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?

Can i just say fucking wanker cunt bollocks societal ethnic cuntbubble.

Of course you can.

Now would you like some cake?

I read Therapy years ago but can't for the life of me remember anything about it.

Fat successful sitcom writer with loads of money lives nice life, with big house in Brum and crash pad in London West End. Then his wife leaves him and he has a breakdown of sorts, culminating with him trying to reconcile with his long lost ex girlfriend on the pilgrimage of Santiago de Compostela.

I don't know why I love it so much, I just do.

Cake? Yes please.

Cakey cola? I'll have a large one.

I DO like cuntbubble. And fuckstain. And using cunt as an adjective - i.e. "You total cunting fuck!".

It's good to mix things up a bit.

FWIW, spunkbucket used to be a particular favourite of mine...and a former girlfriend, for some reason!

What an absolutely bizarre debate.

I live in posh area of London where the cliched leafiness abounds. However it's urban and diverse and so the dc's school has kids of mixed abiliities/ethnicities/social and financial backgrounds.

Am I living a 'REAL' life or not??? I DEMAND TO KNOW!

I think much as 'progressive' in politics has been worn down by overuse to a meaning of 'nice', 'real' has come to mean 'the same as me'.

That's it in a nutshell coalition.

People think that generally, where they are on the income/ employment/ education map is about 'right' and that anybody above them is a jammy bastard, and anybody below them is an unfortunate.

But we're all jammy or unfortunate to somebody aren't we.

Essentially I am 'real', 'progressive' etc. The rest of you can measure you reality by how much like me you are.

Life, as Talk Talk would have us believe, is what you Make It

or as Desiree put it
'life, oh life, oh life, oh life,
doo, doot doot dooo.
Life, oh life, oh life, oh life,
doo, doot dooo'

HTH

MorrisZapp - I disagree with that...because down that route lies the concept of 'relative poverty'.

We should talk in absolutes, a mon avis.

"Poverty" can also mean a very different income level depending on where you live.

I'm sure that we would starve and have to live in a cardboard box in parts of the SE, but here we live quite comfortably.

And I still don't believe that income = class.

But if we talk in absolutes then only the very poorest of the poor get to 'win' iyswim.

So if I have a moan that I'm dreading coping financially when on mat leave, I risk getting an earful from people who cope on less than SMP all the time.

Likewise, I could come back at them and say yes but you get free schooling and healthcare unlike third world or even USA so don't you know how lucky you are?

And we'd be at loggerheads. My feeling is that if we feel skint then we are skint, by our own standards.

I don't know what this means or how it fits into this debate, but I do know that when I talk about where I grew up I always say "Surrey - but not the nice part"

Another common misconception imo is when people imagine that anybody with more money than them couldn't possibly have any problems worth speaking about.

Yet when I think of the darker moments of my own life, money was nothing to do with it and wouldn't have solved the problem anyway. So yes, it is very possible that your SIL who doesn't have to work and lives in a 5 bed house does have a genuine reason to be sad, down, feel sorry for herself, be ill etc etc.

If you imagine in your life say, a time when somebody said a really hurtful comment about you, did you feel instantly better by looking at your bank balance? Of course you didn't.

Not to mention health issues which can and do strike indiscriminately.

I live in the "real" world, apparantly in a council flat in the East End, Its really not as bad as it sounds and I'm happy mainly because I don't have any other choice in the matter.
If I did have the choice? well you wouldn't see my arse for dust, I would be out of here like a shot. I wouldn't give 2 fucks if anyone told me it was "sheltered" either. I'm not too proud to admit I would love that lifestyle (LeQueen I'm moving in with you if thats ok) unfortunately it is totally unobtainable for me, but I'm not going to be bitter about it, as some people seem to be.

Morris I completely agree

The other thing that annoys me is when someone says something totally innocuous like 'I am having a sofa delivered so I need to be in' and a sneery comment about being able to afford a new sofa follows. WTF???