Aibu? To be embarrassed by my modest home...

[btfly2]

I admit that. I'm embarrassed about where I live and I'm too embarrassed to invite people around.
Small and very affluent village, mostly middle class families at the local school.
Fear of my kids's friends parents and now I've become reclusive and I feel sad for my children integrate well.
Sorry but cannot help to feel this way and I don't know how to overcome this sad situation. Have you ever been in a similar situation..?

I know motoko it’s so accurate for this village I don’t care too much, but have huge sympathy for the Op. But there are plenty of lovely people out there (in big and small houses), you just have to weed out the snobs

" My house is big and tatty and I always feel a pang of envy when I go to friends cosy smaller houses that are near to the village and not draughty or expensive to maintain!"

Why don't you sell up then Dolly and buy a cosy little house like teh people you envy? :/

The " wrong side of the tracks" is a USA thing, not usually UK

You are being ridiculous. It’s your loss but it seems a shame.

If it's clean, smells nice (maybe with flowers from the garden), and you're welcoming to your friends then they'll love to come and visit. Size is neither here nor there. Bijou!

Honestly, we live in a 1 bed flat in Surrey and can't even affords kids. If these people judge you for a tiny house they really aren't worth bothering with!

Hi op! This post resonated with me because we moved to a similar catchment area around six years ago, and my dc started to attend a school that was mainly middle class with mostly middle class friends.

To be completely honest, i did feel like you did in the beginning. I went over to a couple of their houses (think four/five bedroom Edwardian houses with pianos), and initially I did feel a little embarrassed about our situation as not only were we in a council two bed flat, we were also quite skint ! Dc would come home and tell us about their friends holidays and it was impossible not to compare.

It would have been really easy to hide away and in dc nursery year I did. Until at the end of the year her teacher sat me down in parents evening and said how lovely dd was but how she hadn't found that special friend she plays with, and how she is quite often alone in the playground. The teacher advised me to allow opportunities to socialise outside of school as many of the children at the school did via playdates and clubs and that cemented their friendships at school. I drove home in tears with images of dd lonely and sad in the playground ! (I'm sure it wasn't that bad in hindsight, but at the time it felt like the end of the world!).

So I started to invite her friends over and also to accept invitations for dd to visit friends too. I'm going to be honest, a couple of the children that came did ask where the rest of the house was, where the downstairs was etc obviously though, they were just so used to living in larger homes that naturally they were a bit baffled at the prospect of a small flat ! The parents were absolutely lovely though. Never ever had the slightest of snubs/snobbish comments or anything of the sort. I've built some very good friendships with lots of the mums and our house situation just isn't an issue any more !

Our situation has improved now and we are moving into a 'proper' house and I'm so glad that we established those relationships and friendships with the children and parents at the very beginning as doing it now after moving into a home that we could be proud of would be just wierd and .. yeah, really weird basically!

So the point of all that extremely long post is to just go for it! Don't hold back, let your dc form good strong friendships out of school and do not give a shit about the size/whatever of your home. Those that will matter won't care and those that care won't matter !

I truely don't think most people care. Children certainly don't. It's only as an adult that I look back and appreciate the difference in friends parents houses.

Not all people in big houses are materialistic and miserable.

Young children sometimes make innocent comments - 'why is it so small in here?' Etc. But to them it's a factual observation. Best not taken too seriously.

We bought the worst house in a very affluent area when the D.C.'s were small thinking we could transform it it we could never afford to and I felt so embarrassed having people round. But that was my problem only because 15 years later my D.C. Talk about that house and se time as being the happiest. There will always be mushy people it thankfully none of us are obliged to be their friends.😀

Judgy 😂

No one knows if people are judgy . The OP is making a huge assumption based on her own feelings.

Ive found it the other way to be fair - people being sneery about those in big houses ( both on here and IRL) with words like posh, materialistic, snobby etc being bandied about.

The only snobbery I see on here is inverted.
Although the best comment I ever had IRL was that one woman couldn't believe I lived where I did because, " no one with a house like that would drive a crap car like yours, no offence"

We are selling our house for many of the reasons listed on this thread. From the outside it's big and detached, sort after location. Inside it's:

Expensive to heat
Constantly needs repair work
Big mortgage
Too rural so lots of money on fuel just getting out the door
Village is very insular and narrow minded
We haven't had a holiday in years
Families tend to be very cliquey so not much chance for kids to play together.

We are selling up and looking to buy a smaller new build because:

Cheaper to heat
More money to do things
New community might (fingers crossed) enable kids to interact more
Walking to places is possible

Of course there are always downsides everywhere. But all that glitters isn't gold.

My dream was the usual cliche to grow veggies. I only did it for one year. So plan is to apply for allotment in new place and again more opportunities to chat to other people.

I live in a flat above a shop with my DS. Literally couldn't care less. I live in a large town and it's very mixed, the private school and "nice" area is just down the road from the council estates. Everyone just blends with each other. Nobody has judged me for where I live (to my face anyway). One of DS's closest friends is from a well off family and lives in a large detached house, the family are lovely.

It's your own insecurities talking. If people do judge you then they're people you shouldn't want to be friends with anyway, but I bet you they won't even care!

Our house is old ( farmhouse) , a money pit etc etc but I adore it.
It makes me happy, we all have tons of space, it's quirky and it costs to heat yes, but that's what woodburners are for.

I'd shrivel and die in a newbuild.

Bitchqueen - yes my experience too.

Oh op, no one whose opinion is worth anything will give a shit about the size of your house or how much money you have. As long as it’s clean and tidy, no one will notice. It’s the welcome not the walls that I remember.

I was on the other end of this one time. In our group of baby mums one of the the mums never invited us round to her house because she was embarrassed about her smaller home. She eventually dropped out of the group because she couldn’t get over it, even her partner said it was her issue and not ours. Irony was we all lived in very normal houses and had small tiny first babies to look after with no sleep - she could have lived on the bloody moon and no one would have notced if she’d made us a cup of tea and fed us cake.

Don’t be her. Don’t think everyone judges you like you judge yourself, because they just don’t. The odd few might buf they are best wheedled out early and avoided. Shed this self conscious skin or you’ll create your own unhappiness. Be proud of who and what you are, whatever that is.

I grew up in an enormous Victorian town house that had a servants wing. It's been turned in to five two bedroom flats to indicate just how huge it was. It was not a happy home at all because my stepfather was an alcoholic. We were also not allowed friends back.

DH also grew up in a huge house it had an in and out drive with it's own little roundabout in the front, he had a happy childhood.

My best friends at school lived next door to each other in very modest homes , one was a happy house and one wasn't as one girl also had an alcoholic Father.

The people inside the homes made all of them what they were.

Our house is quite modest. It's in quite a beautiful estate, but it's not posh at all. The funny thing is the guests who are very well to do some who have multi million dollar properties are all very gracious about it, but when I invited another relative who lives in a council estate herself, she was so scathing and made comments about how she knows someone who has 4 bathrooms instead of our 2, how her friend house is so much bigger, etc etc. I don't care anymore, as long as it's clean it's MY house. Only I need to love it.

Do it for your kids. Let them show their friends their place - and if you like, be the Mum that makes home baked bread/muffins for them, or has treats in the freezer ready, or lets them do messy play. Don’t invite back anyone who is rude about your home, but open door to anyone nice.

I grew up in a big detatched house, it was a dust trap and I am happy in our standard semi and I was proud of my previous terraced home. I have never bought furniture anywhere but IKEA. I have plenty of people I know who have bigger homes, more income. Some of them are a bit snobby tbh. But most not, or they also have redeeming qualities.

I have been in your position. No-one is looking down on you, actually the truth is you make them feel better about themselves because they don’t have to compete with you.

Take it from me, no one cares that your home is ‘modest’ if it’s clean, warm and friendly.

it's MY house. Only I need to love it. That’s a really lovely way to look at it

Actually, one thing I do really judge is smoking. If you smoke in the house your house will stink of it and be really unpleasant to be inside. Everything else, messy, poor state of decorating or maintenance, I don't care about. Life's to short to worry about stuff like that.

Well to be completely honest the size of the house is one thing but the road until you reach my house is not very nice and I know first impressions always count and are difficult to change... I can make my house a cozy and lovely home but some people immediately look it down when seeing the exact address and is not fair and makes me feel sad. Have you ever been in a similar situation or is just me and my craziness?

Also, I have friends (known for years, before big houses) who do have big posh houses, I love visiting them because they have a nice big house our kids can run round in, don't let your kids miss out. Nobody judges small houses.