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What are "cultured families"?

96 replies

Explodingatomickittens · 25/01/2023 10:55

Met a school mum for coffee this morning. We got talking about the dc's friendships & the other mum said "I love when (her dd) goes to X's house, they're such a cultured family"... I don't know the family well enough to know their lifestyle & find the "cultured" mum pretty stand offish.. But in general what is a cultured family?

OP posts:
BubziOwl · 25/01/2023 14:25

Beamur · 25/01/2023 11:16

It's not throwing shade on you for being 'uncultured' that's a rather self defeating spin on it.
Maybe they are a family who like museums, art, theatre and such like - they probably also like Roblox, gaming and general chit chat too.
Maybe it's just a polite way of your friend noticing there's something about this family that's different to hers. From the conversation she obviously thinks you and her are more alike although she's happy for the child to experience difference set ups.

Yeah I agree, I really don't think there's any need to take offence at this.

kitsuneghost · 25/01/2023 14:26

classical music = cultured
Rock/metal = uncultured

Going to theatre = cultured
Going to the cinema = uncultured

Going to high end sushi bars = cultured
Going to McDonalds = uncultured

Kids play piano = cultured
Kids play guitar = uncultured

Kids do fencing = cultured
Kids do boxing = uncultured

Going on Holiday with an itinary = cultured
Without = uncultured
Having no idea how to spell itinary = very uncultured

I believe this is the general tone of some
I will be in the uncultured bracket then

tiggergoesbounce · 25/01/2023 14:34

You’ve both completely missed the point….🙄

Why would one mother tell another (on a play date) how great the play dates are at some other person’s house? I don’t get it

Its a conversation its not like they are cheating by going to someone elses house and its a big secret.🤣 Its just chat.

If they said ‘Lucy loves coming here - she has such fun with x, y, z’ that’s fine. But to say ‘Lucy loves going to A’s house because they are cultured/eat pizza/have elephants etc’ - what’s that all about?

You would have to be very insecure to feel that someone mentioning having a good time with another is out of order.

Interested in this thread?

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tiggergoesbounce · 25/01/2023 14:37

Most of my school mum friends mention other playdates.
"Oohh, what have you been up to this week?"
"Little Rupert went to Frederick's house on Tuesday, or they went bowling, it was brill"

We dont walk away thinking what a bi#ch talking about another playdate, we think, oh how lovely Rupert had a great day

gogohmm · 25/01/2023 14:44

Her comments are a bit odd but there's nothing wrong with enjoying the arts etc which some of the people here seem to be reverse snobby about.

My kids enjoyed opera and online gaming, they are not mutually exclusive Grin

larchforest · 25/01/2023 14:44

UWhatNow · 25/01/2023 11:07

How rude of her to say that! I had a friend say to me once ‘Sam loves going to Billy’s house because it’s so big and they can play in the hay barns…’ - well sorreee for not having hay barns when your kid comes to our tiny hovel! Why would you even say that?

So ‘cultured’ means whatever it means in her head. Theatre? Well read? Nice interiors with classy original art?

Playing in hay barns is dangerous, and children can get squashed to death if the hay bales move.

Just saying.

UWhatNow · 25/01/2023 14:46

tiggergoesbounce · 25/01/2023 14:37

Most of my school mum friends mention other playdates.
"Oohh, what have you been up to this week?"
"Little Rupert went to Frederick's house on Tuesday, or they went bowling, it was brill"

We dont walk away thinking what a bi#ch talking about another playdate, we think, oh how lovely Rupert had a great day

Again, missing the point.

Its not about ‘not being happy’ that the other child has a lovely time at bowling or whatever. Who gives a shit? Bowling. Yeah good for him. 👍🏼

It’s singling out one aspect of another family’s life as to the reason they enjoy it. And then telling a third party for whom it is irrelevant.

Blueeyedgirl21 · 25/01/2023 14:53

Probably means they’re loaded and therefore do really nice holidays and take their kids to the theatre and stuff all the time

we have loads of books and watch interesting European films but are too skint to buy £75 tickets for our kid to get bored halfway through a theatre show that’s anything more high brow than Room On The Broom

blacksax · 25/01/2023 14:55

OpportunityKnockss · 25/01/2023 13:51

They probably spend their evenings quoting Shakespeare to each other instead of a watching a huge TV.

You can watch Shakespeare plays and adaptations on a huge TV. And opera, classical music, ballet, programmes about ancient civilisations, antiques, architecture, the arts in general, you name it.

I'm as common as muck and I'd rather watch any of those than Love Island or football.

WinterFoxes · 25/01/2023 14:58

I agree with @Beamur. I'd only take it to mean that they are a bit different from her and maybe from you, so they get a different experience there.
I used to like it when DC got invited to sporty people's homes as we are useless at sport, so they only ever got to kick balls and play back garden footie or badminton at other people's houses. In ewxchange those sporty families loved that I'd get the paints out or read to their kids as they could never be bothered to do either.

TheOrigRights · 25/01/2023 15:00

UWhatNow · 25/01/2023 14:24

You’ve both completely missed the point….🙄

Why would one mother tell another (on a play date) how great the play dates are at some other person’s house? I don’t get it.

If they said ‘Lucy loves coming here - she has such fun with x, y, z’ that’s fine. But to say ‘Lucy loves going to A’s house because they are cultured/eat pizza/have elephants etc’ - what’s that all about?

Because they are all peers and generally exchange news about anything?

"Sandra just told me her Lucy's started gymnastics and she's loving it".
"Tom's family got a new pup"

Sandra, Lucy or Tom might not be standing right there, but I don't think there's anything untoward going on.

GloomyDarkness · 25/01/2023 15:06

exexpat · 25/01/2023 13:31

I would guess 'cultured' in this context means there are books and art and possibly musical instruments in the house, and either there is no TV or games console, or that they are not central to the living area and visiting children are encouraged to do something that doesn't involve any technology.

I suspect it's this or some coded class comment ie they are in a higher social economic class than OP or OP mate.

Fuck knows what our house is - we have many books, some art/craft items displayed usually made by us or prints we like and musical instruments -keyboards guitar and violin about the place but also have TV, games consoles and VR headsets and 3d printer and visiting kids do baking, craft and tech and tv.

Blueeyedgirl21 · 25/01/2023 15:10

@GloomyDarkness bang on its About money always is

Explodingatomickittens · 25/01/2023 15:14

kitsuneghost · 25/01/2023 14:26

classical music = cultured
Rock/metal = uncultured

Going to theatre = cultured
Going to the cinema = uncultured

Going to high end sushi bars = cultured
Going to McDonalds = uncultured

Kids play piano = cultured
Kids play guitar = uncultured

Kids do fencing = cultured
Kids do boxing = uncultured

Going on Holiday with an itinary = cultured
Without = uncultured
Having no idea how to spell itinary = very uncultured

I believe this is the general tone of some
I will be in the uncultured bracket then

It's spelt itinerary 😅 I must be more cultured than I thought!

OP posts:
OpportunityKnockss · 25/01/2023 17:14

Going to theatre = cultured
Going to the cinema = uncultured

If it’s an art house/subtitled film in an independent cinema it could make it into the cultured list.

doadeer · 25/01/2023 17:20

Don't order the second cheapest wine in a restaurant?

Changechangychange · 25/01/2023 17:26

UWhatNow · 25/01/2023 11:07

How rude of her to say that! I had a friend say to me once ‘Sam loves going to Billy’s house because it’s so big and they can play in the hay barns…’ - well sorreee for not having hay barns when your kid comes to our tiny hovel! Why would you even say that?

So ‘cultured’ means whatever it means in her head. Theatre? Well read? Nice interiors with classy original art?

Surely they mum is saying SHE doesn’t have a hay barn so it’s a novelty for her son, not bitching because you don’t have one either?

DS loves going to his gran’s house because she has a massive garden. We live in a flat. I’m not slating DS’s other flat-dwelling friends when I say that. Bit over sensitive?

JoonT · 25/01/2023 18:32

I don’t know your friend and don’t know what she understands by cultured. She probably means either:

A) A ghastly, pretentious, fake family. The sort of people who have made some money and try to justify their big house by taking an interest in ‘culture’. After all, they’re superior to the herd now, so they’d better start proving it. Unfortunately, they don’t have the brains or the taste to back it up. The parents speak with a forced ‘upper class’ accent. They send their kids to private schools. They go to art exhibitions and museums that bore them to death. They listen to classical music, which they’ve convinced themselves they really enjoy (they don’t). They’re learning Italian, because they’ve realised that Tuscany is where the cultured people go (only oiks go to Spain), but aren’t really getting anywhere. Everything seems strained and fake.

B) A family of true art and literature lovers. Friendly, smiley and polite, but totally unpretentious. Maybe the parents are university lecturers. Or maybe they met while doing a post-graduate degree in philosophy or literature. There is probably brains in the family - a grandfather who lectured at Oxford, or something like that. The house is scruffy and chaotic, with piles of books everywhere, a piano covered in beer cans and empty coffee mugs, the walls covered in wonky paintings and movie posters. There are scruffy dogs, kids running and shouting, and constant laughter. They swig beer out of cans, smoke weed now and then, have piles of records everywhere, and are generally kind and loving and friendly.

My (gay) neighbour is a very cultured person. He’s got an MA in literature and lives in a flat surrounded by books. But like all truly cultured people he’s completely unpretentious. The first sign of a pseud is that the books are all clean and neatly lined up. In his case, the books are everywhere - piled up in the kitchen, the bathroom, stacked in corners, etc. And they are battered. There is also a crazy assortment. If you run your eyes over his book shelves, you see Great Expectations and King Lear and Bertrand Russell next to Bart Simpson’s Guide to Life. Then you get Nabokov and William Blake and Carlo Rovelli followed by Asterix comics and The Book of Crap Towns. He goes to art exhibitions or museums all the time, but he doesn’t tell anyone. He does it because it gives him pleasure, not to impress.

evtheria · 25/01/2023 19:14

Oh - I know this game!

Family A: parents run their own business (let's say luxury car valeting) and have done well, bought a big house their own parents would have dreamed of. Sent their kids to private school as they didn't move too far away from their family & friends, but were told the education would be better than at their old local and their children would have more opportunities. Start going to museums & shows because they can now afford days out in the city and want their kids to be exposed to everything (society says this is the done thing). Some of the art seems a load of bullshit but they still go, and anyway, the natural history museum is always a hit. They can afford to travel more, and after doing Dubai and Cyprus a few times (it's a short flight, sunny, there's a kids club for the little ones) start going to places like NYC and Bali because they've seen them on tv and they look interesting. Some might say they've started trying to 'talk posh' but to be honest the kids are just speaking like their private schoolmates, and the parents are conscious of being judged as nouveau riche when they try going to Michelin starred restaurants with their Salford accent.

Family B:
Every meal involves a long winded discussion on the something someone read in Le Monde, and by now the eldest teenager has begun eating in their room so she can look at TikTok. The mother is a uni lecturer who drinks too much and is secretly sleeping with her colleague. She tells herself the French take lovers the time, it's just this uptight, English society that's holding her back. The father is simply a self-involved bore who has never actually worked (family money) and likes to think he is Christopher Hitchens... but maybe younger, in a vintage chore jacket. The parents went in a Wetherspoons once, and have turned the incident into a witty, anthropological anecdote that they use at dinner parties. The kids are sick of the fucking story. Luckily, their mates still like coming around because they can nick a spliff from where it has been resting on the earthenware platter on the kitchen counter.

7Worfs · 25/01/2023 19:26

@evtheria Grin Grin

It’s so tedious when posters want to appear smart and worldly and end up spouting stereotypes, hating on social mobility of all things.

2023bebetter · 25/01/2023 19:47

@TheOrigRights indeed!!.. it's hard to say anything people are so touchy

2023bebetter · 25/01/2023 19:54

@JoonT

The beer cans are really jarring in your description esp on the piano.

rattlinbog · 25/01/2023 19:56

@JoonT was going to say the same about the beer cans - no way!

MrsMikeDrop · 25/01/2023 20:01

Commonsensitivity · 25/01/2023 11:07

They probably have a grand piano and eat aroud the dinner table and read lots of books and speak several languages

And go to the Opera and Ballet, and have dinner parties

immigrant002 · 25/01/2023 20:03

Richard and emily gilmore?