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?

Gosh, I would love a pair of those rose-tinted spectacles.
I have lived and still work in one of those council estates. there are some fabulous people, doing brilliant things.
But also a lot of poverty, theft, damage, and insecurity, which leads people to all sorts of physical and mental health problems.
You were a child. You are remembering all the good things.
Its like when people tell you that they didn't lock the doors when they were a kid. Of course they didn't lock the doors. They were kids. But I bet their bloody parents did.
You can allow children to have freedom without living on a council estate.

My eyes were watering with nostalgia... I had a similar and really wonderfully wild and independent childhood. But then I remembered some of the shittier aspects. Loads of wild and free kids I grew up with were seriously injured, a few were killed in accidents. Lots of the boys are now in prison, although of course some have done really very well for themselves. People were stabbed, attacked, there was plenty of violence and a lot of situations where people took things into their own hands with awful consequences. A teenage girl was gang raped. We were only talking about a house/family the other day where the dad and step-dad had a fight and killed each other! It’s beyond imagining, some of the deeply embedded horrors that arise from the noxious mix of poverty, being in close quarters, and the grinding low expectations. We had a wonderful time wandering free, and I wouldn’t swap it for anything - it’s made me who I am, but I think it could easily have gone the other way. Even once living in a street property, I still went back to play, and have never forgotten my childhood friends. I can see how you were brought to tears, I’m very nostalgic like that, too.

Honestly OP I would be worried about your own professionalism. You presumably are a healthcare professional in somebody's home, performing a service for an ill patient. And they end up comforting you as you tear up about the simple pleasures of the poor? It really really isn't appropriate. Are you very new to this job? Professional boundaries are there for a reason.

Nostalgia is all well and good, but don't let it affect your job or your patients.

Madame, I thought you said you were poor? I know poor is relative, but still. We had very little growing up but I wouldn't have described us as poor at all. We had food, even the latest inventions like Pot Noodles and McCain pizza which were an amazing novelty back in the day. We had clothes and I was the eldest so didn't get the hand me downs, something for which I am forever grateful. We had a fire downstairs and a paraffin heater on the landing - the horror - so never froze in the winter. I had loads of cousins, so well used to babies and managed to secure a lot of babysitting work aged 12 onwards and I have always earned my own money since.

I didn't grow up poor. Experienced a couple of very grim, very poor years back in my 20s.

I wonder if you're craving your childhood life rather than living on that particular estate.
I get extremely nostalgic when I see things from the 80s and think, I wish life could be like that again e.g. no internet, shops closed on a Sunday, Woolworths back on the highstreet etc. But in reality, I don't think I would want that as an adult. I liked it as a child, in that era, but I wouldn't want to live not feeling secure financially etc. It couldn't have been fun for my parents...

I'd say that you are very lucky. My council estate childhood was spent being violently abused: which was ignored because nobody cared about a worthless council estate brat. My skin crawls when I'm exposed to council estate environment- which for me is basically all of the time:(.

Move to an estate that is friendly for kids. We live on a lovely estate, loads of kids who play out. Friends who live in older areas or on main roads are always shocked when we get in and both dc dump their stuff and shout “I’m playing out”. Their dc have to have arranged play dates. It’s the reason I won’t move until dc are much older. They have lots of freedom and great friends.

I grew up on 2 different council estates. The first one was more for those on housing benefit even though we weren’t and my parents were one of the few that both worked. My childhood was amazing, I always say that the neighbourhood kids brought each other up. Always outside, having picnics, playing just generally everything a childhood should be. When we moved to a different estate 10minutes down the road i was known to the old estate as the rich kid because my parent purchased their own home. I’d never trade my childhood for anything or never forget the kids I grew up with. Even though my parent earned more money than most of the others we never acted like we did. It wasn’t a secret. With my dad a station supervisor for the underground and my mum an office manager for sky it was well known we had money. I never flaunted it in anyone’s face and it never changed me. I always know where I came from and I make sure to tell my kids how my childhood is. Even though I live in a house now I still try to incorporate some of my childhood into theirs so they don’t miss out 😊

Your childhood sounds lovely OP.
My council estate childhood was a bit rubbish because we were housed in a cultural de sac of Jehovas Witnesses who objected to us godless kids playing out and once chucked my sisters bike with force into the road (rather than say, asking her to move it).
Then further up a the road, a bunch of "problem families" who once beat my Mum up for being "posh" (she isnt).
In general I grew up feeling a bit isolated and disliked. I would have loved a childhood like you describe.
If you want to go back- I think you should look into it. I live on a council estate (owner occupier) by choice now and it's just like the estate you remember. I feel so privileged that my kids can play out and are experiancing the scense of community and place i missed out on. In particular Halloween is amazing. I never got to go trick or treating because as it turns out JWS don't like people knocking on their doors!
I could easily live somewhere more aspirational but I choose not to.

I think you might be craving the care free days of childhood and maybe the people who were around you at that time who may no longer be with us in this world.
I loved my childhood and those who were around me at that time. As it turned out I moved back to the area. One telling situation was that none of the children who were my playmates live in the area. They have all moved to various locations in this country and abroad. One person who lived here but was a much older child than me and isnow living in the area told me that they would move away if they could afford it. I wont be staying here long.
The area gets a good name but I do not think it is all that is wonderful The neighbours are awful and weird. The watch every move but do not talk even to say Hi or Good morning. Some of the people here now come from dreadful places. It is clear that they are not quite in their comfort zone.
I have been in some poor areas for work purposes and without fail the people have been marvellous which also shows up my current neighbours.
It is nice to look back on the past and remember the happy memories but I doubt if we can ever recapture those times

I also have similar happy memories of my early years in a Council house. Summer of 76 was our last one there when I was five and it was glorious.

I know now my Dad was struggling to find work. He was a skilled joiner and managed to find work as a milkman. It was great sitting on the float. It was also cold for him and an early start.

I was lucky though, when he got a good job and my parents bought a two and a box 1930s semi for £12k (£450k now). We still played in the street though but we also started getting nicer clothes and going on holiday.

The joys of childhood. Good solid builds council houses.

When I read the title, I thought this was going to be a whole other thread...

YANBU

I wish our local council estate gave the feeling you describe OP.

It feels quite the opposite when I drive through.

Anyway, as so many council houses are now in private ownership, I see many in my work as a surveyor. The 1950s/60s ones tend to have really big gardens and were originally only divided with a 2m chain link fence. I can imagine, in simpler times, it would have been a great place to grow up.

Hmm, rose tinted glasses I think. I do get where you're coming from but you're not missing out on anything by not living in a council house as an adult. It's different when you're a child - life is pretty simple (for most kids). When you're an adult and living on one of those estates, it's not as simple. Living in those places generally means you have a lack of money and a lack of money means struggle paying rent/bills/food etc - it's soul destroying. It's nice to look back on happy simpler times from childhood, but middle class/upper class adults surely do the same - it's not unique to being working class. I think you're mixing up nostalgia for your childhood with class. If you gave up your nursing career and went to live on a council estate the novelty would quickly wear off. You miss childhood simplicity - not being poor.

It's great that you got on the social mobility ladder and don't have to live in the reality of a place like that as an adult.

I was raised in a South London tower block estate that's now been demolished but was used as a location for the grittier elements of a few films and TV dramas. Like most kids I was happy, healthy and loved, and had few responsibilities. The sun shone all summer, the Christmases were white and Wagon Wheels were twice the size they are now. I think it's just the rose tinted specs tbh, but isn't it wonderful? I'm also pretty sure that our kids (except for the very unlucky ones) will look back on today and reminisce in the same way.

We grew up poor on a council estate and had a similar experience. We moved somewhere posher and there was little change in how we lived other than having more money for things like food and the roof over our head. Where we are now is in a new estate where most folks have money. Last summer at one point we had 8 random kids we fed at lunch time. I returned to our old estate and found it run down, over grown and quite an unpleasant place to be. Not a child in sight on a sunny afternoon.

Times have changed, places have changed and it is never money which determines how happy someone is. If you are struggling as a lone parent on benefits, you will obviously find having more money is a better situation. Equally, if you are a struggling with something like mental health or loneliness, no amount of money is going to make that better on your worst day.

You can’t buy happiness, but equally, money doesn’t necesarily make people miserable either.

I grew up in a naice area, middle class upbringing, tutors & music lessons etc and I was allowed to play out until the street lights came on.
We'd often play rounders, water fights in summer, snowball fights in winter on the huge green area across from our house.
I suspect it's the childhood nostalgia, not the poorness that you're hankering after.

I've not read the whole thread (sorry!) But what decade are you talking about, because it might have something to do with that rather than where you lived?

THIS ^^

I was born in 1977, so grew up during the 80’s and early 90’s. We all played out in the street with the other neighbourhood kids, were in each other’s houses on rainy days. I had skateboards and roller boots I’d be doing death defying moves on, rolling down hills, climbing trees, making dens over the field etc I think back to my childhood and remember it as being so much fun. To me it feels like I had a better childhood than the kids of today.

Me and my DP are always saying how we never seem to see kids play out much anymore and they’re all addicted to their computers/consoles.

I think it’s partially because we just didn’t have many of those things then, we didn’t have Xboxes and iPads or mobile phones (well I had a crappy ZX Spectrum that took hours to tune into the tv so rarely bothered with it ).

We had to make our own entertainment. We would be out playing because there was sod all to do in the house. Being inside was boring as we didn’t have gadgets to fiddle with like the kids have now. And neighbours seemed to be more friendly and do things for each other yes, but I think life has become more pressured for people over the years and people (unfortunately) don’t have as much time for each other anymore.

I do think times have changed (not necessarily for the better). When we reminisce those good times really stand out and it’s easy to forget that some things were still prevalent then that we choose to ignore. So we still had people at my school who were better off than others who would have the latest trainers etc and would show off and make other kids feel like shit for not being able to keep up with the trends because their parents either couldn’t afford it or wouldn’t allow it.
And we still had some neighbours who were arseholes and wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire.

So I do think the era you were born in has a large part to play. But I also think that you remember things very differently as a child. As you said yourself, when you visited the local shops in your old area you had a completely different feel about the place! Because as an adult you can see things that maybe you couldn’t as a kiddy.

I am a walking advert for 'middle class', and I find your post very offensive actually. I'm fed up of people yakking on about how 'wonderful' it is to be proper working class, us middle class folk are so up our own asses we wouldn't understand the truly important things in life would we? We are too busy fretting over Tarquin's latest tutor...
We 'played out' all blooming day, we rode bikes for miles (and I never had a new bike they were always hand-me-downs), we built dens in overgrown, abandoned gardens, we had lunch at friends if we were around-no drama, and sometimes it was fish fingers!
Amazingly, I managed to do ballet and play out.
Not being working class, and struggling on a council estate doesn't mean you have millions and never a financial care in the world,you know?
And guess what? I'm a nurse. Not a fancy nurse, just a clean your arse and make you feel better, kind nurse. And I speak two other languages, and live in a six bed victorian house, and last year I cleaned houses for some extra money!!!
I suspect, as previously mentioned you are viewing life through some extremely rose tinted glasses, and you did not have to live on a council estate to have that childhood!

I am so old that when I was a kid, nobody wore trainers.

We didn’t have a rich childhood and I was happy

Be blessed to have had a happy childhood OP

Wow people take stuff so personally don’t they

She is sad because her move to middle class life wasn’t a happy experience that’s all

Jeez, this thread has developed into one of those FB "Share if you played out until midnight and ate mud and never came to any harm.." type posts.

I did think it
Might Hester !!!!