few hours playing whilst she helped look after my grandad who wasn't well, cooked them dinner, cleaned their flat a bit and popped to the shops for them. The teacher said it was boring to read and why can't I just make something up. She made me feel ashamed, like my life wasn't good enough.

I remember my dad getting a credit card, we were sworn to secrecy. Oh the shame

Oh AmberitsaCetainty, and if you'd made something up like you'd been to Disney Land or even Blackpool, you'd have been punished for lying. did teachers still hit children when you were at school? They did when I was a kid and I resolved I would not allow them to hit me because my dad never did and I saw so much unfairness in school. It was one of the things that made me realise how stupid some teachers could be so let me think I could go to college at least as they had but they often knew very little.

@cateycloggs, no it was late 80s we didn't get caned. She did make me lie though about my weekends for the rest of the year. Just so she didn't have to read about my boring life. I hated school, both of them, and couldn't wait to leave for good. I went to grammar school and loved learning, lots of the teachers were lovely and effective teachers, but some of the female teachers were total bullying dickheads and some of the male teachers were a bit flirty and ineffective. My parents were control freaks, my mother smacked us if we were naughty. Work equalled freedom.

Yes caning in front of the whole school was frequent but i do remember when I was 15 a teacher telling us it was to be outlawed in state schools (which we were to be clear) and the obvious implication they did not know how they would control the classes. True some of the big boys fought back, I re,mber one throwing a desk across the room at the teacher. a lot of Parents believed in the power of a good beating as well so we were unusual as a family but my older brother did hit and push me and my sisters around.

We were a working class family who were seen as the posh ones .The rest of our family wouldn't be out of place in Shameless. Both parents worked in low paid jobs until my DF had an accident on a council job, and compensation allowed them to buy a house. Our education was very important to them and 2 of us went to FE. The younger sibling embraced a life of peer-driven petty crime. As per PP, the noticeable difference in attitude, outlook, and ambition when I went to Uni was a real eye-opener. Even now when I see family and old friends the conversation goes no further than gossip and weather and i have never really had an idea of their thoughts and feelings beyond that we have broken some kind of class-code and i think that is a shame.

I wonder if the different world views is partly to do with the hardships many working class experience? I know I have opinions on many things but I rarely ever speak of them even if asked. My own life is so bloody difficult I don't have the emotional energy to have discussions about random things that largely don't affect my day to day life. I'm interested in how my friends are and what is going on in their lives, there isn't the same energy available to be interested about the wider world. Which is not to say I don't care, I'll help anyone with anything if I can (and they're not taking the piss). I just don't have time in my life to debate the politics of another country for example.

@AmberItsACertainty when my DS was in primary his teacher showed me his book, where he’d written all about the trip to Egypt we’d taken at the weekend, complete with a lovely drawing of the pyramids, and him riding a camel.
We’d actually been to grandmas for tea.... again 🤣

Oh wow yes the writing NEWS on a Monday. We never did very much certainly nothing more worthy. Apart from the summer holidays chat it was my first other people seem to lead much more exciting lives than me.

Yes to the not telling anyone you were struggling or indeed all those school trips or holiday you could never afford to go on. That’s one thing I find heart warming these days is parents and kids talking about poverty minus stigma.

At a BBQ, putting all the drinks in a black bin full of cold water. No idea why not just in the fridge.

Eating dinner from a tray sat on the sofa in front of the TV

Opening all of your presents immediately on Christmas morning

Everyone getting on the floor to dance to ‘oops upside your head’ at a wedding

Buying a coat several sizes too big so it lasts longer

Camp coffee drunk out of a saucer.

Orange juice being treated like expensive medicine.

Huge brou ha ha and careful planning if anything but potatoes or bread accompanied a meal.

I’ve just thought of more...

Squirty cream on everything

Dad coming home with random cuts of meat that he’d bought from a guy in the pub

Having a ‘dodgy box’ to watch sky tv channels for free

@ChelseeDagger

fucking narrowboat holidays.

My parents bought a narrowboat and expected me to be ecstatic at spending every summer in market towns and canal side pubs instead of a a Greek Island.

And the ‘wilfully misunderstanding the thread award’ goes to...

@inappropriateraspberry haha, yes, I didn’t realise that was a thing. I think my mum still has it in her airing cupboard!

All the boys smelt of Blue stratus

@flamedsochanged I know what you mean re ambition and having your eyes opened. I was lucky that as a teenager I had a very middle class best friend and spent a lot of time at her house either her family. She was the youngest of 4. It was an eye opener to me that you could go to college and university and choose a career in a field that interested you.

No one in my family or my neighbours had ever been to college. You left school and you got a job. What ever job you could get. A job, not a career. And you're right about conversations... gossip and weather.. nothing about the news or politics or anything bigger than local gossip.

I was fortunate that I decided I was going to go to college. I did art because although I got good grades in all my GCSEs I didn't understand that you needed to study particular subjects to go into particular careers, and I liked doing art as a hobby! My mum really thought she was the bees knees when she announced to people that her daughter was going to college!!

Then going to college opened my eyes to what was out there. I'm now very much lower middle class in my lifestyle I'd say.

I'm my earlier post when I read it again it sounds like I was a neglected child.. but actually I remember that I had a happy childhood with a very loving family. We had nothing but my mum taught me work ethics and how to love and empathise.

I managed make it GCSE year and we had a supply teacher who asked if anyone had thought of going to Uni. No one had ever once mentioned this to me in my whole school career. Vaguely aware of Uni from TV in the 90s but as a plodding working class child not one teacher every even thought was worth telling us what uni was or anything other than getting a job. Maybe they did to the more middle class children who all got A grades but wasn’t even on my radar as even a thing.

Did get a degree with OU many years later while working full time!!

@AmberItsACertainty

I wonder if the different world views is partly to do with the hardships many working class experience? I know I have opinions on many things but I rarely ever speak of them even if asked. My own life is so bloody difficult I don't have the emotional energy to have discussions about random things that largely don't affect my day to day life. I'm interested in how my friends are and what is going on in their lives, there isn't the same energy available to be interested about the wider world. Which is not to say I don't care, I'll help anyone with anything if I can (and they're not taking the piss). I just don't have time in my life to debate the politics of another country for example.

You may well be right about that, I do think there was less money about generally in the 1970s but many if not most people had lower expectations so less pressure. Obviously hugely less media input so not so much to compare yourself to. Nowadays I am conscious of limiting my knowledge despite the internet and live an isolated life having lost friends and family. I think it must be so hard now for parents on benefits or low pay with children who will be so aware of others having so much in a material sense and in the sense of opportunities for leisure and travel activities outside of covid restrictions. Maybe we are going to see a huge summer of discontent?