To find my family a bit common and embarrassing

[holdonfor1moreday]

Or am I just pretentious?

They love the cakes at pat Valarie and go on about them. When I think these are vile made off site factory cakes that are frozen.

They played the sam smith album and went on about how good his voice is and all that. Sounds like music for people that dont like music IMO.

They are wolfing down cadburys chocolate saying how delicious it is. Over sweet waxy stuff - give me Mr Roth any day.

I just don't feel on the same level as them. Really average lives and I just have nothing in common with them.

There is nothing worse than snobbery on any level and I think it will come back to bite her.

I'd never heard of patisserie Valerie before reading this thread, does that make me very common or extremely posh But a treat in our house is Aldi biscuits and pre made cake.
Everyone liking different things is a wonderful part of being a family and makes for great memories when they are gone.

I'd never heard of patisserie Valerie either. Unless I'm having cake to eat in a cafe we always have supermarket cakes if bought to take home (or homemade).

I'm second generation British and have often wondered about the class system (I've seen threads on mn about class before).

I've done my own calculations and concluded that dh and I (or should that be "me and dh"?) are common as muck.

It's nice to welcome you to Mumsnet Hyacinth. I Hope Richard's okay

Having never heard of PV cakes, I cannot comment, but are you just looking for a reason to dislike family members for minor things? I would love to know the real reason behind your disdain. Also, can anyone tell me whether I am missing out or do I need to get down to my nearest PV shop?!

I'm with you never heard of them and much p.refer homemade anyway.

Blummen hec, what ridiculousness. Class insults used to berate snobbery?!? Wtf?!?

The same people who are 'against class snobbery' are saying that having better standards or anyone wanting better is getting above oneself, which is idiotic class behaviour in itself.

"pitchfork the outsiders for they talk of cities we know not of'

Lanark but the poster isn't talking about bettering herself or living a more fulfilling or worthy life life than her family, she just seems to think that the material goods she consumes mark her out as a speshul flower and a cut above her family.

Yes she is, her tastes have evolved, and it depresses her that her family's haven't. She feels this, and that's OK.

You are adding the idea that this is wrong. It isn't, unless you think people should know their place.

Yep, run of the mill Aldi chocolate and Wilson Phillips counts as an evolved and sophisticated palette. What she likes has no greater cultural or intellectual worth or requires any greater engagement than things her family like.

If she was engaged in say, trying to learn how to cook cheap and nutritious meals whilst her family lived on carry-outs or was trying to complete an OU degree and her family actively disparaged her efforts, I would have a degree of sympathy.

But this isn't the case, she fancies herself a cut above her poor sniveling ignorant family as she prefers one brand of mass produced chocolate to the one they like.

Don't be silly. If you can taste better quality in a brand at the same price point, this is better taste. Just because you confuse taste with cost, doesn't mean it's a good substitute for taste. I think it's OK to find people who are actively and aggressively third rate depressing. If they are your own family it can be disheartening as it is another layer of how they don't understand you so it's a double reverso

It isn't 'better' it has a different taste. It is like fanceying yourself a cut above because you prefer an Aero to a Wispa then wailing "waaah, I'm so deep my family don't understand how special, interesting, deep and complex I am, the Wispa chomping proles."

I think it's OK to find people who are actively and aggressively third rate depressing

Why the fuck does 'aggressively third rate' mean? They just happen to enjoy a mainstream undemanding heavily marketed pop artist on a major label and the op likes another mainstream undemanding heavily marketed pop artist on a major label. The only aggression is coming from the op who feels that this makes her a more worthy individual for no good cause.

Why do you hate people with better taste than you so much?

there is absolutely nothing worse than an aspiring middle class narcissist.

Amazing.

I feel quite isolated from my parents, I went to uni, bought a house, married into a bourgeois family. I feel awful when it's clear we struggle to communicate effectively. We have different interests and I know my mum feels like she has been left behind, or is "common" in comparison now. I have gone from a very working class back ground to a more middle class life and I know I'm not allowed moan, but there is a gap between my family and I these days. I think it's a shame. But it doesn't make me any better than them.

I could have written this when I was 16 and spent my days listening to The Cure and The Cocteau Twins and writing poems about my inner torment and how nobody understood me.
Then I grew up and realised that people are just different and like different things.
I find my DM embarrassing as she is an atrocious snob.
And there's nothing wrong with Wetherspoons - we were in there yesterday and it was very pleasant. And their loos are amazing.
Lanark You sound a right bundle of laughs. 'Actively and aggressively third rate?. What the feck are you on about?

Amazing - imagine how hurt your mother must be. She brought you up until you went to University and I expect provided for you well. How would you like your children to disappear in that way, I'd be broken hearted.

75%/80% Aldi chocolate is far better for you and in small amounts even okay for diabetics. Taste is a very personal thing but inverted snobbery is not good for anybody. Wake up and realise that we're all different and with you it sounds like a good thing.

75%/80% Aldi chocolate is far better for you and in small amounts even okay for diabetics.

I don't want to eat small amounts of high percentage cocoa chocolate for medicinal purposes. Fuck that. When I'm in the mood, I want to eat it all. My brands of choice are Galaxy and Sainsbury's own.

However, every January, DH and I travel to Bologna to an artisan chocolate maker and stock up for obscene amounts of money. They don't do anything as common as online retail

Consider yourself lucky if you don't need to eat anything for medical reasons and that you can eat chocolate without putting a lot of weight. I wouldn't show off about or use fowl language to do it. There but for fortune-

Consider yourself lucky if you don't need to eat anything for medical reasons and that you can eat chocolate without putting a lot of weight. I wouldn't show off about or use fowl language to do it.

I count my blessings every day. And also my chickens.

Well Limited, that Swan way to deal with it...

I love a bit of roast swan

Yeah but then after dinner it's a shame that you have to ask for the BILL

Ok I'll stop now!

Limited, can't you get your driver to run you down to Lidl? Mine helps me out in Aldi, but gets his own stuff delivered from Fortnum's. It's a funny old world.

Come on, of course people are often aggressively third rate, Deliberately following the herd so they don't feel 'different' necessarily means following the swell of the tide, like dead fish and broken plastic.

Its mortifying when you find people who represent you by association have consistently dull and uninspiring taste. There is nothing virtuous in pointedly being low rent to 'prove' you aren't a "snob' to do that is to completely misunderstand what the word snob means.

Worse than liking Cadbury though, is liking Galaxy [spit]