to dislike the phrase "nice middle class children"?

[littlebylittle]

I hear it fairly often and wonder why people insist on linking perceived class with niceness. Esp when talking about who their dc should play with. I can't say that niceness is necessarily a middle class trait - and those of any class who seem to be nice are perhaps not always what they seem.

good and bad in all classes. and do you hear it in rl?

It's ironic

Its a horrible phrase.

Do people really say it? Ick. They must feel they are in pretty safe company if they do.

I have to say I wouldnt want my nice working class kids mixing with a family like that anyway.

Who loses?

yanbu! it just sounds stuck up, and quite wrong can imagine the type who would say it though, quite narrow minded like to stick to their own, although they like to think of themselves liberal and tolerant and all that they will only talk to and associate with people same as them, white middle class..

Do you know, I should have thought more carefully. On reflection, only one person I know says the whole thing explicitly, but when you are in conversation with others and they are talking a bit about "nice" children they like their dc to play with and those they don't and things they say are loaded with things that imply it. Hard to explain really. But yes one woman I know says it explicitly. Mostly about the type of children that attend her daughter's school rather than individuals, but comes to the same thing. My dd is not at the same school and not an issue with mums i am really friends with. Don't think she is aware of my background entirely otherwise would maybe not say it.

Isn't it something people say in a kind of ironic way with a heavy accent on 'nice' in a way that implies nice is a bit shit?

I don't like it either, it's horrible. My 2 sound like the artful dodger but when they go to peoples houses they behave, they don't demand certain foods, they don't have a massive sense of entitlement and they don't have that posh sing song tone that sounds like ner ner ner ner ner all the time. They do like carrot sticks though

Don't people just mean 'nice' middle class children, as opposed to feral middle class children?

[:)]

I completely agree it's a frightful phrase. I do, however, like the product it describes!

i was in quite a posh guide group and they wanted me to be the artful dodger in a production of oliver (that we never did) now i know why - feckers

LOl you gotta pick a pocket or two sea

It becomes tiresome when they spell how we talk though. My youngest was writing free for three, maffs for maths etc. That took some sortin aat. But we got there in the end.

I bet some mumsnetters are horrified right now hehe

glofs for gloves :)

ca for cat

It's ironic isn't it? As in 'NAICE middle class children'. I asked my mum what class we were once and she said 'bohemian' which was her description of working class but taken to wearing kaftans and lighting joss sticks. But we are all very nice.

I've never heard it said except in jest.

Yes, but you know what they say about many a true word...

spikey mine look like the (gorgeous) spawn of Boby Marley and some white chick and they speak like dockers

But they go to sleep listening to radio 4

I see it as being used with a slightly ironic edge to indicate children who are relatively privileged, and may be nice, but also to emphasize that they have probably had few 'challenges' or difficulties in their lives, almost as though, they are lovely kids, but then, so they should be!

I most definitely have never considered it a comment on other classes.

I detest the way in which the media seize on a privately educated person who has a)shagged a married footballer b) committed fraud / arson / murder or c) taken drugs. HELLO !!!!!!!!!!!! Many private schools are drug-ridden. Many teachers in private girls' schools have to be on toilet duty to deal with bulimic throwing-up sessions. Pregnancy and STD rates in private girls' schools are ABOVE NATIONAL AVERAGE. Better-off kids have more time, money & often inclination to get up to no good - that's common knowledge in the teaching profession and not rocket science to work out. But I still have a problem with the media's insistence on mentioning the fact that the girls who were paid for a quickie by Wayne Rooney were privately educated, as if somehow they are worth more than a girl who went to a state school. I went to a private boarding school and now, from principle, work in a secondary school in a fairly tough area. The girls (and boys) I teach are mainly a delight - and a damn sight more pleasant than the middle-class ones in the town I live in. Why are the girls I teach almost expected to behave badly by the media while so-called middle class ones are supposed to be sweetness and light? Quelle ironie !

It's kind of a sarcastic tongue in cheek comment,OP

TFMDV you'll never guess what my youngest came out with the other day!
"Whatcha talkin bout blud". He didn't hear it from me I swear