To feel sadness whenever I go on a council estate?

[TheHolyToast]

I was brought up on a huge council estate. It was the happiest time of my life. I used to play out with all the local kids, every night after school and every day during the holidays. The older kids taught me how to ride a bike and i still remember the feeling. The ice cream man used to come around and the siren sent all the kids running to their houses for money. The neighbours thought nothing of feeding kids that were not theirs - you'd simply go back to your friend's house and the mum would be like "so and so's bairn is here, put some extra fish fingers in". We would go and explore the local woods, play in the overgrown gardens of empty houses, everyone was happy and carefree. Everyone was friends.

Then my mum remarried into money and everything changed. All of a sudden it was "common" for kids to play in the street and I was sent to organised clubs instead where I didn't like anyone and they didn't like me. I changed school and the atmosphere was different, everyone compared how much their clothes and holidays cost, nobody just wanted to have fun, it was all about showing off what you had. I started playing truant as I quickly became friendless. There was no more playing in woods, no more "sweet van", god forbid you turn up at someone's house uninvited, you'd be sent straight back home again. I hated it and longed for our old house.

Anyway, 25 years on and I'm a community nurse now. I'm often working on council estates and in particular, my old estate. The sun always seems to be out in these areas, like I remember it.

The other day I went into a house that was identical to my old house. The memories started flooding back. The brown corduroy sofa and cheap mahogany furniture, Jackie from next door and the swinging chair she had attached to the ceiling. I started to feel upset but carried on with my work. Then at 3.30 the kids came bursting in, dropped their bags, announced that they were playing out and the mum shouted "make sure you come home for tea, fish fingers and waffles" then bang. The door shut and I watched the kids running down the garden path with their friends all stood near the gate waiting for them. I ended up quite upset at this point and the poor patient asked if I was ok. I told her her house reminded me of my old house and it was bringing back happy memories. She laughed and said "you lived around here? I thought all you nurses were posh? Surely you can't miss living on here??!" But I really, really do.

Money doesn't bring happiness does it? I feel it's ironic that throughout our lives, the focus seems to be on improving our financial circumstances yet the happiest time of my life was when I was at my poorest.

AIBU to pine for this stuff when it everyone else's eyes, we were just another poor family claiming benefits on a council estate?

What you needes OP was for your mum to not marry into money and see how god damn fun it is to be poor on a council estate at 16 years old.

On the weekends and holidays we'd go to my Nana's house which was on a council estate. We were allowed to play just outside the house but we had to be careful of dogs which were allowed to roam. I found that terrifying, think less Lassie more Cujo, and I would stay close to the house.

There may have been a time when my Nana's estate was this safe space for children but by the eighties it was a place that had high crime and where people felt ignored by the police.

We had more freedom at home, on a private housing estate, where we spent all day playing and in and out one another's houses.

OP, I had a similar experience to you! Until I was 7 we lived on the first street over from the big council estate and I had lots of friends, played outside, always welcome at their house etc. I knew my neighbours, even the elderly ones/ones without children, as did my parents. Then we moved to a middle class area and people were judgy that I was allowed to ride my bike around a very quiet block and I felt quite lonely most of the time. This was the mid to late 90’s.
There seems to be a big cultural difference in how much supervision and structure working and middle class parents think their children need. I’m not convinced that sitting on the couch at home on the weekends and being supervised 24/7 is actually the most beneficial thing for kids so I completely understand your nostalgia. That said I’m very glad I’m not in the financial situation my parents were in when I was a young child.

My childhood was like you describe but we didn’t live on an estate

We live in a naice cul de sac now full full of detached houses and when the dc were younger they were always in each others houses. I used to joke that I either had 4 kids here for 2 ( I have 2 dc) or none. We also have had Easter egg hunts, bonfire parties etc.
Dd is a teen now but her BFF lives next door but one and although they can go for a while without seeing each other they have known each other since they were babies and are very close

Council or private estates are great for children in many ways. I live on one and my children have certainly enjoyed the running around with other children compared with where we used to live, which was in a bigger house but detached from the neighbours. My youngest in particular has loved it and is always out! I know others with similar experiences. I don't think it has to be a council estate though, any housing estate without too much through traffic is fun for kids if others play out.

I wouldn't want to live on a very rough estate or where there are significant drug issues (there have been dealers in this area, like all cities but there's no day to day problems as such).

I remember escaping getting my face washed at my house and showing up at my wee friend's house where his mother immediately went "toomuch I know your mother would never have let you out the house like that" and washed my face!

There was a big gang of kids in my street that all kicked about together, and there were a number of neighbours where I knew I was pretty certain to score a biscuit and a chat if I just showed up and knocked the door. It was awesome. My mother was emotionally abusive but there was so much opportunity to get out and be among other people, I think our estate was really a protective factor for me. I still have some weird little foibles from that time, I can't relax in the house without being dressed all the way down to wearing outdoor shoes. Being able to quickly get outside was always my safety.

I've said this many times. Money doesn't buy happiness but I'd much rather be sad about my lot sitting in a 4-bed Chelsea town-house than a run down estate worrying how I'll manage the heating bill or food shop for that week.
People often look back at their harder times with starry-eyed rose tinted glasses. Your experience might very well have been a happy one but I'd say you were the exception, rather than the rule.

I’m not convinced that sitting on the couch at home on the weekends and being supervised 24/7 is actually the most beneficial thing for kids

I feel the same way. I was hardly "free range" as a child since we still lived in London and it was the '90s, but we'd run up and down the street, around the block and into and out of each others' houses, and even that small catchment of freedom of movement is much more than children these days seem to get. It's entirely understandable but it does seem a pity.

I also agree with a poster upthread who pointed out the dark side of the whole thing, and I think that freedom allowed lots of children an escape valve when their home life wasn't ideal. There was a family two doors down from us with two daughters both of whom I was close with, and although I found their home a little unsettling I more or less took it for granted, but looking back on it I'm fairly sure there was an element of domestic abuse going on (between the parents, not towards the children). Their mother was a wonderfully warm woman but the father was an enormous slobby guy who always seemed to be sitting on the sofa chain smoking (not unusual back then) and drinking beer with the curtains drawn. I can't remember ever hearing him speak. It's depressing to think of the girls being cooped up in that environment all day rather than spending the whole time outside as they did for much of the summer.

It’s nice that you have good childhood memories.

I grew up in a block of flats in a rough area of London, and my memory was it wasn’t that great. My parents and others all knew each other, and there were good moments, playing in the sun in the communal green. An elderly woman befriended me and I played in her house a lot.

But then there was the tiny flat. Sharing with my brother in bunk beds - annoying! My parents marriage broke up partly from the strain of no money. Even though they both worked in good jobs. Little food. Crap clothes. Being bullied by older kids. Paedophiles frequently hanging about (community police just warned us and that was it). Lift constantly breaking down.

Glad I’m out of it. In a housing estate now where kids play out all the time. It’s quite a posh estate. Unfortunately my kids did play out but now won’t as the other kids are mean, a kind of dog eat dog mentality. Shame. And the neighbours are small minded too! Apart from one lovely one.

I think that there was a much more equal society then. I grew up in the country but there was also local authority housing. We all went to the local village primary and were all friends without the distinctions there are today. Lovely childhood with loads of freedom. Having worked in both Social Services and Education, it's really sad what some children are enduring. Probably it did go on then, but more hidden I guess. Don't think you can make hard and fast judgements. I would add that the school I worked in was in the centre of a fairly notorious very large council estate and we were constantly refereeing between families at war when it spilled over into school. Also saw at first hand a lot of poverty and also the perpetual cycle of inadequate parenting. We all bust a gut for the kids and did our best. Considering we're such a rich country we've badly lost our way.

I'm sorry but all I can think about is Jackie next door and her swinging chair fixed to the ceiling!

Naughty Jackie Next Door

I grew up in a very wealthy area in a big detached house and in our little road all the local children played out. We'd often end up in someone's garden but more often riding our bikes up and down the road or roller skating etc.

I think definitely nostalgia for lost years.

You are describing a typical childhood of the 60s/70s though nothing to do with s council estate. I was born in 64 and had just that childhood. My kids did too in the late 80s early 90s.

That’s all changed now I think in most places as kids are far more glued to screens and ferried everywhere by cars. It’s a real shame I agree.

However being poor is crap. Utterly crap so don’t mix up two different things.

OP I grew up in a similar way to you. It was great and I always look back fondly at my childhood. I think it's about the sense of community like you say. My mum looks back fondly at it too, even though she had money worries she still says it was the happiest time of her life.

My mum worked all the time and most of the other parents did too, so as kids we were constantly in and out of each other's houses.

Like you say everybody would feed everybody's kids with no complaints whatsoever. And everybody used to take turns to babysit when the other parent was at work.

My mum had so many friends and we used to have the odd bbq in the neighbours garden in the summer. And one of the neighbours would have a paddling pool and all the kids from the street would be in it

Good times. And despite money worries, people were happy.

I was raised on an estate like this. It was lovely.
I know an 80 year old woman who was raised on a similar estate.
She married well and now lives on a £1.5m house by the river. But she hates the lack of community and would sell up and move back to her old council house in a heartbeat.

I've been thinking about this a bit recently. Middle class modern life is very isolating, isn't it? There isn't the same sense of community in my life as I had growing up in a working class area. I'm sure that being childless doesn't help, but even my friends with kids speak of feeling lonely at times. We seem to have created so many polite boundaries, so many walls that we've reduced the points of contact with others. We fear being overrun, being taken advantage of, we mistrust our social skills to handle difficult situations and communicate across difference. I recognise that I am no longer very good at "togetherness" with others for extended periods of time; I'm sure I used to be much better. Maybe we are losing some kind of community capital?

I didn’t grow up on a council estate but a terrace street with cobbled back alleys behind where we use to play with lots of other kids that lived in the street. There was a field at the top and we use to go and make bases. It was the mid 90s and I remember it to always be sunny.
We weren’t poor. But we were in no way well off. My mum and dad still live there despite the fact financially they could have moved years ago.
I do hate that my DD will probably not experience that type of childhood.

YANBU and it's lovely to have such beautiful childhood memories.

I grew up in a place as far as a council estate as you can imagine. I only have happy memories of my childhood and only hope to give exactly the same to my own children. I don't think children should be bothered about money, but you seem to forget how safer and easier money is for the parents.
No worries about sickness, no worries about school uniforms, funding the residential, the sport clubs, the holidays, let alone food, rent and heating.

My home was very poor but loving, so I certainly was not escaping by playing outside a lot. But for those with tough home lives, it probably did help a lot.

While it's normal to feel nostalgia I think that you are being a bit ungrateful. You may not have succeeded in the middle class world your mother put you in but it's not like you have nothing. You have a career at least. I would hope that you have other things in your life that also make you happy. Don't you think that you attatchment to your childhood home has held you back long enough? You seem so intent on looking back and comparing what you have now in a negative light that you seem to be missing out on what you have now. Everyone has problems no matter what social class they belong to/live amongst. Your memories of the estate are happy and carefree because you were a child. I would imagine it was quite different for your mother. I would imagine that that is why she left. Be grateful that you had a happy childhood and enjoy the memories but don't lie to yourself. Your life wouldn't be all fine and dandy if you had stayed. The root cause of your problems isn't that you left but rather that you never let go.

whiskyowl I agree, it’s sad.

Yes whiskyowl, I agree. Given that we know that loneliness is so damaging it's up there with diabetes as a public health issue there is very little discussion on the lack of shared spaces.

The proposed solution seems to be to try and get people to visit the lonely or putting all the lonely people into a room together. But little is done to address the manner and the reasons why people end up shut away, the convoluted ways that 'good and proper manners' are just rules to keep yourself to yourself and the way that local and shared public spaces are closed down or amalgamated so they are further and further away.

I think the sense of community that seemed to exist has gone from most places. I know my FIL who lives in a village says it is very different to how it used to be there.

Your post is so beautiful OP. I can feel those same tears rising within you. I totally get it.

And God forbid you sit on your front step and be branded with the common stick.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1875178-wibu-to-call-Dh-common-for-sitting-on-the-front-door-step-in-the-sun