Does having a cleaner make me posh?

[lljkk]

Disclaimer: I am foreign, the whole British class system baffles me.

Turns out that DD was teased at school for being posh, because

1. she was quite bright in her year group, and other kids insisted that she must be tutored at home (she's not, but not sure truth is relevant, anyway)
2. she admitted that we have a cleaner (3 hours/week, but doubt DD even knows that much detail)
3. something else.. there was a third reason I can't remember now, but it was about the level of those criteria, like having a nice bicycle or maybe a bigger house than average, maybe, about as singular anyway.

I thought that it would take a lot more than any of that to be "posh"?!

We live in a "High ITV viewing" area, if that seems relevant. Not generally poor, not generally rich, just middlesome. We rarely go out, we have a broken TV, an 8yo ugly car, no XBox or Playstation, we rarely go on holiday, I have an oddball foreign accent generally associated with ignorant dullards, and we all dress like scruff bags.

We do have nice bicycles and a big house .

Or is it just the sort of thing English kids do, heave "You're posh!" accusations at each other for no good reason?

No, nothing you've said makes you 'posh' (whatever posh means)

More people seem to use cleaners, gardeners and window cleaners than ever before and that's people from all backgrounds.

It's just one of those things kids say, IME.

They'll tease each other about aaanything!

Yeah, but it sounds nicer than 'you smell of shit' which is another fave.

And don't forget, you're talking about a child's perception of 'posh'

I don't think having a cleaner makes you posh. I have one and I'm not posh. But it does depend on your local demographic.
In the villiage I grew up in there was a big council estate, and all the kids from the estate thought that the kids in the private houses were posh. We used to get quite badly bullied for it actually, even though we were no richer than them on the whole. It depends on your perspective I think

Thanks, I seriously did wonder. DD has a mate who got 400 in spending money for her 10th birthday, DS had a friend who flew first class to Florida each year, but DD is the one who gets labeled "posh"! .

The cleaner is a luxury but she keeps me sane :).

Ah, don't worry about what others think of you. People always will have opinions but they usually don't affect how you chose to live your life.

Look at it in this way.

By having a cleaner you are providing an income for someone who needs it.

That frees you up to do stuff you'd rather do than clean the house.

Like the Buddhist lama said: No-one on their death bed is going to be saying I wish I'd kept a cleaner house/spent more time in the office.

It's inverse snobbery. If you're clever at school the thickos can't stand it and call you a 'swot'. If you're well-behaved you're 'teacher's pet'. I was teased with adjectives like 'snooty' and 'lah-di-dah' at my rough-end-of-Lancashire school because I didn't speak with local accent (think Jane Horrocks... wurr, thurr and burr.....) If you're not English, maybe your children don't speak like the locals? Some kids need no excuse to be mean to other kids.

My DD1 was relentlessly and viciously bullied throughout Y4 at primary school because we have a big house. The ringleader had been to parties and for tea here. It was the most terrible time in DD1's life, only relieved because after months of trying to get the school to do anything I moved her and DD2 to another school 3 wks before the end of the summer term.

Yes we have a big house and a big garden and I speak properly - the fact that the house is falling down and we are skinter than skint was not enough to stop poor DD1 being the target of some of the most awful poison I have ever heard.

I ABHOR inverted snobbery. You sound normal to me; just keep an eye out that your daughter is not suffering the same way mine did.

No not posh just lazy

None of the things you mentioned makes you "posh", but it sounds like your daughter is doing a bit of boasting / bragging, which won't endear her to her classmates. Discussing the cleaner! Is she a bit insecure?

I agree with those above who say it's just something kids say to each other. My friend and I were always called posh at school, purely on the basis that we were clever and quiet.

I got called posh in secondary school because I had carrot sticks once in my lunchbox, obviously the height of luxury , I also got called a slag because I walked like one, a posh carrot stick eating one obviously.

Sorry obviously too many obviouslys in one post.

re the cleaner - not posh, just lucky

I think the kid-logic of linking cleverness with poshness goes 'they know longer words than me and use grammar properly therefore they sound posh'. It has nothing to do with class, necessarily.

If your DD was pushed into 'admitting' you have a cleaner, then good on her for not feeling she had to lie.

No, having a cleaner doesn't make you 'posh' - but then you're trying to understand the workings of the minds of children you don't know

I used to be accused of being 'stuck up' at school because I was a bit quiet, got good grades and used to get a lift home in the afternoons (we just happened to live a fair distance away from the school!). Children pick on anything, sadly.

How do you know you live in a 'high ITV viewing' area BTW?

Maybe I really am posh - I don't watch tv at all apart from comedinewithme

I have a cleaner and I live in homeless accommodation on a scheme!

DD was once called posh because she took a box of Tesco sushi to school,

Kids are weird!

I have a cleaner and what is worse my children talk with a southern accent in the middle of Birmingham. Just realised they're toast.

Kids latch on to anything, posh is better than smelly I suppose!

I have a cleaner, we pay her twenty quid a week, of which I pay half.

Ten quid a week.

A packet of fags and a big mac would cost more!

Class is not about money. There are endless academic articles on line if you really care enough to research but warning, it would be an exercise in futility!

I used to live in London and when I went back to work I could'nt do without her. But now I live in a very rural village in the west of Ireland and can't find a decent cleaner anywhere. I loved the smell of bleach that reached my nostrils on a wednesday afternoon once she had been. bliss... oh I miss her so much. My daughter has an English accent without any init's or Eastenderisms and because of that she is called Posh. She's not.

No - it just makes you lucky

COR I'm posh. I have a cleaner! Reason big tatty house eight bedrooms, why, 5 adopted kids with disabilities, not rich my choice to spend time wth them not doing bloody housework. Oh dear am I allowed to swear if I am posh?