To be embarrassed about my home ??

[Lillylou22]

I live in a small 2 bed house on a council estate, mostly I like it. It’s cheap, neighbours are friendly (mostly) and we havn’t really had too many problems ( bar the crazy downstairs neighbour but she wasn’t here long!).
Thing is the area has a bad rep, my friend and family joke about where I live and it’s starting to get me down. I hate people coming round always in fear they will say something negative. Comments range from “its nice and compact” to, “how do you cope?”
DP’s best pal is coming over this weekend with his snobby ass wife and I’m dreading it... is it normal to feel ashamed of feeling ashamed ? I feel guilty for even thinking this way as we have enough money, a clean comfortable home and have a happy life ! I need to tell people to F off and not care but I do

Jump in first when your visitors come and say something like, ‘it’s lovely to have you here, I bet you were worried about setting foot in BadPlace but we are really happy here and the neighbours have been great. Tea or coffee?’

Then produce some posh biscuits or even homemade cake if that’s your thing. A warm and friendly family home will always be a nice place to visit.

Truly posh people often have impeccable manners and just say nice things.
so true!!! Truly posh people put you at ease, and are or pretend to be comfortable anywhere.

Sorry OP, but you sound awfully judgmental too when writing this I often say house just because in my minds eye flat makes me think of tower block style buildings. Seriously? And even if it was a tower block style property, so what?
I don't care where people live, it does sound odd to be invited to a "House" when it's only a flat. People who live in flat use the word flat, or apartment ( never understood the difference ), they don't need to pretend it's something it's not.

I think it's very, very easy to say "This shouldn't bother me, it's social snobbery" but very difficult to do in real life. It takes an incredibly strong character to stand against the mores of a particular class and really not give a shit what people think. Very few people on Mumsnet do it - you can hear the desire for social approval like a hum of anxiety on any thread that touches on issues of taste. You can also hear it in the number of threads with people who are literally at the end of their tether trying to cope with work and kids and domestic chores because they are seeking to keep up a huge mortgage.

Live life your way. Your time, your rules. But don't be ashamed of being influenced by the prejudices of others - most of us are. The fact that you feel ashamed, and then conflicted about feeling ashamed, is not a sign that there's anything wrong with your life - it's a pretty much inevitable symptom of ploughing your own furrow.

"Truly posh people often have impeccable manners and just say nice things"

I don't know where people get this crap about "really posh" people being a certain way. It seems to be a kind of stealth boast about the social circles in which one moves. Of the posh people I have met, some have had impeccable manners, others have been fucking awful. Much like the middle and working class people I know.

I wouldn't invite those types of people to my house in your position. Why set yourself up for those cfs to turn their noses up. I wouldn't laugh them off. I'd say did your parents not teach you how to behave. Please leave my home mow. In other words FO.

If it makes you feel better, there is a large cohort at DCs prep school who feel this way when other parents come into their 5 bed homes and call them 'compact' and the garden 'sweet' because they don't have acreage. It goes on all across the scale and one of the first PPs had it correct with 'those that matter don't mind'. The people who judge the size of a person's house have very little other sense of achievement in their lives. I bet your house is lovely!

It seems to be a kind of stealth boast about the social circles in which one moves.

no, that's just you. For all you know, I could be a cleaner working for genuinely posh people, middle and working class clients. Normal people mix with every social class in their day to day life, that's hardly a stealth boast.

I thought you were ashamed of bad housekeeping, which is my eternal bane. It sounds like you live in a great area if you have good neighbours.

I don't think 'uber posh' Jacob Rees-Mogg has particularly nice manners. Actually he comes across as a right knob.

You're not embarrassed about your home (I thought you were going to say something like it being in disrepair/tatty/dirty like mine)

you just have some snobby rude people in your life.

Fuck em.

To “how do you cope?” say politely 'what with?' and watch them back down or dig a hole for themselves.

This woman works with disadvantaged (I assume) children and refers to them as jail bait? If she says that on this visit I'd be tempted to say crisply 'That's a nasty term'.

Stand up for yourself!

Hermione great practical advice I shall remember too. Thanks!

As for Snowys post - well written and entirely believable.
Some 'old money' people I have met have been like this too (not all)
The worst 'snobs' have been those aspiring to money/'class'.

I do hate it when people say that something someone has written 'could be in a book'. Real life can be like/stranger than fiction!

OP yes she sounds pretty ignorant. I'd ignore, deflect, reflect back etc as suggestions above. Do NOT be ashamed.

Cherish your bijou residence, you shouldn't feel embarrassed about your home. (Some of the people you know ought to feel embarrassed about their comments though!)

Sorry OP, but you sound awfully judgmental too when writing this I often say house just because in my minds eye flat makes me think of tower block style buildings.hmm Seriously? And even if it was a tower block style property, so what?
I don't care where people live, it does sound odd to be invited to a "House" when it's only a flat. People who live in flat use the word flat, or apartment ( never understood the difference ), they don't need to pretend it's something it's not.

Sorry if I came across as judgemental about tower blocks flats. Maybe an over site on my front with the way I have worded it.

And with the jail bait comment, I think she means as in “destined for crime” or something along those lines. Either way it actually stresses me out, told her last time that’s no way to speak about children ! She quickly changed conversation

She is the type of person who makes sweeping comments about anything and everything. Very shallow and narrow minded at times although I have always been hopeful it’s some sort of front she puts on and under it all is lovely. As the years pass I doubt this more!
DP can’t stand her but he has been friends with her husband since kids. Any rubbish over the weekend and I won’t have her back. I really don’t want to be around her as it is.

I hear your pain. We live in a lovely house - what was a 3 bed semi but has been enlarged to 4 beds, 3 recep and large kitchen diner - but it is on quite a busy road (we have parking for 2 cars) and is not in the smartest area of town. The location is perfect for us at the moment.

Our baby boomer now retired on final salary pension parents think the house is tiny and shabby. And go ON and ON about it.

Said house is worthh approx £650,000 as we are in a high housing cost area. If you heard our parents you would think we lived in a wheely bin.

Most of our friends / colleagues have bigger, smarter houses in the traditionally 'posher' part of the city or live in leafy country villages. Most have houses worth c. 1 million and huge mortgages. Not to mention those in the country complain constantly about the commute (most also bring kids into the city for school so can rarely be home when it is actually light and they can enjoy the picture perfect village).

We only have about 150K mortgage, and whikst I would live. bigger smarter house or to enjoy the countryside more in summer, we are close to work and school and are actually very lucky to have what we do.

If the snobby arse wife makes a derogatory comment about your home whilst receiving your hospitality, please please please say to her 'Well you know where the door is'.

I think it is the height of all rudeness to act in such a way, snobby, ungrateful, arrogant and just plain fucking rude.

I don't like our house. It's on the main road. It's smaller than ANY of ds1's or ds2's friends. It makes me feel like the poor relation.
But what can you do? We wont move. Cant really afford it, we'd have to spend a fortune to get anything bigger or better.
So' I've given up caring.
Hopefully you can do the same OP.

AND No one ever says anything negative about our house. No snooty comments. But I don't like the fact that its the smallest out of everyone we know and ALL of my children's friends.

My house is lovely and I’m often complimented on it, this is how I like to live though, in a clean, tidy minimalist home, I imagine people would think I judge their homes. One friend cancelled on me visiting her as she had not hoovered yet and her hoover blew up, I was gobsmaked she thought I cared what her home looks like, because the truth is I couldn’t care less if I put effort in. I actually love all homes, I love how there all different, it fascinates me.
Just because mine is nice but different to others, doesn’t mean theirs isn’t nice too.

What I’m saying is she may not even give it a second thought, don’t worry about it.

Well if she says anything just quip back something like,' I know, but it's a good job my self esteem isn't wrapped up in how many bedrooms my house has'

People make other people feel bad to make themselves feels better.

Tell the snobby wife what the term jailbait actually means, because not only is she patronising, she is also ignorant.

If anyone coming round to see me expressed distaste at the house I live in, for whatever reason, I would be surprised at their rudeness, the majority of people are courteous and well-mannered when visiting others.

I am who I am, I live where I live and it isn’t anyone’s business really !

That's all that counts. It's your home, you love it and you're comfortable.

Please remember, though, that not all comment are meant negatively. Sometimes people say the first things that come to mind - I know they shouldn't but we're all guilty of that from time to time. So, when someone says something that hurts your feelings you can either look at the wide-eyed and ask "Why would you say that?", thus putting them on the spot or you can smile and say nothing, while fantasising about giving them a kick up the arse and setting fire to their hair.

Yes, I have reached a point in my point in my life where all the fucks I had to give have wandered off and set up camp elsewhere.

Ah fuck her OP.

I remember being embarrassed about my little rented housr when dd started school. Play dates started. 2 of her best friends who I was friendly with both had lovely owned houses on nicer streets than mine.

I felt bad that mine was rented, needed new carpets etc. When we started going round to each others houses I learnt that friend 1 was horribly embarrassed of her house as it needed some pretty serious work doing on it that they couldn't afford. And friend 2s house was fecking filthy. Absolutely mingingly filthy. Think a watership down cast of dust bunnies up the skirting boards. Filthy furniture etc.

They both much preferred coming to mine. Both would suggest mine over theirs and both said it was because they were embarrassed by theirs and thought mine was lovely.

We spent hours when the girls were small sat in my garden having bbqs etc.

If she judges her opinion isn't worth a wank. And she will look a dick in front of you all. Don't sweat it.

Mayfair was once a swamp.
www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/investment/10836954/How-did-Mayfair-become-Londons-most-desirable-area.html

I used to work in London in the early 1980s and can remember certain very dodgy areas where I wouldn't want to walk alone that now command £1m for a small house.

I think as long as your home is warm and welcoming it shouldn't make any difference, and she's not actually been or said anything, so don't let your insecurities get the better of you.

I do get the issue with comments though. My father lives in social housing and hasn't got two pennies to rub together. We moved to our first property down south, about 17 years ago, it cost us about 250 then, and we'd stretched ourselves and he walked in and said "is this it, I was expecting better". And then later during the visit we were talking about patios and his partner said something about "the fake York stone you have now". Most bizzare, it wasn't fake and the pair of them lived in a council flat but were sitting being all judgey looking down their noses at it.

As my daughter was privately educated that home was clearly a lot smaller than some of the mansions the other parents had. It never bothered me but I was aware some of them looked around in surprise and said nothing. It was like your home dictated your financial status. Ours clearly screamed poorer than everyone else.

We now live in a large house with a large garden and due to a year end event we held for our daughter , many of the same parents turned up to get their kids, I got lots of "god what a beautiful house" and a huge amount of quizzical looks as in how did I go from that to this. Oh and wanting to be Mates. My behavuour didn't change, I didn't care then and I still didn't care.

Your home doesn't change who you are. We moved when we had saved enough, wanted to and could afford it, we were happy enough in our previous property and owned it for a long time as it suited us, even though we could have moved earlier. But as I grew up in social housing, I guess I just don't have the snobby gene. I recognise it when I see it, but can't say I've ever let it bother me.