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.)

Love this thread - has restored my faith in sensible parenting

toomuchmonthatendofthemoney thanks!!

I have to admit I'm smugly proud of myself, though I do seem to experience a bit of a personality change on trains, I think I have Train Rage.

I have been known to ask people if they have bought a ticket for their bag [as I hoike my bosoms in my best Mrs Bucket manner] and then wait for them to move it.

(And again I find myself agreeing with LeQ. We must get our polite well mannered dds together soon for a manners fest )

Having read the first and last page am still confused. Manners are manners regardless of sharing. There are very nice people in council houses, there are very nice people in mansions. All children need boundaries and there are good and bad everywhere. The mother the OP refers to needs to set the boundaries. I would have had no hesitation in asking her to come and sort out her child because he was upsetting mine - after three attempts to resolve it myself.

Love this thread and agree with LeQ.

May I ask though what is RP?

Rude Patois.

Crap parents come from all backgrounds.

We went camping a while back and were treated to dad getting his kids to sleep: "listen yer wee bawbag fuckin go to sleep...Chloe, hen, fucking shut up or I'll give you a doin' " social worker friend says this is pretty common in West of Scotland.

There's a fair amount of sweetie darling stuff too though but I must confess:

Mine have wooden bikes and scooters, I often call them lambkin, sweetheart and love, they do sometimes have tantrums if they don't get what they want, they sometimes have to be prompted to say thankyou.

I do remember once being told that Milo was behaving badly at the moment "because he was having testosterone surge..."

RP is Received Pronunciation - sometimes called the Queen's English - though in fact she is mainly German with some Scot, but let's not go there.

Perhaps we are talking about being bourgeois - parenting as a social signifier - rather than class.Although had to grin at 'smart village' and holidays in Tuscany and Cornwall

I never realised there were fashionable villages...

I haven't read the whole thread but I do think it is a poor parenting rather than a class thing (must've been said a million times by now ). I consider myself middle-class but by virtue of where we live (very rurally) most of the families we see come from a range of backgrounds (ok, no UMC or aristocracy but YKWIM) and I see this type of thing from a lot of the parents.

I also see an awfully large amount of 'good' parenting too. It's about interacting with, responding to, and teaching your children acceptable behaviour. The times I take issue us when people behave as if their child is the only one in the room (nay, the world).

DH has worked in private schools for 12 years. I work for Surestart. As a family we are somewhere in the middle.

IME crap parenting can be found anywhere, as can good parenting. I also think it is possible to be a friend as well as parent, so long as in the formative years the parenting aspect comes first.

DD often calls be her 'BFF' , but I certainly don't take any crap when she plays up!

As the parent of an 8 year old DS who is constantly being thumped and hassled by MC over priveliged little horrors (actually,they aren't so little anymore, so it's a bit more serious to us), I am doing less of the "never hit back, tell the teacher thing".

As a toddler, our first DS was very "spirited " and would hit us a lot and loose his rag. We worked so hard to stop it, involved heallth visitor, "no hitting" became a mantra.
Five years on of reasonably good behaviour, he started a new school in our new area of mainly "gold trolley, polo shirt collars up types" and the aggression and number of hiting incidents, shitty comments happening has increased ten fold. I have been to see the teacher as our big, now gentle lad is having a rough time of it and is very young in his year.
The teacher comes out with platitudes and the three steps to avoiding conflict they practice at school. We have gone to the point where our DS says," I am going to hit XXX right back" and I don't really feel I can tell him not to. I have lost patience with it. It's all bollocks, parenting is't it?

I always felt I would not parent my kids by other parents' rules (EG, some wouldn't let their kids run round a hall during sing time at toddler group, but I didn't have a reason not to let mine, as long as they weren't noisy, they weren't disturbing the songs) to the point of accepting some disapproval at times, but I am doing it now because the school is failing to protect my child.

Actually, my next step will be to inform the school that as they are "failing to protect a child from violence", a report to social services would not be inappropriate because if he came to school complaining of the same level of violence from home, they would do the same for him from their end I hope.

I agree I think it has nothing to do with class and everything to do with poor parenting. I see no real difference between the "working class" "I know me / me kiddies rights" and the "middle class" "oh he's an individual / has the right to express himself". Both are horrible and lazy forms of parenting and both result in badly behaved children.

I am expecting my first one but he will be brought up to repsect other people, share, say please and thank you, not interupt when people are talking, ask to leave the table, the meaning of the word "no" etc etc. It's how I was brought up and it's how he will be brought up PFB or PFB. But I don't think that's a class thing - I think bad parenting might manifest itself slightly differently in different classes, but it is still the same, whatever words are being used to excuse the DCs atrocious behaviour.

Just reading Norman's post about what you overhear when camping. There's nothing like mere fabric instead of walls between families to really give you an idea of what's what.

We camped next to a family once and the dc was a little madam who could be clearly heard telling her parents the way things were going to be. She didn't want to do whatever they had planned the following day.

I waited with baited breath for the invetiable explosion - blimey if my dc spoke to me or anyone that way there would've been one. But no. Parents endlessly explaining, cajoling, reasoning, bargaining, begging - it went on and on and on..blimey just stand up to it fgs!

I hear this often. Too much negotiation and endless justification from parents as to why x,y,z would be 'a good idea'. How exhausting. All it does is give a child the idea that there is room for manoeuvre or that you are not in control and can be worn down. Of course I'll explain and listen to their side, but only up to a point.

I'm not saying behave like some sort of parental despot. But not everyone can be in charge and for the forseeable it's going to be dh and me. A sort of benign dictatorship.

This is so true. I am a GP and have come across this many times. I have worked with families of all backgrounds and this particular trait is a v middle class one.

I often have little Persephone emptying my bag and messing with expensive equipment whilst their mother just keeps saying things like 'oh darling maybe Dr x will show you how that works before we go'. Recently a colleague of mine was being repeatedly kicked by a 3 year old during a consultation. His mum said nothing, so the GP told him to stop as he was finding it rather distracting. He got a written letter of complaint. My children are not perfect but if they tried that sort of thing there would be trouble.

I could go on and on many more examples along these lines!

I'm also a GP. I disagree with GwenCooper that this is an entirely middle class phenomenon. I have just as many extremely badly behaved non-middle-class children in my consulting room as middle-class ones.

What especially annoys me is the children allowed to run amok in my room; their parents ignore their behaviour and then complain when the child gets hold of something inappropriate. E.g. I recently saw a mother who attended with all 6 of her small children, who she then ignored. We had a shouted consultation about her 'female' problems, punctuated with my requests to the children to stop climbing the bookshelf, throwing the toys, breaking my equipment, hitting each other. It ended when the 4 year old climbed high enough to reach my sharps box (placed well out of reach; or so I thought) and knocked it to the floor. At that point I suggested to the mother that she make another appointment without her children present so I could concentrate on her and not on their safety as she was completely oblivious to it .

I received a badly written and very sweary complaint from a shouty working class mother who objected to me requesting that her 3 year old stop trying to climb on my desk where I had a cannister of liquid nitrogen (ready to treat this woman). When he grabbed it and I asked him to give it back because it was dangerous she said "Oh he's a little shit but he won't do it any harm". Then when he threw dropped it and nitrogen began loudly and rapidly escaping, she freaked out and demanded to know why we had such dangerous equipment on site before running from the room!

rmutt something like that happened to us but via a baby monitor.

I dont know if it still happens but years ago if you were on the same wavelength you get a crossed line thing going on.

Me and OH were like at the way the parens (sorry but they were v.islington MC) pleading and begging this kid to behave.

Of course we immediately switched off listened agog when we realised what was going on.

I agree IWant that naughty children are from all backgrounds. Its just that I have found the mc tend to be blind to the faults of their DC and less keen to tell them off. I spent about 15 mins this week persuading a 4 year old let me look in her ears. She was not ill but her mother was worried. The child refused and the mother spent ages trying to talk her into it in a gentle voice and then left without her ears being looked in at all. Sometimes a cruel to be kind approach is better!!

DS's eardrum perforated twice last year. I perfected the art of strong-arming him across my lap and holding him immobile and screaming while leaving his ear perfectly exposed.

[proud emoticon]

"... this type of parent is completely reserved for the middle class slightly older mother.(AGAIN to reiterate this is not all mc parents.)"

what complete and utter bollocks.

I am pretty sure every town and village has those these days? Although someone on another thread told me "not everyone has a local green grocer"