To not want to be the minority where I live?

[Charlottehines]

It really saddens me that in parks and soft plays with my children, that I am in the minority and my children can't play with other children there as they all play together and obviously can't speak English.
I'm in no way racist, my husband is of mixed origin but I do find it incredibly sad that my children are growing up the minority especially when these other groups make no effort to integrate with other mums or the children.
Am I completely unreasonable to feel sad about this?

The area I live in is around half orthodox jew, half not. The jewish families very much keep themselves to themselves, have their own shops, own services, own schools. They do not (will not) mix with non-jewish families. My two year old will call out "hello girls" ifwe pass a group of jewish girls and sadly gets no response.

Tbh it is so so secularised that it becomes a non-issue. There are many many other children around for her to mix with, of all races and religions (except Jewish!) And they do. Ive never known language to be a barrier to small children playing tigether.

Why? Do people treat minorities in ways that aren't right?

FFSTiggaxx

MamaLazarou :sometimes the foreigner hate you though because you are white or that is what they perceive you to be (even though the Nordic looking Aryan supremacy types would totally reject me with my dark eyes/hair etc). There's one mum in particular who gives me death glares every time I see her on the school run and we've never spoken as much as a word. I think one of the problems is that the more recent migrants have come here like Dick Whittington expecting the streets to be paved with gold (as it has been for many with better educations) and when that turns out not to be the case, it's somehow our fault for misleading them.

thornrose, I agree with you - off to eat a jammy croissant to take the nasty taste away.

Well yes, there is that mimishimi lol!

When OH and I are in town during the week I often wonder if people think we don't work when actually he works up to 60 hours a week on shifts and I work too but am on maternity leave. My own fault for caring what people think though.

Anyway, back to the thread...

Ukip will never cease trying to get supporters on here will they? A little slow on the uptake, but persistent.

It's not based on one event
Over the past year it's got progressively worse.
I couldn't care less if they're working / on every benefit going
It just saddens me that my children are the only English kids in the park and honestly these kids don't integrate with any of the others, they are always in such a big group they wouldn't need to really as there are always a good 3/4 kids for them to play with in their own group.
When we moved here 8 years ago it was a very different place, we stayed because the schools are very good however this attitude and aggressiveness from other certain cultures worries me if these are the parents of kids my children will be playing / learning alongside.

I know what you mean, have a similar situation. You've got to make the effort though. A bit of small talk about their kid being cute will break the ice. If English was my second language I doubt I would be confident enough to strike up conversation with English speakers. And remember, if they have heavy accents to deal with, they may struggle with others with heavy accents and poor English, so another reason to avoid integrating themselves.

I know many primary schools and community events where different people bring food from their own cultures. A great way of getting to know each other.

Seriously, try and see the positives (and remember that even your ancestors would have come to Britain from somewhere else).

What cultures are aggressive to you op?

I live in a diverse area of London and don't get what you are on about?!

So how do you explain why the stats on your area don't match your experiences OP?

Move to rural Norfolk. Only 1% diversity here.
My kids probably regard dark-skinned people as curious exotics.
UKIP stronghold of course. But I guess that's what you want?

I would LOVE my kids to have lots of first hand experience of cultural diversity.

I have lived there for over 13 years and I have still not experienced what you have. Obvs, does not mean that you may have not had the odd horrible incident.

BTW, it is highly likely that the children are English themselves.

You could always move to somewhere like Devon, which may also mean that your children could still be in the minority if they are 'mixed'.

My dc were often in the minority growing up due to times spent abroad however lack of language never prevented them from mixing with others.

It is certainly an issue if a kid is badly behaved and hits others, and the mum tells you to fuck off instead of dealing with it.

But I don't think that the race or language or culture of the family has anything to do with it. Feel free to come to where I live and be sworn at by indigenous white mothers if that would reassure you in some way

"MamaLazarou :sometimes the foreigner hate you though because you are white or that is what they perceive you to be"

I live in an area of South London that is so 'non-white' that our nearest playgroup was closed down in order to start a literacy group for the Somalian population. But I have never found making friends from different cultures to be a problem. Maybe it's all down to attitude? If someone I had never spoken to was giving me 'death glares', I would assume that they were very unhappy about something, not just imagine that they hate me for being white (WTF?).

Yes, any mother that told you to f.o when you protested that her child was hitting yours is the real issue IMO, not which community they belong to because there are the violent and uneducated in every community. I can think of a few white mothers that would respond in a similar way and I'd have nothing to do with them nor would want to have anything to do with them.

Regardless of statistics it's happening
Not so much in the towns surrounding Sutton but in the parks and play areas right by the centre this is my experience.
I wish it wasn't believe me.
It seems to be the polish / eastern Europeans that have this attitude about not caring if their kids hurt others.
Maybe I expect too much from my own children but on the rare occasion they hit another child they got taken straight home, not ignored and certainly if another parent came over to me to inform me of what had happened I would have been mortified.
Clearly not everyone parents the same which I get, just does seem to me the same groups of races that deal with it the same.

Rochdale (Or certain parts of it) have schools that are all Asian and they are not faith schools it's just that there are far more Asians in certain areas than other races.

The school system either through design or by personal parent segregation is alive and well in the town.

Haslingden is worse.

My grandson who is mixed race had a hell of a time in one school and was referred to as a "Pile of mud" and when my daughter complained because this wasn't a one off incident she was told that it was just "Cultural differences"....I advised her to move to another school in the same area and he absolutely loves it there.

This new school whilst not being predominantly ethnic has a heavy mix of all races and religions which is the way it's supposed to be in relation to the make up of the area.

What the OP describes does and is happening in Britain but it's happening in small pockets and some people may never encounter it...but it's wrong to ignore it.

Everything MrsD said, in spades. Racist bunting all over the shop here, they don't even attempt to dress it up any more. Yuck.

NoArmarni I suspect OP is actually over the boundary in Croydon and is feverishly working on a petition to have the boundaries changed to nice Surrey

She also probably has a sign on her door that says "The OakHouse" and throws dirty looks at the upstart postman that keeps daring to deliver letters marked "No 67"

I am so glad that I will never meet some of you racist twats in real life.

Don't get me wrong, I've had my fair share of cross words with English mothers too, but on the whole they seem to be more on top of their kids behaviour and address it rather than just ignore it and then proceed to say the kids are kids.
Which I don't believe in myself as how on earth will kiss learn with no direction.
I know it sounds ridiculous to say I'm the minority in Surrey but Sutton isn't in the middle of Surrey, it's near enough in London.

My husband is mixed race, his father is black.
So my kids are also of mixes heritage.
It isn't about the race, it's about the attitude of certain groups.
Softly, I can assure you that's not me.
We rent a terraced house in Sutton with a regular door number.