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?

Real life doesn't exist. People just live lives in the circumstances in which they are.

Some people by real life mean others in less fortunate circumstances. Sometimes I will go on a bus or do some washing and remind myself of what some other people do. I do consciously try to remember and of course ensure the children know how a lot of people in the UK do live on limited means so to that extent I can see some virtue in a reminder of how those less fortunate live but neither life is real or otherwise. You can get too cushioned from some difficulties others have but all of us are united in being subject to the same major difficulties such as death and illness regardless of wealth.

If the thread had moved to race most people in the UK are born here. 86% of people in the UK are White British so that is the real life and the normal of course for most but not where many of us choose to live where the norm might be a much more mixed area where I live. So you cannot even say something is real or normal or average very easily and apply that right across the UK.

The other "real" issue applied on mumsnet sometimes is that unless you subject your chidlren to awful schools and awful people they will somehow suffer for it which is palpable nonsense.

I was thinking about this in relation to someone I know.

She lives in an old house and she maintains it like something out of Country Living. She stopped one job and invented another for herself, which required investment of thousands of pounds. If she has a problem, she throws money at it. If we talk about a problem with the house, her advice is always pretty wasteful in terms of cash. Ditto bodies: she has private healthcare so she is able to see a private physio. I had a back problem and she kept recommending that I get a quick appt and get it seen to. Not on the NHS, love.

We had an argument once because she was criticising processed food and supermarkets (her food is locally-sourced/organic/slow food). Her thinking was that skills were being lost and people were too lazy to eg buy fish instead of fishfingers. I tried to suggest that economies have changed, work has changed, if you live miles away from a source of good food, and are on a limited budget, and have NO TIME to travel to get food, then £3 for a box of fishfingers is going to beat £8+ for some nice fish fillets, every time, and she laughed uproariously in my face.

She basically does very, very little that involves people who have no money. It's not a state she's lived in for ...ever? I would say as shorthand 'she doesn't live in the real world' because she chooses to keep herself in a bubble and to exclude the rest of the world almost entirely.

She votes Labour, in fact is a member of the Party. At least there's that! I can't figure out why she does that.

She votes Labour, in fact is a member of the Party. At least there's that! I can't figure out why she does that.

you don't need to have a logical reason to be a member of the labour party - you just need to be a total moron

Well I don't agree with that but in this one case the evidence is compelling

As long as everyone is doing the best they can with what they have where they are, and respecting everyone else trying to do the same, I reckon it's real enough. :)