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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

330 replies

Roseflower · 31/08/2010 18:03

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?

OP posts:
LeQueen · 01/09/2010 12:45

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Asdashopper · 01/09/2010 12:51

Coz all working class people are thick innit Wink

Hufsa · 01/09/2010 12:54

"Real life" is just shorthand for "how most people in society live". It is either highly pedantic or disingenuous to complain that your £100k lifestyle in your rural idyll is just as "real" as anyone else's.

The more cloistered away from most of society you are, the less understanding you have of what life is actually like for most people on average and below average incomes, and the more likely you are to view such people as "other".

I grew up in just such a cloistered environment, and it took a long time to peel away the layers of ignorance that had accrued from living in such a homogenous group. I certainly wouldn't want it for my children. Luckily there's not much chance of that Grin.

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 01/09/2010 12:56

'Real' i think is often used as a synonym for 'almost exactly like me'.

MorrisZapp · 01/09/2010 12:58

But what does 'cloistered away' mean?

On my teaching placements I learned about kids who live on housing schemes on the edge of the city, who won't cross the main road in the middle of the scheme due to territorial dispute with other kids from other areas of the same scheme.

Even those who do not engage in gang areas etc may often feel really 'anti' about leaving the scheme, to go to work for instance. It's a huge problem for teachers to overcome.

Seems to me that those kids are every bit as cloistered and living in a narrow world if they are terrified to leave their comfort zone even if there is a job/ night out/ afternoon at the bowling etc to be gained from it.

Hufsa · 01/09/2010 13:00

Well that would be more of a ghetto than a cloister wouldn't it? Same problem, other end of the spectrum.

Hufsa · 01/09/2010 13:01

Same problem in the wider sense - obviously not the same for the kids involved.

TheBolter · 01/09/2010 13:03

My life is real, and in many ways (for now anyway) it's what I would consider to be perfect. I certainly feel very blessed, but that is because I'm living the life I have dreamt of and aspired to, not because I see it as 'better' than any others and certainly not because I see it as less real.

massivemammaries · 01/09/2010 13:09

LeQueen - whereas you punctuate your posts with moronic expletives .... would you prefer me to prove my working class-ness by doing the same?

Hufsa · 01/09/2010 13:11

Nobody using the term "not real life" is trying to suggest that higher earners are somehow less corporeal than the working classes and liable to disappear in a puff of smoke. It is just a way of saying that this is not the norm. It's really not that hard to understand is it?

Has nobody in the leafy suburbs and villages ever heard of a figure of speech?

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 01/09/2010 13:12

I'm just surprised that ethinicity is a posh word.

PawMum · 01/09/2010 13:12

But MorrisZapp, do those children have a choice and do they even or ever will have the choice to move away from that? (how bloody sad)

Someone who lives in a rural idyll has surely got the oppourtunity to choose to do so?

massivemammaries · 01/09/2010 13:12

And I quote "So, in the nicest possible way...Do. Fuck. Off. And, then when you get there...Fuck Off Again, and don't ever Fucking Come Back."

I do wish I could be this eloquent - must move back to leafy suburbia

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 01/09/2010 13:13

Even societal ain't that posh really is it?

LeQueen · 01/09/2010 13:13

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

PawMum · 01/09/2010 13:14

I don't know what societal means, I must be working class

MorrisZapp · 01/09/2010 13:16

Ghetto and cloister are just words meaning the same thing - most people spend most of their time amongst 'their own' regardless of their income or social class.

It isn't necessarily due to closed mindedness or tunnel vision, it is just human nature for all types of people to want to be in their own comfort zone. It would be a simple bus journey for me to drink in a pub in a housing scheme, and for the scheme residents to come and drink in my local. But mostly, both parties are happy where they are.

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 01/09/2010 13:16

I think it just makes you a thick thickie thickson.

massivemammaries · 01/09/2010 13:17

@PawMum , don't worry, neither does LeQueen ;-)

Hufsa · 01/09/2010 13:17

Did someone say you were a bad parent LeQueen? I thought you were just being accused of being a bit sweary.

LeQueen · 01/09/2010 13:18

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

PawMum · 01/09/2010 13:18

It's okay I know how to use googleBlush thank god

Hufsa · 01/09/2010 13:19

MorrisZapp I would say that the chief difference between a ghetto and a cloister (apart from the decor of course) is choice.

PawMum · 01/09/2010 13:19

No-one ever talked like that on our estate when we were growing. Mind you, we were Brummies.

Hufsa · 01/09/2010 13:20

Just try being yourself LeQueen.