to ask if you think you have been overlooked because of your perceived lack of wealth?

[suebfg]

I didn't used to think that this sort of thing existed (maybe I am too naive) but since DS started at school, I feel as if I have been bypassed by a few people because I don't wear certain clothes, drive a fancy car etc. Are people really so shallow?

How many of these anecdotes are from people projecting?

We aren't into cars so we tend to buy Fords or Hondas and drive them into the ground. Clothes wise its M&S for the adults and Matalan/Primark for the kids. Our car is mud free, our clothes are clean and our children are well behaved. Apart from a few snobby shop assistant stories from 20years ago I never experienced the snobby look from the 4x4 BMW mom or her friends either on the roads or at the schol gate. Maybe it's just I'm too thick skinned to feel it :)

There is a common theme here and in past snobby parents threads ie people posting - look at me. I'm posh and well off but I dress down and drive a crappy car. if only these other people knew I got more money or degrees than them. My point? Some people just love to insert snobby thoughts into other people's heads.

I accept that there are snobby people out there but a lot of people here come across as insecure types. Rather than blanking you out because in are in your Ka they are probably thinking - neeeeed coffeeeee.

Don't think you can always judge how much money people have by how they look but you can judge other things and that's not always a negative thing.

I have some serious fun with this! I have been working on a local project that is a bit 'community' and I went to the first few meetings in jeans and t-shirt, fleece etc and was a bit late to one, some 'suits' were SUPREMELY bitchy and one even sent me e-mails saying I was narrow-minded and had no idea what I was doing. To fuck with them, I went to the next meeting with them and far more senior people fully suited up - more so than most in the room, and it was highly amusing watching said 'narrow-minded' finger pointer fall over himself to commend me and say how positive and useful my input was hehehe..

People who overly rely on clothes and status cues are so ridiculous, because you can confuse them with one or two items of clothes. Its like they are caught in their own game, not you excluded from theirs.

its not the only time I have picked this up - used to go to big negotiations with a flowery notepad and one person on the other side used to be really dismissive, so I took a leather (look!) folder out and an old expensive-looking (charity shop!) fountain pen along to a meeting and when he started speaking to me I asked him to hang on whilst I got the notes, and brought out a desktop set up that looked exactly like his. It was amusing - no-one noticed, but he actually started stammering when speaking to me

Just fuck about with them - borrow a really expensive watch occasionally or talk about a villa that was difficult to get into when you turned up because of the security requirements of the previous guest.. or something..

Blackbag:

I didn't say that I was drawn to them BECAUSE they were professional or had money.

I didn't say our that our DCs were not free to develop whatever friendships they wanted.

Here on MN I'll actively engage those who think I have an unhealthy attitude towards steering my kids towards academic and professional success. However, in the Real World I tend to avoid such people.

To some it may seem like snobbery but its not

Rather than blanking you out because in are in your Ka they are probably thinking - neeeeed coffeeeee.

That's entirely possible. But there are looks from some people when I pull up in my old banger KA, it's happened often enough for me to notice. I don't really care, I'll still talk to anybody and make idle chitchat since that's the kind of thing you do at drop-off. And most of the mums/dads will respond, but it doesn't stop 'the.looks'.

For what it's worth, I drive a crappy car because we can't afford anything bigger, not for any reason of 'being posh but dressing down'.

I agree with LaQueen, people DO judge on appearances.

If I see someone in a rust bucket I would probably give the car (not the driver) The Look. Similarly the other day a woman walked into Sainsburys wearing pyjama bottoms. She wasn't looking my way else she would have seen The Look and thought snobby tw*t when in fact the look was for someone who wore pyjama bottoms to go shopping.

The point that I am trying to make is that we too readily pull out the snob card when it is unwarranted.

Yep, I've seen that kind of thing happen before. In fact, it's happened fairly recently to me.

My youngest DC goes to a nursery in a fairly middle class area. Think lots of nouveau riche parents owning plumbing companies and roofing companies, driving big white 4 by 4s with their surname as a personalised numberplate. DC3 has been attending for a term now and at the beginning very few parents spoke to me, or I'd just get a very dismissive 'hi' if I tried to make conversation with some of them.

I generally walk to nursery as it's very nearby, but recently with the weather being so bad I've driven there. It just so happens that my car is a brand new convertible. The first time I turned up by car, I could visibly see that I was somehow more welcomed into the group of parents, and that they seemed to think I was one of them! One parent actually saw me pull up, got out of her car and waited by my car for me to get out, commented on what a lovely car I have, and asked if it was mine! Two days previously I'd held the door open at nursery for her and said hello and she'd marched through, without a hello or a thank you, and any attempts to chat to her had been rebuffed.

I can't say I am bothered one way or the other about having 'friends' at the nursery pick up, but I have noticed that since I've travelled by car I do get spoken to, and included a lot more in things. Co-incidence? Perhaps, but it all seems quite strange.

So based on your example APMF, what's wrong with wearing PJ bottoms to the supermarket? What difference does it make what the woman was wearing? Sorry but sounds like snobbery to me.

Mangel, I can picture 'the.looks' when you rolled up in the convertible

It was rather funny, Nini, I could almost hear their brows raising and their jaws dropping open

Now the real test of this would be for me to borrow your shiny convertible and drive it to my DD's nursery instead of the KA, and watch for reactions .

Ahhh BlackBag - I was ignored at first, then "Queen Bee" started to talk to me one day at pick-up when she found out I live in a naice village! I was appraised fairly quickly and left alone. I thought at first she was shy, then I thought, ok, she might be fed up of being gossiped about (she/DH are rich - no other way to describe) now I just think, meh I didn't make the cut :-)

It's not her I have a problem with, but the attitude of others. I don't get the fawning. There was a lot of pressure at school to be seen to be driving the 'right' type of car, live in the 'right' kind of place, holiday in the 'right' place etc...

We've moved schools now. Just before leaving people were almost confiding in me. Awful really - how they were under enormous pressure buying 'the' house. Private number plates (so you can't tell how old the car is!) it goes on. I truly believe the attitudes of some parents were rubbing off on their kids - not nice at all.

We should definitely do that, Nini! Would be an interesting experiment

Farrah, that school sounds awful!

If I'm honest I'd make a judgement about someone in a white 4x4 with Personalised plates. It would be that they were probably common, uneducated and rather vulgar. Anyone in a rust bucket I'd keep an open mind

my grandparents live a five minute walk from my house, less in the car. They have never been in my house as i live on whats perceived as a rough housing estate and they wont leave their car outside...

Nini Kate Middleton would have got The Look if she had turned up in pajama bottoms which was my point.

And if you think that its 'snobby' to think that you don't wear night wear out to Sainsbury then its time for me to hit the Agree To Disagree button and to quietly slip away.

MrsMangal - I just think the real/imagined social pressure from some sections of the parents was crushing and devisive. Turned normal people into quivering wrecks.

There were some lovely people there - you just had to find them. I did, and have stayed in touch.

Ok APMF, bye now

"Hmm, its happened to me a little but I've noticed it only ever comes from, how can I put this, the uneducated. Tends to be those women who have been fortunate enough to get rich husbands, never worked or much education themselves, spoil their children, and assess people's worth on their material possessions."

This is what I have experienced. I have even been asked what was the point of us doing all that studying as we are not any better off than them. I have no idea if I am better off than them or not - it is just their assumption based on our respective spending patterns.

Another thing I have noticed is that if I do splash out and buy something expensive-ish, certain people will ask how I can afford it, which is a bit unsettling.

HormonalHousewife - I can 2nd that. When I worked in an estate agents, I learned you never could tell who had money and who didn't by looking at them.

Scruffy people would shuffle in and purchase several properties to rent out in cash, and then folk in designer clothes and a flash car would find it difficult to get a mortgage on a small house.

Whoever said the quote that CashmereHoodlum has quoted, I totally agree! That is exactly the type of mums that are at DS's nursery. I know several from school days and they all seemingly tried to bag themselves rich/well off husbands, then spend their time looking down their noses at those that don't deck their kids out in Boden/have a white 4 by 4/buy all their furniture from John Lewis.

It was LessMissAbs