To ask, if you grew up working class or not well-off and have done well for yourself?

[TheHouseOnTheLane]

Do you ever get a weird longing for the past and the way it was even though you know the reality wouldn't please you?

Do you ever feel a sort of guilt if you left your home town?

DH and I have done ok...we're not rich but have a lovely house in a very lovely town. Blah blah...DH is from a middle class family but I grew up in a steel town during the 70s in the UK...my memories are probably tainted but I sometimes hanker for the close community that was my home town...I feel guilt for leaving....or something...what IS it?

I grew up on a tough estate and begged my parents to appeal so I didn't have to go to the local comp.

I am still very grounded and down to earth and my mother has nothing in common with me and we have grown apart. She criticises me a lot and tries to sabotage anything positive I do. It is sad. Also have moved away from friends. I live in a very middle class village now. Have profession. Happy marriage dc and an MA degree plus post grads. No way do I want to go back to free school meal/benefits etc for my own dc

No, I don't feel I don't belong. I felt I didn't belong in my childhood, all the time. I had very little in common with the people I grew up with. It was unhappy and oppressive.

I always wanted to feel comfortable (I don't just mean financially, but aesthetically and socially too) and I was lucky that I was on the tail end of a generation that could go to university with not a lot of questions asked, work a couple of crap jobs to get through, and make the change.

The only time I feel positive about my upbringing is when we are a bit skint (which we are - we are comfortable but property being what it is, some months are tight) and I know exactly how to manage food, money and expectations. I get a frisson from that, that my dh cannot understand. He will spend through a tight spot and it frustrates the hell out of me. I can make three meals from a lump of cheap beef, you plonker!

Grew up on large northern council estate, failing schools etc. I was the only one of my junior year (of 90) to go to uni. I don't really miss it. My DM knows most folk around her but main just for superficial chit chat in any case.

I did, when living in London resent having paid 1.5x the value of my mum's 4 bed house oop north for a 1 bed flat on a housing estate but that is a whole separate issue.. To be fair my wages are not much more than good retail jobs in my home town and with DH out of work a lot over the last 2 years things have been tight (holidays UK camping only) so I'm not looking back from a vastly different financial perspective.

No, never. It was a mean, hard and miserable existence with the so called community seemingly being designed to keep you down, petty, judgemental, ignorant and bitter. There was no 'poor but happy' it was penny pinching, bailiff dodging, hard grafting misery every damn day.
The people left behind are scraping the same miserable barrel and resenting anyone who has better. They cultivate poverty of aspiration into an active oppression of anyone who is bright, academic or tries to work hard by taking achievement as a personal affront. Life runs on the power of resentment.

Prison, domestic violence, alcoholism and drug addiction, a seam of acceptable criminality and children damned to semi feral neglect the day they are born.
There are no rose tinted spectacles here. There is nearly nothing I wouldn't have done to make sure my children never knew a life that hopeless existed. The only time I will ever go back is to see it raised to the ground, and only then if I can set the bloody place on fire.

I grew up in the 50/60/70's on a sink estate Edinburgh. It's now 5th generation organised crime that's a huge problem these days. The author of the rebus character ( Ian Rankin ) books gets/got inspiration for his novels from normal everyday events on that estate.

My parents were dysfunctional. My Dh of 41yrs and I got out. Utilised the excellent Scottish education system and bettered ourselves. We're not rich, but comfortable and can pay our bills, have an annual holiday. Our children had a better upbringing.

We've amassed several properties, but these are to provide for our old age. The way the care system is going, I don't want to rely on this. We're careful financially and we're not pretentious. I don't miss anything about where we grew up.

Working class background, but very happy. Wealthy for the area as my mum worked.
Ironically even though I have had the better education she surpassed me career wise in a very similar area of work.
Luck has a lot to do with it.

I grew up in fairly disadvantaged circumstances.

I sometimes feel nostalgic for the love and laughter that my (huge) extended family always brought with them. The humour of a northern working class community is hard to beat .

But in other ways it was tough. Very tough. And I was always a fish out of water ( the only one ever, including younger members, to take A levels, let alone go to university).

I couldn't live my life as I want to if I lived there.

I grew up in a working class family. My DF worked on the factory shop floor and my DM did all sorts including cleaning and working in a bookies. We were never 'poor', but my parents were very careful as my DF lived with the fear of redundancy for years. There was no eating out, DM made many of our clothes, and our annual holiday was a weeks camping. I was bright and my parents pushed me hard. Despite going to a rough state secondary I did well and subsequently achieved A'levels and a degree. The first in the family.
My time at uni had me mixing in different circles, and I met and married DH who had moved from an affluent suburb of Manchester to study, definitely middle class. His DM had never worked. His grandparents owned large rural properties in Wales whereas mine ran a chip shop.
Our DC are definitely privy to more material privileges than I ever had. A lovely big house, great school, several holidays a year, they want for nothing. I'm still very conscious of wasting money though, just can't shake it...which annoys DH no end.

living a tough life in Liverpool gave me the drive to move onward and upwards. I have some great stories, but it's all in the past now
times change, even if I went back, it would be different.

I moved around a lot when I was younger so never really 'belonged' anywhere, but the run down Yorkshire mining village where my dad's family are from (it was hit very hard by the miners' strike and eventual pit closure) is where I consider 'home', even though I never really fitted in dad's family either as I went to a selective catholic school instead of the local comp and my aunts, uncles and cousins thought I was a snob because of it.

I don't 'belong' in this village either. The village is extremely parochial and my 'posh' non north east accent has been commented on many times in quite derogatory terms. DH and his family moved to the village 40 years ago and everyone of mine and DH's age attended the same primary school and secondary school and they've all grown up with each other, and it's hard to integrate into that, or so I've found.

I've done well for myself in terms of being a mortgaged home owner with a happy-ish family and can afford to fill the cupboards and fridge with food. We have the basics needed to survive.

God I don't miss it it. Community? What community?! I grew up in a poor working class area. It was crap. Ugly, boring and a dreadful school experience in a school that had given up on us all.
I have realised though that my childhood has given me some different perspectives from my current Middle class raised peers and I value these. I get pretty pissed at some comments they make which I find really offensive and ignorant.

I miss nothing about my childhood. I was raised in a northern pit village with massive unemployment and a palpable sense of violence.

Would I go back? Not ever. I'd rather gouge my eyes out with a blunt spoon.

I'll keep my London life and city job. No one is going to punch me for being clever and having ideas above my station.

As an anecdote I went 'home' six years ago for a family funeral and was minding my own business (keeping my head down). I was offered 'out for a fight' at the wake. I was 36 and this was a girl I went to school with who said I fancied her boyfriend at school. I declined the offer

I don't feel guilt, but I do understand why you do OP. I remember a friend from school who had a horrible father, and had an abortion at 12 years of age. Looking back I am fairly sure her own dad was the father. She was incredibly bright, the brightest in the class, but she dropped out of school at 14. No idea what she is doing now, but she had such a hard start to life.

Flippant answer: I miss letting go on the dancefloor.
I can't quite express anything more useful.

I also relish a budget in an unhealthy way..with all the reassurance of being "safe" now. Difficult to really feel like I fit. I always feel like I can manage anywhere but not thrive iyswim.

I also do not enjoy being the poster girl for social mobility.

I absolutely yearn for my childhood home. My parents and some of my siblings still live there. It was northern and cold and poor and gritty but they're 'my' people. I've done well, live in a posh area hundreds of miles away, but I still haven't found anyone who gets me here. My parents are surrounded with people like old Jean Smith and her boys, the Brown twins, that old tart Mary Jones.... I miss that. I miss knowing where people have come from, the ins and outs of their lives, the gossip. I can't go back, but I sometimes dream about it.

I moved away from home village at 20 when I met dh, (massive fall out with my mum) and what was meant to be a few nights at dhs mums until my mum saw sense and apologised turned into 16 years.

I wouldn't say I've done well for myself though, I'm not rich, not uni educated, but I'm ok. I'm happy. Although I'm still very much working class in a working class town, I am better off than I was as a child, we live hand to mouth but bills are paid, no hiding from rent man, no wiping arse on newspaper as can't afford toilet roll, no following the coal man on his route picking up the bits he's dropped as we couldn't buy any, no going to bed with coats on. The thought of dd having the same childhood as myself makes me cry, and mine wasn't even that bad, there were so many people worse off.

I made up with mum when I had dd, but for a long time it wasn't the same, my dad died (they were divorced) and things changed, mum told me she was sorry for things that happened, but she always thought she was what was best for me, she wanted to apologise all those years ago but she thought because I'd left so easily, I didn't care, I told her I was wanting to ring her and apologise, but because she'd let me go so easily, I also thought she didn't care. Was v v emotional, the last four years we meet every for night, all my siblings and nieces at mums for lunch and it's lovely. Were in touch in between through texts etc.

Dh says I'm "different" when I'm at mams, more animated, dhs family are lovely but I don't have the same shared history, they don't know me like my family do, and I think that's why I may seem different to dh, I feel a little more confident if that makes sense, as I know that even though we disagree a lot, they don't judge me, that's not to say dhs family do, but I coukdnt joke about wiping arse in newspaper with them, they'd be horrified.

I miss my mum more than anything, she's getting older and working too hard, I worry my sister will be shouldered with the bulk of her care if something should happen as she stayed in the village, there's a house coming up for rent on mums street and if it's weren't for dd being settled in school then I'd seriously consider moving back. I couldn't take her away from her friends and this place is her home. I feel very guilty when I think about my sister being left to look after mum, I'm going to pass my test this year if it kills me.

I'm happy with my life now, I know my last post doesn't sound like it, but I am, dd is the best thing to happen to me, Shes the best thing to come from me, and if my life were different, or I'd not had the falling out with mum, I might not have had her, I know it's cheesey but all the shitty, horrible nasty things that I've been through, I'd do it all again if it meant I'd have dd.

Oh I am glad there are others who at least sort of know how I feel! I've spent the last few days trying to explain to DH the feelings I had last week when I went back up to where I grew up for a friend's wedding.
I grew up in a working class area in the 70's and 80's , and due to parents dying and friends moving away I don't go back often, but when I do, although it's different from the life I live now, (am more middle class I guess these days!) there's a certain hankering after something, I don't even know what. But somehow I feel I belong back up there, even if I won't be moving back.

I grew up in a two-up, two-down council house in a small town in the Midlands. We didn't have a phone, never mind a car. Dad left when I was 7. Mum worked in a garment factory.

I was always bright, comfortably passed the 11 plus and went to grammar school, which gave me the chance to get out. I was the first person in my family to go to university, which caused resentment ("who the fuck does that stuck-up little bitch she think she is?") and went on to a professional career.

I don't regret leaving the world into which I was born behind, I don't miss it and I certainly don't feel guilty about it because everything I have achieved was down to my own hard work, not privilege or contacts.

The problem is that I now feel that I don't really fit anywhere. I live in a different world to the rest of my family, have different attitudes and little in common with them. I can never share the background of my privately-educated peers either. I will always be the odd one out.

My family was poor when I was growing up but we moved house a lot so I've never had that feeling of belonging that some of you describe. When people ask where I'm from I don't know what to say as I'm not from anywhere.
So, no, I definitely don't miss it! We are not wealthy but we live in a normal house in a nice area and can afford our bills without too much worry. I cannot believe my luck to be honest, sometimes I have to shake myself and think "I've made it"! Even though it's not a luxury life, it's probably what most people take for granted. But it's all I ever wanted and I feel I'm giving my children everything I desperately wished for as a child - Stability! I don't miss anything.

TracyBarlow I know what you mean and I have memories of some lovely people.

The estate I grew up on has changed and has drug dealers and obviously neglected kids at my old primary. I feel bad for those of my Mum's old neighbours who are there putting up with it.

Ally,

Agree completely.

When one of my colleagues made a comment about food banks along the lines of "obviously, when the price of food is zero, demand will be limitless" I genuinely wanted to punch him.

So many privately educated, middle-class people are completely clueless about the lives of those less priveiged than themselves.

And sadly they run the country.

I can relate. Grew up on a sink council estate, went to my local uni and ended up earning 6 figures. DH is privately educated, DCs a mix of private and state. We live in a leafy commuter village and I bloody hate it. I have zilch in common with my (narrow minded middle England) neighbours. Though TBH I would hate the culture free zone I grew up in just as much. A bit like BonnieF, I no longer really fit in anywhere. Can't wait til the youngest leaves school and I can decamp to somewhere gritty and urban. When DCs were young, we spent 10 years in a run down area of London and it is the closest I have been to finding somewhere that felt like home.