have i reached the height of middle class pretension ?

[Gowgirl]

I've just realised I'm julienning carrots and cucumber for the moppets to dip in organic bloody hummus while admiring my shiny new bottle of craft gin.

Then I realised that they probally wont eat their fish fingers and chips now, and I spent all day mumsnetting so the house is a shit tip!

Feel free to add your own

I like ready salted crisps on buttered white bread with ketchup

Sitting in bed reading the weekend broadsheets the other morning and DH sighs and says: "Ottolenghi is really getting on my nerves these days!"

High,

Looks like we're needing some willing MNers for a white bread/Dairylea/ crisp sandwich taste test?

I'll fight you to the death that inclusion of salt & vinegar crisps is the only sane choice, not cheese and onion.

Ball's in your court now, people...

DH once sent samphire in DS's lunchbox. Telling me it was 'the only fruit or veg in the house' did not help his argument.

And please stop talking about crisp sandwiches on a diet!!!

Lol @ the samphire yogi

I'll see you a Wotsit & Dairylea sarnie, and raise you a white bread sarnie, layered with cheese & ketchup, then heated in the microwave for 30 seconds - til the cheese melts and goes soft.

Food. Of. The. Feckin. Gods...

Cats love olives because they contain a chemical in them similar to catnip. My cat won't eat them but licks, chews and slobbers all over them.

Some of the posts are quite funny but I can see how it looks a little cringy or braggy to some people.

I think the point is that children are growing up now with access to foods and activities that would have been unheard of to most children (i.e. Us) 20/30 year ago. So for most children hummus/ olives/ carrot sticks etc are like the crisps/ jam sandwiches of our childhood. Days out and activities (such as tennis, yoga, gymnastics etc) are more common because there are more available than 20/30 years ago. I think children are growing up in a very different world than the majority of us did. The foods etc mentioned above would have been a very middle/ upper class thing 30 years ago but no so much now.

DD loves sushi but equally loves tinned ravioli (preferably from Lidl). She would pick sorbet over ice cream if given the choice but would turn down a Mr Whippy. Etc. I think most children would be similar and the posts about hummus etc are people mocking themselves.

On the Hatley coat thing. My poor DD wouldn't have fit in today as she had on her Joules raincoat and doesn't own wellies (she's refuses to wear them). However what wouldn't be obvious is that her coat coat £5 in a charity shop last week. She does have 2 ponies so that might come across as snobby / MC to some people but my DM bought them for her and pays for their upkeep and at her yard.

I could have made a statement about joules coats, DD with her ponies eating sushi for lunch etc and joined in but the reality is not true. We are very much working class living in an area that was once classed as deprived but has been slowly improving over the past 10/15 years.

This brioche thing is hilarious. I wonder if over on some French version of MN they're boasting about feeding their kids bacon baps.

I had loads on today so thought I'd take the kids to MacDonalds for a quick hassle free dinner.

When I told them they were having a "treat" for dinner, DS (age 9) piped up
"Is it saltimbocca? That's' my favourite".

Nutella! In France its nutella I believe...
If you wash up the jars they are great for kids crudités and "dips". See I do learn from mumsnet!

God I love Nutella! I don't know if it's middle class or not though

Everyone loves nutella! That facebook post about what is in it is clearly propaganda from the jam industry!

Totally agree Thanks. I didn't go abroad on holiday until I was 10, and we only really ate out on special occasions.

I think children/teens these days are much more cosmopolitan and sophisticated.

It's all nouveau. If your children were proper middle class, they certainly wouldn't be wearing anything as crass as Joules wellies, they'd be in some original old green things you found in the boot room, smelling of wet labrador. Labels would be owned but not mentioned. You'd be eating things that had been shot on the estate.

Hummus and olives are peasant food. Great food but they are not fancy.
Brioche is full of sugar.
I don't see how any of this is mc. Is foreign food now mc?

Agree with you as well Thanks, I imagine myself the age of my kids coming out with some of the lines they do and that is what makes it seem so pretentious. I had never even heard of pesto at their age and mine all say they will only eat it if I have made it, not from a tub....fussy feckers.

So true about it all being nouveau.

My father landed an amazing, executive job when I was about 10 and we were suddenly terribly nouveau riche. I started at private school, we moved to a fancier house etc.

But my new friends at school were largely of the 'old green wellies, boot room, damp labrador' variety, but with an added bohemian flavour as it was a Steiner school. I remember on the first school fete my Mum wore a lovely, brand new outfit and had her 'hair done', and my lovely Dad had his fancy new car valeted. Most of the other parents...didn't.

We were so, so nouveau

I actually made scotch quail eggs one afternoon for ds 4, it made me his best mummy ever for the whole 5 mins it took him to eat them......fiddly as fuck if anyone's tempted

My middle class colleagues all attended Russel universities and speak like the queen yet they eat ham and cheese sandwiches and own 10 year old cars ! They are very prudent with money and can't imagine them spending money on Hatley raincoats for their kids !

I do think there is a new class of middle class though ... I call it insta-middle class! I think that's the kind of middle class I am! Not the typical quintessential British middle class!! Ha!!

My husband had to visit A&E after slicing his hand when preparing an avocado. The nurse quipped that it was the middle class equivalent of injuring yourself when trying to split frozen burgers!

"I think the point is that children are growing up now with access to foods and activities that would have been unheard of to most children (i.e. Us) 20/30 year ago. "

I genuinely wonder how brexit might impact on this consumerist cosmopolitanism.

We once went to IKEA with our 4 year old daughter. We sat near the cafe but at the area that had sofa/couch seating. My daughter sat down and said, "Can someone bring me a menu, please". We do go to nice restaurants with her but found found it very funny considering where we were. Also she often asks me for a vegetable platter after school. She enjoys going out to lunch and staying in luxury hotels.

Spring onion crisps. Where the fuck did they go?