To get annoyed that a middle class life style is not "real life"?

[Roseflower]

I don't get- why is trying to move to a nice, safe and quiet area with a good school not "real life" as some people like to tell me?

How is this any less "real" that living in a crime ridden, ugly area with an unsafe school?

Seems its only real life if your let your child actually live in the middle of all sorts...

Does anyone else get this attitude sometimes?

teameric - that's honest of you to admit.

I do sometimes smile at the middle class cleving to diversity etc. They seem happy to live close by, but of course it's not the same as living it.

Don't forget they are also hoping that diverse areas will gentrify and raise their house price/dinner party story success quotient.
[just being honest]

So how would you define "living diversity"? (genuinely interested)

Oh there's lots of MC hypocrisy out there, my parents are a case in point. Forever banging the drum about equality, the oppressed, socialism etc yet not quite so keen to spend time with people not like them.

It's like those social worker types who say things like 'there's no point evicting noisy neighbours, you should work harder to negotiate and solve your differences' when they themselves have never lived anywhere with noisy, scary or abusive neighbours.

Or my mum, who can talk all day about the inherent wrongness of the word 'chav', and about how terrible a word it is etc, whilst openly avoiding any situation in which one might find the kind of people that people like me might call a chav or ned.

Christ alone knows slut.
It's just that when I lived in a very disadvantaged area, everyone was just trying to survive.
The idea that living amongst that sort of desperation is interesting seems odd to me. Actually it seems a bit bloody patronising.

Actually, I think if my Mum had known there were MC Mums on the internet, posting about how wonderfully uplifting it was for their DDs to share to go to school with me...she might have twatted them.

A safe and comfortable area for one person may not be the same for another. For example my DH and I are high-earners and could probably afford to live in a more 'middle class' area than we do. We do like it here though as we know all of our neighbours, our local pubs and restaurants are great. It's a great place if you don't have any kids... However, there is crime and deprivation and I worry about our soon to be born childs ability to be able to play outside safely. I'm sorry to say it but I wouldn't want her playing with some of the kids around here either. I don't mean to sound snobby but its true.

When she's born we would like to move to somewhere more leafy, however, I don't think we'd be welcomed in some of the places we like the look of. We are a multi-racial family. I'm mixed race, my DH is white and when we go to more rural parts of the country we often get stared at and it makes me feel threatened and unsafe and I don't want that for my child, I want her to feel happy and safe wherever she lives.. Somehow I don't think my experience of rural life would be as idyllic as LeQueens so I'll stay in the city. There is the suggestion by some on here that non-white faces = 'real' = ghetto and we are far from ghetto and don't want to be treated like we're from 'da hood' just because I'm not white. We'll just move to a nicer part of London.

I live in a pretty village. My neighbours are teachers, a nurse and a methodist minister. One of my near neighbours is a black family. My children are bilingual. In DD's class there is a little girl whose parents are from Iran. In DS2's class there is a girl who is deaf. In DS1's class there is a girl whose family are from Pakistan and a boy with Downs Syndrome. There is a range of families with children at the school, from people on benefits living in HA houses to doctors, solicitors and teachers.

I hate the assumption that rural villages are almost run on Nazi principles. Diversity can exist anywhere.

capricorn76- The country just all full of mud and smelly cows and shit anyway. Nice to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.

I won't dispute that Coalition... it does smell at times

I don't think there's anything really patronising about preferring that your kids go to school with a variety of people from different backgrounds, is there?

Having said that, ds does, and I don't think he gives a shit either way.

And sheep! I mean just HOW stupid are sheep? They smell as well.

OMG - life is life - wherever you live it it's real.

I have done a full circle in many ways - left a poor school with zilch qualifications - took myself off to college and worked hard - left with O'levels and A Levels. Decided to train as a nurse then midwife and then HV. Stidied for a degree in Public health nursing. Had DS who has been diagnosed with autism and have now adjusted to part time hours in order to support him. While working full time and married I lived in an idyllic Somerset village in a beautiful country cottage. When my marriage broke down and my ex proved to be less than reliable about money I had to throw myself on the mercy of the council and am now on a sink estate. It's as real as the country cottage and I still have drive and ambition despite where I live. Most of my neighbours are lovely and all work too. They are real and so were the farmers, publicans, nurses, office workers etc in Somerset.

Yep MorrisZapp - one set of neighbours is noisy, abusive (to everyone) and social workers are in and out for the sake of the children who are growing up in a hellish environment. I am fortunate though that this is just one set of neighbours - everyone else is lovely.

It's daft isn't it fio
He has his pals, who cares what their income is

Is this the real life?

Is this just fantasy?

Caught in a landslide

No escape from reality

Open your eyes

Look up to the skies and see

I'm just a poor boy (Poor boy)

I need no sympathy