DH explanation of referendum result to 12 year old?

[margewiththebluehair]

DS was completely distraught this morning watching the news of the result. Mortified and inconsolable. He just kept saying why? over and over. He has been keenly following the referendum and insisting to DH and I that we vote remain for a myriad reasons.

DH tried to reassure him that UK is still a global power and that while things will be difficult, it is nothing to worry too much about (of course both DH and I were equally mortified - and we ARE worried - but didn't want DS to know that).

But DS went on and on about why would people be so dumb - So DH just explained that a lot of uneducated people voted and since the uneducated outnumber the educated - they won. DS accepted this as a reasonable explanation. I am not convinced it is true.

"What really shocked me at age 11 or 12 was the realisation that most people vote according to their perception of what is best for them personally. Not according to their best assessment of what would be best, overall, for everyone in society. I suspect this realisation is part of what your DS is experiencing. "

Absolutely. i had to explain this explicitly to DS at about the same age.

It is also, of course, why there is the correlation between 'those who benefit from the status quo or feel that they do' and remain, and 'those who do not benefit from the status quo, or who do not feel that they do' with leave. Other measures much discussed on here - such as education, current socio-economic position, concern about immigration etc - are basically proxy measures for this. There are obviously exceptions, as this is a correlation rather than a rule.

To say that 'Leave' voters are uneducated is very simplistic. Were all the 'Stay' voters university educated with degrees and letters after their names? Probably not. It's interesting that London voted to stay in and I think that in the provinces many felt that Britain's politics are 'London-centric' and perhaps wanted to give Cameron a bloody nose, though in a very extreme way.

This is the most patronising post I have ever read! Im stunned by your self importance and superiority complex.

I voted leave. I have a degree. Get over yourself. Reasure your child that we live in a democracy and over half the country wanted out. Tell him there will be a lot of restructuring over the next few years, but life will go on!

Perhaps, the people who "didn't make it to university" have spent more time in the "real world" and therefore my (surprisingly) have an equal or better understanding of finance, employment and policy making than those who did go and were swept up in the elitist view that they are more intelligent. The more academically educated some becomes the narrower their field of vision. Just accept what has happen and help "How to Make Britain a better country" on @MumsnetTowers www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2669561-How-to-Make-Britain-a-better-country … Any ideas??

Oh dear. My 13 year old DD was also very upset. I tried telling her that everything would be okay in the end, and gave what I thought was the other point of view. I almost convinced myself until I read (on mumsnet) some of the "leave" voters reasoning..

may, not my!

people with more edu got more opportunities and earned more from the EU and vv ?

Yes, this. Very self interested.

Your husband is a dick albeit a highly educated one.
Your son will also grow up to be a dick if he continues to listen to the pompous ramblings of his highly educated father.
Educated or not, we live in a country which allows us a vote. People used it. Get used to it.

And what I meant to imply was that I don't think that University education had any real implication about who eventually voted which way. Sorry if I came across as slating education because I truly believe education is important.

I agree with PPie. What you should be doing is explaining to your son that dramatic overreactions to things you don't understand is never really the way forward.

Oh - and explain to your DH that he really is the most appalling twat.

Gosh, what an awful way to explain democracy to a child

I hope his teachers will be of more use to him than your DH is about this.

I'd ltb, his views are terrible.
I didn't vote but would have been out if anything, by a small margin.
I have PG quals as do friends I know who voted out.
Your dh is an arse and I wouldn't be allowing him to talk to a child of mine like this.

Actually - re-reading your OP - mortified and inconsolable?? Seriously? I think you're making that up. If not you've got bigger problems on your hands than the vote to leave the EU.

Meh. I told my DS (5yo) that a lot of people voted for us to leave the EU because they are selfish and only thinking of what is best for our country rather than all the countries together; our country will not have any friends as a result.

I stand by that assessment and I also think it's a pretty important message for a 5yo to hear.

I refrained from telling him that I couldn't see any positives of leaving for our country anyway and that I think the majority of Leavers have put no mental effort into the decision at all. He might get into trouble at school if he repeated those points that I believe to be true

people with more edu got more opportunities and earned more from the EU and vv ?

I think that the more educated will have opportunities outside the UK whether or not we are in the EU, especially if they speak another language. The less well educated will perhaps be the ones with fewer opportunities.

Anyway, please help me "How to Make Britain a better country" on @MumsnetTowers www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2669561-How-to-Make-Britain-a-better-country … Any ideas??

HeartsofOak, the point is that the Rhondda will now lose that money and it's highly unlikely this government will provide an equal amount as there is no votes in it for them. European funding looks at levels of deprivation, funding from Westminster (whoever is in power, this isn't a particularly anti-Tory rant I'm having here) is at least partly influenced by how many votes it will get them.

As op have said 12 year olds having panic attacks about this come on please get a grip. My dd who is 12 has followed this debate avidly. She was not happy about the result but the explanation that I have given her is this is democracy in action which is the most important issue regardless of the outcome. David Cameron as part of his election campaign offered the people of the UK a referendum on this matter and at the time no one was particularly clamouring for it or were even that bothered that a referendum was going to take place. That said people of all walks of life have expressed their wishes and as a country we have to move forward. Just for the record I voted remain.

DS was completely distraught this morning watching the news of the result. Mortified and inconsolable. He just kept saying why? over and over.

This will be my ds if England get knocked out of of Euro 2016. Do try to help your ds to gain a bit of perspective, op

I have a 14 yr old who has been very engaged throughout & an 11 yr old who has had a passing interest.

I've discussed both sides and pros & cons for each over the last few weeks.

If people's children are crying and having panic attacks over this result then something has gone badly wrong in the way you have been approaching it all imo.

And as for 'all uneducated people voted the wrong way' by parents with 5 degrees between them...?
Well I have no words.

Hearts - that's because of ageing. Are immigrant populations not allowed to age? Are you going to demand they stop the clock? Send them out of the country when they are old, even though they've paid into the tax system their whole lives?

It's total bollocks that the UK doesn't benefit from migration because it's not in the Euro. My DH wrote the housing projections for the next 20 years for our city, and his research suggests that without migrant populations, there will be an economic slump as a demographic crisis means that there are insufficient people to maintain growth. That essentially means there will be no-one to pay for your health and social care when you're even more decrepit than you already are, and your pension will also not pay out.

But all this only goes to prove my main point: that what an educated audience considers 'evidence' and what a non-educated audience considers 'evidence' are two different things. Neither is epistemologically superior. (Note: education is not the same as intelligence. Education is a feature of privilege, intelligence is distributed throughout the population).

Let me stress that point: neither is epistemologically superior. All knowledge is positioned.

1/2 the population are dumb?
What a disgraceful thing to tell a 12 year old.

I know loads of leave and loads of stay and we all have degrees. I know lots of leave and lots of stay without degrees.

I call bullshit.