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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To wonder if middle class children appear more ‘scruffy’

999 replies

Workingclass · 27/12/2018 19:02

Went to a Childs party today for an old school friends DD (they are incredibly middle class) and her group of mum friends (who are equally as middle class)

I admit I don’t usually socialise in many middle class circles but I couldn’t help but notice that all of the children looked... scruffy, for want of a better word.

None of them had brushed their hair, they were all in mismatched clothes with muck on their faces. Didn’t look bathed..

I feel awful saying it, but I notice this also with the MC children at the DC school, has anyone else noticed it? I’m just curious as to why this seems to be a thing? Does my dds plaits and dresses ‘out’ her as having a working class family?

Is it more of a privilege thing? We don’t have much money so am weary of being judged as lazy by not doing her hair, I also make an effort to dress her nicely so she doesn’t look like ‘the poor kid’ is it that if your middle class you don’t have that fear?

Absolutely happy to be told IABU and judgemental but I am genuinely curious on the subject.

OP posts:
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GenerationSnowflake · 27/12/2018 20:34

I wonder how many kids are going to get dressed in mismatched clothes and splattered with a bit of mud tomorrow morning so the parents go up a notch in life

3out · 27/12/2018 20:34

Agree, Bertrand. The (seriously) scruffy child at nursery who turned up once and wasn’t wearing underwear, the parent laughed it off and said ‘but she dresses herself’. Parents are both lawyers. A couple of years later and an equally scruffy child whose mum was a single parent and was unemployed used to get ‘the look’ from the nursery staff. The poor parent was always getting interrogated by them.

WaxOnFeckOff · 27/12/2018 20:35

There is a certain look that fits with some (mainly) middle class families. At my DC high school, they tend to be the ones with trousers that are always too short, not just temporarily grown out of at the end of term, just constantly too short. Not from families that on the face of it look to be struggling.

BollockingBaubles · 27/12/2018 20:35

@UnnecessaryFennel

Swipey sequins :)

MirriVan · 27/12/2018 20:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

RelativePitch · 27/12/2018 20:36

Had a fairly MC upbringing. My DF was a QC so we were quite well off. All of us in private education. Naice houses in best areas, quite beaten up cars though. We all looked like tramps. I still look like a crazy hedgerow lady, but because I sound posh my DC's school ask me to do everything. Parent governor, PTA, classroom helper. They've made an assumption about my intelligence because of the way I sound. They can't involve me enough despite my unkempt appearance. My DSs are quite scruffy, but I keep their hair military short as it's just easier.

Clankboing · 27/12/2018 20:37

I work in a more wc area and live in a more mc area. I've noticed this difference most of the time. However I've also noticed it with adults - and more so females - wc adults absolutely immaculate, perfect make up, a general self consciousness if they are not slim too. In the more mc area where I live women are often comfortably dressed and often seem to feel no pressure to be immaculate or to wear make up. The mc females are often well built or muscular and completely at ease with this, as they should be. I have noticed that the mc women dress up when they need to but not as much for school runs / nipping into town. Obvs I am generalizing a bit but not altogether - I am in middle age now and it really shocked me as I noticed this. When I was younger I lived in a more wc area and felt the pressure to look a certain way - now, as I have grown older (and live in a more mc area) I no longer feel this pressure. I am more confident in my own skin.

greenybluey · 27/12/2018 20:37

I don't think the whole middle class "look" is contrived as some are making out to be.

A friend told me she spent an hour doing her daughters hair before school. I would love to do that type of thing but I leave the house an hour before my DC go to nursery to get a train to London.

I was a very middle class kid at a very working class school and I HATED that I looked scruffy compared to other kids. I remember taking they must be really wealthy (judging from their clothes), and going for play dates at their houses and being shocked that they really weren't.
When I was a kid I remember crying and begging my mum to give me plaits but she genuinely didn't know how to do them. The next week I went to one of my friends houses who's mum was a hairdresser and asked her to teach me. She taught me to French plait my own hair!
Not all kids want to look scruffy! My appearance just wasn't a priority for my parents (an artist and a doctor) and I respect that. I had a fantastic, muddy childhood. And when I got to my teenage years I had a lot of fun learning how to turn myself out!

Travisandthemonkey · 27/12/2018 20:37

Well it’s the same as houses really. You go to the upper class manor and it’s all dog hair and animals and the kids are eating off the floor and it’s fucking freezing. But it’s worth2.5million

You go to a two up two down and every time you put your cup of tea down it’s swept away and washed up. And the floor is hoovered daily and everything smells of polish.

I mean I am massively generalising, but one half of me comes from each side and it’s amazing the difference. I am in the middle and constantly lived in cute handmedown type things.

formerbabe · 27/12/2018 20:37

Can I ask if you're middle class and your son had longish, scruffy hair...why is that? Is it a conscious choice? If so, why?

UnnecessaryFennel · 27/12/2018 20:38

Oh wow, baubles, that's both completely vile and utterly hypnotic Grin

halfwitpicker · 27/12/2018 20:38

Yet another reason for me to let their hair grow long and not bathe them so much. They also speak French too. Must be middle class.

Sparrowlegs248 · 27/12/2018 20:38

I posted early on in the thread about my pre school age boys fitting into the scruffy mc category, with their shaggy hair and floppy clothes. They are clean though, bathed and clothes washed!

LilQueenie · 27/12/2018 20:39

DD lives in a low income area yet she is also in dresses and pigtails or ponytails. She is covered in muck too because she loves the outdoors. That's normal. Being immaculate is not.

Xmasbaby11 · 27/12/2018 20:40

Yeah I'd agree with this. I am mc and among my friends it's common to buy kids clothes from charity shops and boast about the bargains we get. My dhs wc family would never buy second hand and seemed upset we got so much baby stuff that wasn't brand new.

PearlandRubies194 · 27/12/2018 20:41

I was brought up by a single mother for a few years and then by my grandmother. A very working class family (non academic, minimum wage, social housing), with little money but both were meticulous about their homes. Their curtain nets and windows were always cleaned so as neighbours wouldn’t judge. When my daughter was born, they drummed it in about ironing the pleats on her dresses properly, the whites should be ‘whiter than white’, her hair should always be plaited and brushed.

From making friends at Church, then with other mature students at university and then my DC’s school, I have noticed that middle class parents have a more relaxed attitude in regard to their children’s appearance. I think my gran and mum, growing up and raising their own children with little money, had an attitude of “I don’t have much but I have my pride”

GinIsIn · 27/12/2018 20:41

Because he doesn’t enjoy getting it cut and he’s 2 so it’s not like he has a meeting with the bank manager tomorrow.... also, he has very curly hair so it needs a bit of length to tame it. so I don’t have to brush it

allthegoodusernameshavegone · 27/12/2018 20:42

Yabu and ridiculous

MirriVan · 27/12/2018 20:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

bluebellpillow · 27/12/2018 20:43

Travis I think that's a MN thing, the whole stereotypical MC person with a filthy, freezing house with ragamuffin children and the family drive a 1982 battered Volvo caked with mud. The MC people I know have lovely houses with high quality furniture and fixtures. No one eats on the floor either.

greenybluey · 27/12/2018 20:44

formerbabe because he has perfectly curly caramel coloured hair that is just so beautiful (to me)! He always says he likes it long and curly and won't let us cut it (he's 2). It's always clean.

StealthPolarBear · 27/12/2018 20:44

There are some embarrassingly snobby posts on this thread.

Travisandthemonkey · 27/12/2018 20:45

@bluebellpillow
Well the floor thing was a bit of a joke
But everything was in my life.
Battered Volvo
Cold Manor House
Hand me downs
Scruffy ainmals everywhere
Eating things that were a bit green!

Travisandthemonkey · 27/12/2018 20:46

@bluebellpillow
But we had very high quality fixtures and fittings and everything was good quality

RedToothBrush · 27/12/2018 20:47

Huge generalisation but mc generally prioritise money on activities and learning rather than clothes. Their priority isn’t buying the latest ‘things’ or spending time doing hair as a sign of status. It is perverse in mc eyes to spend money on designer clothes or expensive toys that are of little to no educational benefit.

Its interesting what cars you find in different areas of my town.

The posh area is awash with Dacias and Kias. Areas which are less well off (though not poverty striken) you'll not see them at all. You'll see more BMWs. Thats not to say you don't find BMWs in the posh area, its just that people are less bothered about them or can't afford them because they have put their money into their house rather than their car.

The mentality is much more practical that a car is from getting from A to B and they don't need the status symbol of a car, because they have that status from other areas of their life such as education or job.

Also see naming trends, where the 'middle class' ordinary / safe names are given to children from less well off backgrounds but have aspiring parents and who don't want to be looked down on as 'chavvy'. More upper middle class families are more inclined to have 'out there' names.

The psychology of it is fascinating. Even if you know about it, you do fall into all the cliches of what you value as part of your lifestyle.