to think middle class parents, when shite, are a special sort of shite?

[CrapolaDeVille]

I am middle class, I think, but find the overtly 'darling, sweetie' set of parents particularly painful. Obviously bad/good parenting isn't reserved for any group or set, but I have only noticed middle class parents do the 'push my child first, I couldn't give a crap about fairness' sort of parenting.

EG. Today my 2yr old at a picnic with pre schoolers and their younger siblings. (dc4 was celebrating last day at preschool.) I gave dc5 my phone to flick through a story so I could eat my lunch and could stop running after him. Another child, boy aged 4, called (let's say) Jim wanted the phone. I said no as my dc was looking. He could look too. He tried to snatch making my dc5 upset (in that screamy frustrated 2 yr old way) Jim's mother says "you can share Darling" as Jim is crushing my child who is half his size, she deosn't ask him to get off. Now my dc is crying, she says "share Darling, come on" (I'm not sure who she is talking to) So then awkwardly I have to say "Jim you're crushing dc5", he tries to take the phone. So I put the phone back in my bag...."I want that phone" Jim says. I say "no it's away now". Jim pushes into me and punches me full force with both fists. Mother says FUCK ALL. Not five minutes later she tells him what " a good boy" he is and "so gorgeous" she could eat him Darling sweetie. She's so proud of his behaviour at the picnic,.

EG. DC5 gets scratched on the face with a stick, by a 4 yr old looking straight at me. Mother sort of shrugs and says nothing.

DC5 later on a bit cross and kicks a nearly empty bottle over, sheer naughtiness and devilment, before I can even speak mother of stick weilding child shouts "for goodness sake DC5" then spots me and says sorry. I was so fed up by this point that I just said "to be honest I expect nothing less from X parents" and left, in the knowledge that I'll never see them again.

EG Two little girls tell DC5 to get off trampoline saying 'it's ours get off', DC5 complies. Then I give him his football.....they come over shouting at him to share, but as he's only just got it he wanted to kick it first. I just found myself supporting my son in not sharing, even though I think it's important to share, I'm really cross with myself.

This is my last child. I have spent the last ten years watching my dcs play fair, take turns and be generally kind only to see the other mc brats not only put themselves first but parents whole heartedly endorse and encourage this behaviour.

I do know lots of other nice mc parents, but this type of parent is completely reserved for the middle class slightly older mother.(AGAIN to reiterate this is not all mc parents.)

The behaviour you describe is obnoxious but its not the preserve only of the middle classes. I was in Boots this morning and a little boy of 4 or 5 was terrorizing people in the queue (shouting at them) while the mother, a toothless hag in the Vicky Pollard mould, laughed. There are bad mothers from all walks of life.

Fuck - x-posted with the entire world.

wordfactory you are absolutely right when you say "Fear that other parents will find you too stern, too shouty, too working class."

Although it's never stopped me

jeck that is absolutely true.
On the estate where I'm from they're very much of the 'leave the little bastards to it' mentality.

When children come in doors crying that little Billy has hit them the answer will often, 'get out there and hit him back. Harder.'

I think the difference is that the middle class version is a lot more hilarious because those parents actually think they're doing a fantastic job. They actually read parenting books and still this is the best they can come up with.

As my DC have got older, their peers parents are often now having to face up to having quite horrible kids. Kids that treat them appallingly. Kids who get bad reports.

I know they look at my DC and shake their heads. How are mine so nice?
Isn't wordfactory the shouty, working class one? Isn't she the one who let her DC drink coke?

These are the same ones who can't understand how I ended up earning more money than them. It's the way the world is supposed to work is it?

not the way the world is supposed to work.

Why Thank you MsAnnThroppy!!!

I was very proud of myself normally I'd be the type to shut up/ put up but have been hanging around the Feminism thread recently, and while it wasn't a Feminism issue, they do give you umph!

WC parents can also think their child can do no wrong and not intervene, generally it is a "don't you Fcking tell my kids what to do" whereas with the MC parents they say in a sugary voice that would have Julie Andrews reaching for the sick bag "don't mind that lady, it's not up to other people to tell you what to do" while ignoring the fact their child was crushing another child's arm in a door OR they justify their child's action with some half baked idea they read in a parenting book, to which the only correct response is "look lady, I know famouschildbehaviourauthor* personally and he never meant that children should be allowed to pull shit like that."

Invariably children with parents such as these are the little sly buggers who pinch other kids when they think adults aren't looking.

I'm new to England and want to know...... what's middle class and what's the difference between middle class and working class?

PenguinPatter - I know the thread has moved past your story about parents disobeying the school rules, and chaining up their bikes inside the playground - but if I was the Head, I would be investing in a few cheap bike locks of my own, and locking the bikes to the fence again, so the mums had to wait until I was available to come and unlock them. First time, I'd unlock the bike as soon as the parent asked - but with a warning that if the bike was there again, I'd leave my lock in place until the end of the week.

Mind you - you probably can't do that, can you.

Smellslikecatpee - you are an absolute legend - well done for standing up to the girl - and well done for not telling the mum a few home truths about her spoilt brat.

Sharney Gawd knows. Honestly. I actually cannot give a definition.

sharney it used to be that working class folk worked manually, in factories, mines, dockyards, on farms etc etc. They were generally only educated up to 16 and lived in rented accommodation.

Middle class people were university educated and worked in the professions. They generally owned their own homes.

Things are not that simple now, with much movement between the classes and huge swathes of the working classes buying their own homes, aspiring for their children to be eductaed to tertiary level and generally identifying as MC.

There has also been a massive slide in the traditional MC lifestyle.
The professions they often tended to enter now simply do not pay enough to afford them the things their parents could. Particularly those that gravitate to north London.

These tend to be those especially guilty of the parenting discussed here.

InPraiseOfBacchus Fri 15-Jul-11 17:04:45
This isn't just shite parenting.

This is Marks & Spencers shite parenting.

I was thinking all about the 'sharing thing' and have decided that it's up to the 'owner' of the toy to ask the child to share. In my case this PM my 2 yr old would not automatically share, but it was my phone and therefore decide whether another small brat child gets to play. Not surprisingly a couple of weeks ago my 2 yr old was at a music class with Jim's 2 yr old brother. Before the class started my dc crouched down to look through a narrow window, her child wanted to look. There was not room for both, window was not even a face wide. Her child starts leaning on mine, my 2 yr old is not equipped with the emotional maturity to do anything but whimper non verbal annoyance. She said again 'share boys there's enough room', I replied well there isn;t is there.....she said oh they'll sort it out. So either I allow this child to continue crushing/pushing mine or I remove my son who ws there first. (only for about ten seconds so not like he ws hogging the whole window.)

I think I've decided this woman is not my friend.

These parents are Drs, Barristers, Chartered accountants, professional.s

Thanks wordfactory, I get it now, kind of. Amusing though, that there's still some sort of distinction considering there's not many of us who could afford to keep up our current lifestyles and not work. In other words we're all working class.

IME there is definitely more of the type of behaviour the OP describes amongst the middle classes. Before DS was born I worked in a very posh paediatric clinic in London. I have honestly never witnessed so many vile children and simpering ineffectual mothers anywhere else.

To be honest much of the class system has fallen away in truth, and many of the traditional signifiers of being MC are ten a penny.

Therefore the traditional MC have been forced to find other ways of distinguishing themselves from the hoi polloi.

And style of parenting has become one of those signifiers.

yy, wordfactory.

There's still a ruling class though. And a proletariat. And a lumpen proletariat.

Still can't understand why anyone would want to be MC. It sounds like it would be exhausting.

I think I've got the lumpen proletariat in my pants.

But they're from M&S. Does this make me middle class?

What's middle class? It's the bloody nouveau riche I can't stand. Bleugh.

Crap parents exist everywhere. Just that those as have money (from whatever class) think they can demand more.

Yes there's still very much an elite.

I don't know if you remember that programme called Who Gets The Best Jobs ? In it Tony Parsons made a very good point (not often you'll here me say that). He said that in terms of getting the best education and jobs the trad middle classes were no better off than the working classes.

But instead of ackowledging that fact, the trad middle classes find other new ways to make themselves feel superior. Parenting style being one of them.

And lost has just come up with another signifier...that of looking down on new money. Apparently money you have worked hard for by the sweat of your own labour is frankly rubbish. Old money ie inherited is much much better (even though the only skill you showed there wa sto outlive someone old).

Or having no money. That's okay too. As long as you give your children organic bread sticks.

To be honest, I don't think it's a matter of class. I think it's a matter of manners. People either have manners and instill them in their children, or they don't.
What about organic bread sticks past their sell-by date. Is it non-U to buy them on the cheap?
I'm so stressed by this now. Debretts doesn't cover sell-by. But Waitrose sells it. Oh, what to do, what to do?....