To think people underestimate impact of advantages

[brasty]

I think lots of people underestimate the impact of advantages in their life.
So having parents who value education and encourage you.
Having parents who find the best school for you.
Having loving parents who create a loving environment to grow up in.
Getting help with house deposits.
Having a parent who will help you out when things go wrong.

All or some of these things makes it so much easier to have a good life. Yet so many people underestimate the impact.

And there is no good complaining about it either, as that makes not one iota of difference. All you can do is make the best of the circumstances you find yourself in, and be grateful for any pluses.

wttffs
I don't know anyone who's parents paid for uni. You get a loannlike everyone else. And work if you have to.

You are absolutely right and in order to change this and promote social mobility two things needs to be done.

1. Owning more than one home should be made illegal. Not retrospectively of course, but going forward. This gives people more chance of owning their own home. You've got an entire generation that have been priced out of the housing market.

1. Internships should be made illegal. Its a vile way of keeping the working classes down as only people being supported by well off parents can do an internship. In fact, I'm amazed it's even legal now to be honest.

Until these issues are addressed I think thiings are just going to carry on as they are.

Which is fine for me by the way. Not so good for my kids.

Also - you need to be very selective indeed about who you marry or allow to impregnate you. This also makes a huge difference to your life chances.

Completely agree with the OP.
I come form a very poor background and would not have considered myself privileged in any way as a kid.
When I was a teenage squatter a friend absolutly blew my mind by saying: "I can tell you and your sister are from stable families- you just have that groundedness"
And it was true. We were wild. We took crazy risks. But we weren't out and out self destructive. We had the capacity to enjoy life and not just seek obliteration from it.
We are living ordinary lives now. Not in and out of prison or hospital, not addicted, not dead.

Going up the social scale a ways.....

DH's family gave us money for a house deposit when we were starting out that equalled a quarter of the ex council flat we eventually chose.
As a result we have tiny housing costs. Lower than all our neighbours- who could no doubt do with the savings more than us.
Its made the most staggering difference to our lives and i couldn't be more grateful.
But too my shame I occassionally find myself comparing upwards and thinking: "Weren't we clever to chose this cheap property over a more expensive one somewhere else? Why don't more people make our sensible choices"
And in my head- just completely ommitting the enormous privilege that allowed that choice to be made.

I'm of the view that there are things you can help and things you can't. Poverty, ill health, relationship breakdown can happen to anyone.

But in this country, health care and education is free. People who don't give a shit about their children's wellbeing, education or health are making an active choice.

I come from a long line of poor but loving salt of the earth types. We've only had further education and disposable income in the current and last generation.

I don't like seeing lack of money listed alongside lack of care because one is a choice and one isn't.

I should have had many more of these points and didn't. On paper, I had a privileged upbringing. Lived in a lovely house. But in many ways I was a little bit like Cinderella (although less extreme) to my brother, the golden child. We both failed our 12+. Both intelligent and had the potential to pass but not the parental support or love we needed. So we went to the local, terribly bad secondary modern when our parents had the money to send us both privately. At the time, there was only funding for me to sit 5 'O' levels there and everything else had to be CSE.

Dh and I were helped with some money toward a house deposit from both sides. So we did have something off the list.

I am acutely aware that many people had far less than me. And there are others, brought up with far less money, who were showered with love. And love is the most important of all. Along with encouragement, which I see as part and parcel as I assume a loving parent always want the best for their children.

DC gets a full grant as I earn under 25k a year. it pays for her rooms and £75 a week for what ever else she needs, so don't give up on your hopes to send your children to UNI.
As mine tell me, the better pay they should get is more than worth it for the money they will owe.

I don't like seeing lack of money listed alongside lack of care because one is a choice and one isn't.

It's not a choice for the child though.

YANBU and I agree wholeheartedly OP and pp.

Having parents that value you, care about your education and where you are at night, who you are with. So important. If they don't then people are more likely to end up in bad situations by making poor choices.So with no guidance the results can be devastating.

I am very fortunate now but wasn't always. Family life wasn't great as children and they really didn't care. They were well off but there was certainly never any offer of help like you mention ,no help with house deposit as a youngster. This is why we are totally the opposite with our DC.

I agree OP

But having grown up in a chaotic household in a poor area and having to push myself/find my own way has given me resilience and independence I doubt my dc will have given the advantages they have.

Yes, agreed. It's so so easy to see the disadvantages you have and not the advantages you have. For example I often get pissed off about the gender pay gap, sexism and misogyny in the workplace and so on. But I forget to 'check my privilege' - I forget that alongside the disadvantages of being a woman, I have had the immeasurable privileges of being able-bodied, white, heterosexual, middle-class and British.

The problem is that throwing money at the problem doesn't solve the problem.

children who face adversity ine arly life but who are supported through it can actually develop v good emotional resilience as a result.

Depends on the adversity - secure early attachments are critical to resilience. Disordered attachments can significantly affect outcomes - especially if it's not spotted and appropriate intervention given.

Health is a massive advantage too and ime it is easy to take it for granted.

Sunfloweras I was from one of the poorest boroughs in England and recognise some of what you are saying.

University is still worth it for academically able, i.e. if they could have got in during the 70s.

There are good apprenticeships out there with high entry thresholds too. They could make a great start for some.

I completely agree.

I'm lucky enough to have attended a really good school - I would not have thrived at the local comprehensive. So I did well, worked hard, got good grades and trotted off to university. I can't imagine that would have happened if I had gone to the local school.

There's no doubt that I got into my career area because of the dissertation that I wrote whilst at university. I have since worked very hard and worked my way up, but that wouldn't have happened without the initial opportunity that arose because of my dissertation.

I have a beautiful house and an average-to-nice lifestyle that I can afford because I rent from my parents, who inherited the house, and as they don't have to pay a mortgage on it, I pay about 50% of market value, which is allowing me to pay off a lot of debt I accumulated as a student.

This is one of the reasons DH and I are adopting rather than going through IVF (not that I am judging anyone who does things differently). I feel that we are able to share some of these advantages with a child who has not had such a great start in life.

For nepotism in internships/ entry jobs see the current effing Labour Party..

Fantastic post BeyondThePage - puts a lot of things into perspective!

Whilst it is important that people acknowledge the advantages they have had in their upbringing, not dwelling on disadvantages either, is just as important for our emotional health.

"I totally agree that the advantage you can have from an upbringing is enormous. The problem is where do you go with this? There sometimes seems to be a message that middle class parents are being unfair when they try to do best by their children and it shouldn't be allowed. Middle class parents should be made to send their kids to sink schools. The gap must be closed and everyone at the bottom is as acceptable as moving everyone up. How do we level the playing field?"

I don't think its for the individual to do. Its for society. So in the case of "sink schools"; I'm not overly angry at individual middle class parents making the decision not to send their kids there.
I'm extremely angry at Blairs government for setting up a system legue tables that predicatably escallated that middle class pattern of behaviour.
Comapare and contrast with Scotland that didn't go down that route...you'll not find the same intesity of competition for places.

History shows us that class mobility increases when it matters least. You get your working class writers, broadcasts, actors, scientists and academics in periods where wages and conditions are improving for factory workers, tradesman, council workers and so on.
In periods of harsh inequality- the middle class become ever more frenzied in their construction of a "glass floor"

Middle class types get slated for nepotism but among trades, Jones and Son is a selling point.

Why wouldn't you want your kids to follow in your footsteps if you have a rewarding job.

I agree with you. But it is sad to see a massively advantaged person still unhappy and making a mess of their lives. So I suppose advantages can mean different things. Sometimes with big financial advantages there can be massive expectations too.

I'm an academic.

The number of fellow academics, allegedly with reasoning skills, who think that anyone can attend our (top ten RG) institution if they put in some effort, and then go on to achieve a first, is shocking. Our demographic reflects that (the recent intake is even more unbalanced with the fees), and it seems that only lip-service is given to genuinely widening participation (one academic I know thinks this entails going to talk about our subject at a nearby £30K a year private school).

Those at the top almost always have an Oxbridge/RG background, were privately educated, and are white men. But in their head, they worked hard and there was little element of luck.

I find it utterly baffling given the value our subject places on logical reasoning.

The present climate is, in no small part, why I might be leaving. At some point, you stop feeling resilient and just beaten down by obstacle after obstacle that appears. And I'm under no illusions that academia is a special case.

unlimited I only realised my boring old family were the rock I was built upon as the years rolled by.

Depends on the adversity - secure early attachments are critical to resilience. Disordered attachments can significantly affect outcomes - especially if it's not spotted and appropriate intervention given.

Yes, sorry- my "supported through it" was shorthand for secure early attachments/ engaged parenting. I should have been clearer.

Also, while I think BeyondthePage makes a good point that it's relative, I don't think its necessarily helpful to say that because you're not living in a refugee camp in South Sudan recovering from recent FGM then you should count your blessings. In fact I find that can often be used against people trying to address social inequalities.

What upperlimit said at 11:03:57. Exactly that.

You also drop the idea that your position is 100% the result of what you did, rather than other people's input. Otherwise you can start assuming other people can replicate your position by just replicating your actions.

We have a very obvious example on MN: there's a MNer who loves to
a) brag about how rich she is,
b) claim she did this all herself and exhort other people to follow her actions.

She insists on giving career and life advice on MN - and it's DREADFUL advice. Has no grasp of any life situation which differs from hers. Hasn't the faintest idea about industries or occupations outside her specialism.

And from the info she (continually) leaks about her life, it's abundantly clear she's had massive leg-ups her whole life, from private school to substantial support with childcare. I would say she's oblivious to the advantages she's been given, but I notice of late she tries to obscure some of them - so she must be aware.

If she were to put her hand up and say, "I've done well. I had these advantages, those bits I did for myself," I'd have a lot of time for her. As it is, she comes across as unreliable and not worth listening to.