to wonder what middle class/working class parental cliches you have actually experienced?

[vitaminz]

This thread is not to be taken too seriously and no offense is intended.

Today when I was in the supermarket I overheard another shopper saying to what appeared to be her daughter "Clemmie, shall I get some brioche?", she really did sound like a middle class cliche.

11 year old son of friends who were staying with me..

'Would you like some orange juice, Robbie?'
'Ummmm, does it come from concentrated juice, Auntie P?'
(Checks)'Er, yes'
'Umm, no thanks, Auntie P'

We sup gravy from our plates too, and according to MN we'd be put in the upper class bracket. IMHO gravy is too good to leave. on the rare occasions there's any left, I'll be found drink from the gravy boat

Ds3 went to his friends 12th birthday party in his friends private plane. Not sure our dses bowling, then nugget and chips birthday parties quite matched up.

I once caught myself saying 'No darling, we don't smear babychino on the Chesterfield' while in a coffee shop, then wondered what had happened to me...

I embody middle class parenting.

skina the fact you have a gravy BOAT, says it all we have a plastic jug

A child in my family found out that people could have actual tattoos which never came off ( she thought all tattoos were the temporary sort) she was about 7 and that people would "draw on themselves so it lasted forever, what a ridiculous idea!".

I live in Sweden which is much less class obsessed, if anything people try not to show wealth/class. We were visiting the UK when ds was about 8 months old, me and dp were singing brother John/broder Jakob/ Frère Jacques as a round to try to calm ds ( I think the different languages confused him and stopped him from crying) my mum commented on how terribly middle class it was to sing like that to your children. Dp is a truck driver, there is no way we would be classed as middle class if we lived in the UK. The class system really baffles my dp, the idea that where you shop can indicate your class, he finds it especially odd that there is such a huge range of ready meals at Sainsburys, he can't understand why people who were a higher class would eat ready meals.

I don't have a gravy boat
I have 2
Does that make me Upper Class??
Hang on, they were from Asda, maybes if they were from M&S

I'm not trying to be snotty and spoil the threat at all, but can someone explain to me why it's always

olives
brioche
hummus

used as examples on these threads? . I truly don't get it.
Why is brioche more middle class than, for example, a croissant?

I lived in the UK for 5 years, so I'm not completely oblivious to the idea of class there. I also get that more 'exotic' foods are more expensive, and therefore more likely to be eaten by middle class people than working class people. But brioche and hummus...really? They just don't seem that unusual.

English people seem to be so conservative about food

I come from a fairly middle class, background but my ex (dd's dad) is very working class. It's something he often ribbed me about when we were together.

The other day he was on the phone to my dd, aged 5, and I told him she'd been a bit of a handful recently. He said to her, jokingly, 'be good for mummy or I'll eat all your sweets'. She said 'don't be silly Daddy, I don't have any sweets. You'd have to buy me some first!' He was absolutely pissing himself!

This class thing is complete and utter bollocks!

I'm working class and proud, we live in a council house ffs, but my dc have brioche, apricots and hummus all the time.

maybe because croissant comes from Austria and brioche from France

sue that articles was very interesting!

I am a single mother on benefits.

My ds has a posh name, I have a posh accent, we eat olives, hummous, brioche, asparagus.

I am obviously scum of society for the former and middle class for the latter

My eldest DS often says that I sound MC when talking to the younger two. It's odd because I'm the same woman who parented him in a supposedly WC way.

I think the difference is, because the two younger children are adopted, DH and I called each other Mummy and Daddy from the start, to get the children used to those names for us. It stuck and they still call us that now they're in their teens.

We also live more rurally; the farm shop is more convenient than an Aldi, Lidl, or Tesco, although we do have a nice local supermarket. Game is freely given by neighbours, as are fresh duck and hens' eggs.

It's a different life to the one he had as a child. The two younger children swim in the river, he went to the municipal pool down the road. However, I'm the same mum, with the same values.

I eat a lot of humus, I was trained to be a manager of a whole foods store.
DC eat a lot of sausage rolls, I flogged our only gravy boat.
I never heard of brioche before, off to google.

About the idea that being middle-class is "shaming" - I don't think it is, really, I think it's just that some of us feel embarrassed about it. There's a whole generation of people who grew up in the 60s and 70s, who came from working-class/lower middle-class families, and were the first in their families to go to university and become upwardly socially mobile. In other words, there are several million of us who used to eat tinned peaches and ideal milk for our tea, but now have fresh parmesan on our evening meal (which we call "dinner" not "tea"), snack on hummus and pitta bread, and have a glass of Sauvignon blanc when the kids have gone to bed. I think we all feel slightly selfconscious about it. People who were born into the middle-classes don't feel this sense of embarrassment at all.

Sebastian please come here Sebastian plesse darling you neec to stop doing that ans come here sebastion mummy will be upset if you fall , sebastian sweetie please,,, , kyle OVER HERE NOW btw op these threads never end well

Keeping this lighthearted and coming from a council estate upbringing where my parents worked hard and moved. I now live in an x authority house on an estate but have worked for some VERY posh people as a nanny. I think its about their income. Many a time I have been envious when unpacking the delivered waitrose/Sainsburys grocery shop. All the lovely food that I would have loved to have fed my own DCs. Bringing my own DCs up it was the cheapest I'm afraid. I remember 30 years ago when I was a nanny in Kensington. MB was moaning about the cost of the HUGE M&S shop so I said try Sainsburys. 'Whats Sainsburys' she said!! I have been a nanny with servants of my own too!!! I have also been a nanny to 'normal' people, struggling just like me. More money equals better food...that's how it is.

If the working class are now nibbiling on olives and hummous what will the middle class eat next I suspect roast unicorn horn it is just food people thats all

A few years ago I worked with a woman who fancied herself rather grand. We were chatting one Friday as to what we would be doing on the weekend and I said that we were going to have fish and chips for tea and then go down the pub. There was a look of horror on her face and she quipped "that is frightfully working class" to which I replied "that is because I am". Funny enough she never spoke to me again unless she had to and then only about work. I thought it was rather pathetic but as I didn't like her it worked for me

Mrsjayy you are so right. I remember ...'Keanu..come here you little bleeder!' And 'Emmie...stop pulling up the flowers...Oh ok..you want to show Mummy...you're so good'... all in one hour! As a nanny you have insite into so many lives and I cant put a finger on it but people who have worked hard to get where they are are very different to people born into privilege. I have worked for millionaires who treated me like one of the family...not staff.

Buy my brioche from Aldi/Lidl. DD aged 10 has a thing for cous cous at the moment (won't eat sandwiches at all for packed lunch) so she has had it for the last 3 days with some sun dried tomatoes and cubes of feta. Nothing to do with class, simply trying to get your child to eat something so she can concentrate!