What improves social mobility for children? Is it extracurriculars, education, money?

[Downwarddog2]

At the moment social mobility is very low, UK is officially in a recession. What can make a difference to a child's chances of climbing the social ladder. DH & I are working class but aspire to so much more for the dc aged 12 & 10. How do we go about it.
I'd like them to feel very comfortable in upper middle class company & in a corporate job if that's where they end up. DH & I are very ill at ease when in middle class/umc company either through school parents or work. I don't want our dc to be the same.

It worked for me and for my kids.

Genuinely sorry for you if you feel you have to act .

@ToastyBreads working class people just eat on sofas using their fingers apparently.

That's exactly what I mean though @Elleherd- the school (by which I mean the adults in the school) just does it all for them and they follow because it is the path of least resistance. For the most part, it's not anything the children are doing for themselves, it's all about the adults' expectations.

Get them to wear those hideous clothes from Boden.

Don't entirely agree. From my experience manners are really important and evident in these social circles. However confidence and a sense of entitlement is also evident. However when these children grow up and need to mix and work with many others, the entitled attitude is not going to go down well or even work as we adopt a more progressive attitude. This is especially true of men.

Try not to think of it as moving between classes or ‘bettering themselves’ and certainly don’t say it to them.

Just try to instil as much confidence (without cockiness) in them as you possibly can.

DS is 14 and I’m so admiring of his confidence. The main things that surprise me (I don’t know if surprise me is the right word but we’ll go with that) about him is that he has no concerns whatsoever about conversing with adults about all sorts of things, he’ll just slot into the conversation like a (not so nowadays) mini adult. He seems to know about all sorts of things, politics, religions, current affairs, history, sport, cooking etc etc. He knows what he wants to do in the future and he has no doubt that it will happen for him.

I’m sure we haven’t brought him up perfectly but we’ve always given him as many opportunities as we possibly can. We’ve supported him with his education, encouraged reading from day 1, encouraged him to find out about things that aren’t just on the curriculum. He went to a typically middle class (state) primary school and now goes to a Grammar School where they seem to discuss all manner of things that aren’t typically covered in ordinary schools both in lessons and form time and just between the boys themselves. There is also just the expectation that they’ll go on to do great things, it’s not really pushed it’s just expected. Most importantly, I think, we’ve taught him how to behave in any situation. There was no running about in restaurants or iPad babysitting, he’s always been expected to sit and talk and behave appropriately, and he always has to be fair. He’s not a little robot, he knows when to have fun and when to have a joke and when to be sensible.

I also strongly recommend cadets, sports and a part time job. DS has a weekend job in a verrry fancy restaurant which definitely teaches him how to act around posh people but also how NOT to treat others from customers who think they’re better than everyone else 😂.

Usually eat soft foods too as they have very few teeth, what with them either being rotten or having sold them to pay for gin.

Ha ha, these things are not mutually exclusive. It is possible to do/be both. And at no point did I suggest obsession!

You posted that everyone has to act. It isn't true.

A person who feels they have to act is not happy in themselves.

Well, I grew up without acting, music or sports, at a series of dreadful schools, the eldest child of a semi-literate cleaner and binman, who tried to get me to leave school at 15, in a house with no books, and where going to a museum or concert would have been as unthinkable as setting yourself on fire, and I went to Oxford, to a college with a high proportion of Old Etonians and Harrovians, with my original accent, manners and disinclination to pretend to be someone I wasn’t. Had a great time, made lots of friends who led lives I’d thought were fictional, got a first, and have a life very unlike the one I was ‘designed’ for.

I haven’t ’bettered myself’ — that’s an appalling expression, rife with classist assumptions.

Or had them knocked out bare-knuckle fighting.

I think it’s about aspiration. Most people - regardless of class- tend to do what the people around them are doing.

so if all your friends go to uni, you will do it too.

Also, believing that anything is open to you. Never make your kids feel like they don’t belong anywhere. always tell them they can do anything they want if they work hard.

This all brings a natural confidence which is key.

It’s not a popular opinion but the state education system can provide everything a student needs to get into any uni they want if they put the work in.

im from a working class background myself, and in a profession which is full of privately educated, upper middle class. I never really worked THAT hard at school, but was in a group of academic friends ( not total squares though!), went to a good uni.

the only difference between me and my schoolmates who didn’t go to uni/ leave our home town, was that I wanted to do it and had confidence in myself. I thought I was the cat’s pyjamas!

also, I think the biggest difference is social skills. I hate to say it ( I’m wc background myself) but I find the mc parents at my son’s school far more chatty and sociable than the working class ones. Often once I’ve got to know them, they open up and are lovely, but it’s harder work and I’m always the one to start the conversation. I notice it too with school engagement etc. I think wc people are more likely to hang back, not put themselves or their views forward and so miss out on opportunities.

i think making sure your kids have hard working academic friends is also helpful.

Toasty Breads
laugh away. I never said anything about how to become MC or UC. Social mobility isn't just about changing your class, it's about being able to work and live across class barriers.

I'm not actually WC and never said I was. I'm from LC and no one ate at a table or had any idea why doing that might make any difference. We didn't have a sofa to eat off for that matter. I grew up eating on a chair or sat on the floor with a spoon. And for that matter teeth are sparse here.

I grew up rough and illiterate bar knowing the letters on a V/O as did a fair few around me, and my kids have painfully small age gaps between me and them. I learnt to read and write as an adult when I saw what was happening to my kids.

We are everything you like to sneer at but it doesn't make us any the lesser than you.

Where do people like me start trying to give their kids more then? What's your advice that might cover every social level no matter where it's starting from?
Sneering is easy, where's the constructive advice for people who know they're looked down on and that will happen to their kids too?

I have done something for my family that has changed their futures into something completely different from what would be expected from what they come from, so feel free to laugh.
My post is made for anyone who comes from a not a lot and wants more for their children, and it started with buying a table and that table will be the same one I'll be laid out on at the end of it all.

Education, education, education. I’ve achieved social mobility through the opportunity to be educated. My parents made sure I was doing as much as I was capable of; everything that was offered after school as well as an evening language class for my entire childhood. We were exposed to museums and learnt about landmarks (probably while my parents also learnt). I was also always made to feel smart and good enough so I tried everything I fancied. As a parent I have high expectations of my children; it’s expected that they will work hard at something and they know exactly why. We fund them as long as they are in education and then hopefully they’ll be set up.

Haven't RTFT but they can do all of the acting classes, extra curriculars, reading, attending Eton etc but your uncomfortableness around those 'higher' than you will be the thing that holds them back. Children pick up on these things. Work on yourself OP, you sound like a great mum

@pyrocantha was going to mention Pip, but thought it wasn't the best example!
Actually I know a few people who have had the luck to have mentors/patrons that have helped them make a leap they possibly won't have been able to . Eg free london accommodation while attending internships, free piano lessons because their parents couldn't afford them - but child was clearly very talented which helped them get into music academies, I know one young person who was helped with fundraising to attend a talent programme etc etc.
These have mostly been through the local church where I grew up, a good place to find a mix of people who may have the connections/capacity to help out those who don't.

My nephew had an excellent musical talent, went to a comprehensive, Another child in the school was the same. That child had paid for music lessons on top of school lessons and got a scholarship. My nephew's family could not even afford the bus fares to the music school so did not apply for a scholarship. My nephew has left school and still has an incredible musical talent and plays in orchestra, but will never achieve his potential.

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely Players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts"

Totally this.

Sort their teeth out with braces etc whilst it's available on the NHS. Nice teeth are important.
If you have a strong regional accent,soften it . You don't have to have a pretend posh voice but a strong accent of any kind will mark you out, and not in a good way.

As I said, I'm sorry for you that you feel you must act. But I don't.

Bad Covers & LightSwerve only the front ones missing generally, knocked out by fathers, step fathers, and husbands as it happens. Not unusual in my background and doesn't make me any the lesser.

I call knowing what a thesaurus is and managing to pronounce it without your front teeth, and tolerate people who mock what they don't understand, proof that social mobility is achievable by anyone who wants it enough. Whether we should or not is your problem not mine.

I agree with cultural capital, a broad education beyond school - all things you can make happen, so they can confidently operate in those work and social settings. And most importantly confidence and determination to succeed - whatever that looks like to them.
Get them debating topics and forming strong opinions they can defend.
Some skills in things that make life run smoothly, can play a decent game.of tennis or golf etc.

You have completely misunderstood my post.

Bad Covers Maybe I have. Care to educate?