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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:
Thread gallery
6
steff13 · 28/12/2018 03:54

I got established middle class. Died that mean I can stop bathing my daughter?

I'm in the US, here class is pretty much based solely on income. Here I'm considered upper- middle class.

canigetaliein · 28/12/2018 04:39

According to that calculator I’m technical middle class, you only get elite if you have a significant income after tax.

MiniTheMinx · 28/12/2018 06:29

I'm confused by all the references to jogging bottoms. What are they? What exactly do they signify? We don't own any, should we?

RiddleyW · 28/12/2018 07:07

You don’t know what jogging bottoms are? Are you a foreign type?!

Stillwishihadabs · 28/12/2018 07:14

This is so true. Ds's best friend at primary was WC (by this I mean neither parent had been university educated, the father was in construction and the mother did nails professionally). House was beautiful. When the dcs came to play, I was worried about how smart they looked and ruining what were clearly new(ish) clothes. I couldn't understand why she had dressed them like that for a play date.
We are about as MC as they come and D's had beautiful long hair till yr1.

Stillwishihadabs · 28/12/2018 07:17

Oh and teaching is a bit borderline. You didn't always need a degree (and still don't in some private schools). DM comes from very UWC/LMC origins has HUGE class anxiety and is a teacher

derxa · 28/12/2018 07:20

,

OhTheRoses · 28/12/2018 07:28

MIL was a teacher, pre degree. Has some v strange views about appearance, her own dc were scruffy (think she thought likjng nice things was a bit working class though that's what she was) her home was shabby and not well cleaned (she did the beds every half term). Her table manners were and are shocking.

I have come across this a lot. Not v high domestic/ practical standards but a tendency to talk down to or marginalise other women they feel are intellectually inferior. Happens with nurses too.

Undercovermuvver · 28/12/2018 07:29

What on earth is middle class? If you have to work for a living you are working class? Unless you have a huge trust fund set up of course, then you ain’t. If you are living on benefits, I am not sure what class, if any.

I have two children, one of whom can’t spend less that 40 minutes in the shower, one whom I can’t get in the shower more than twice weekly. When I look at other kids, I just don’t actually care. So yes, you are

Silkie2 · 28/12/2018 07:29

I've noticed for a while how untidy people look including adult DCs.

Someone came to pick up a purchse from ebay from us and I could swear he used a hobbit crossed with a troll for his clothings and hair style choices.
He had a verrrrr smart DM in the car with him, immaculately dressed including jewellery. I guess it's a rebellion in a way.
And also the backlash against the complaints about children of rich with contacts getting graduate trainee positions/ trainee jobs in film making, graduate banking roles etc etc. If you look like a tinker and hide your accent no one can easily accuse you of privelege.

troubleswillbeoutofsight · 28/12/2018 07:29

I know exactly what you mean and I think it looks a bit try too hard sometimes. I saw a father with his three children in a local supermarket. The kids were scruffy and unwashed looking. The little twin girls had hair that was just a great big knot at the back. But they were all wearing joules and boden. It was actually quite funny that the family must have gone to enormous lengths to make their children look scruffy and middle class ( even the stripey tights were a good match!) My little Grandson had dressed himself and was wearing Tu shorts, long socks, with crocs, a long sleeved T shirt and looked hilarious but certainly not as if his parents had tried to give him that look

echt · 28/12/2018 07:33

troubles I don't get how you can know what the family were trying to do while being so confident that your GS didn't look as if his parents were trying to do anything Confused

MiniTheMinx · 28/12/2018 07:35

Third generation Russian emigre. Does that count as foreign? Not really. I'm just wondering what jogging bottoms signify since there are so many references to them. I know a pair when I see them!

RiddleyW · 28/12/2018 07:39

They signify comfort over smartness I suppose?

choli · 28/12/2018 07:42

I thought teaching/nursing was the quintessential lower middle class professional?

Silkie2 · 28/12/2018 07:43

I guess it's a sort of 'the person inside that matters, not their outside appearance' - but v contrived really. I used to notice this with the local baptist group, everyone vying to look more jumble sale dressed with crap haircuts then each other.
It could be 'look at us poor millennials, struggling financially, whilst the baby boomers can afford blue rinses and second cars'.

Being of the baby boomer age it annoyes me as it seems disrespectful to others to go out without even washing your face or combing your hair. You are going to interact with people (even if it's th shop assistant only). I cleaned my shoes every day as a child, partly to make then waterproof and last longer but also to look smart.I spose it also reflected on my parents standards.

NameChangerAmI · 28/12/2018 07:43

I agree. It is a thing. My younger ones are scruffy & tbh so am I. I've never got the whole scrubbed and polished & hair done to within an inch of your life thing. It smacks of trying too hard to impress, I think.

Having said that, my DS won't leave the house without a shower, even to go and play football in the mud! But I'm often on the way to school saying to youngest DD - you did brush your hair, didn't you? when she clearly hasn't bothered (She's 8).

Luckystar1 · 28/12/2018 07:45

Oh god. My children are scruffy, washed daily, but always messy because they are a nightmare. They’re also mostly dressed in Boden or Frugi or something Blush and my son has long hair. Fuck sake my children are a cliche (not me because I’m not English so phew I’m not ‘in the system’). Took the stupid quiz. Got elite Hmm I call bullshit. Seems to revolve around money, going to the opera and being sociable with different ‘kinds’ of people (‘including the hoi polloi daylong, tinkle tinkle’)

Stillwishihadabs · 28/12/2018 07:55

Interestingly it was DH who is much more MC/UMC than me who banned jogging bottoms ( on aesthetic grounds, he is a designer). However apart from that one example, I am by far the fussier one. When we visit Dh's family I often feel like I've made too much effort. At Christmas I'd bought a new dress for me and Christmas jumpers for the dcs ( sainsbos for Dd, JL for ds - worn throughout December by both and will be passed on when outgrown) . I am sure we were the only people round that table (with possible exception of SIL) wearing " this season". Also no one EVER comments on it, so you have no idea if you've got it right or not. My lot OTOH will loudly exclaim and admire clothing choices (I am well aware this is a lower class trait).

Silkie2 · 28/12/2018 07:56

It's all very well to say it doesn't matter that we're scruffy but we recycle more clothes to third world countries than any other western country - can't show the figures but on a tv prog about this the locals in ? Congo preferred the British clothes as they donated most and were least worn.
So it's a false scruffiness of grubby unkempt Boden.

maddiemookins16mum · 28/12/2018 07:58

I nannied for a middle class family. I kept those children very clean and tidy. Needed to pop in one day during some time off and was shocked at their appearance. Hair not brushed, mismatched clothes, dirty mouths. It happened on more than one occasion. Once I needed to collect them from a party (parents had dropped off), they were wearing their grey school pinafores with odd t shirts underneath and shoes with bare feet.

Yura · 28/12/2018 08:04

@maddiemookins16mum oh my god, mismatched clothes! how absolutely horrendous!
(i would expya nanny to concentrate on playing with kids, not organising matching outfits - kids aren’t dolls!)

FestiveNut · 28/12/2018 08:10

But the fact they let you keep their children clean and tidy suggests that they aren't ideologically opposed to it. Probably just can't be bothered.

pantyclaws · 28/12/2018 08:16

According to that test apparently I'm in the elite which is hilarious, but I think I probably meet the MC cliché:

DS have longish hair
Wear 90% hand me down Gap, H&M, supermarket stuff, some organic little brands
NEVER matching, except occasionally PJs - they choose their own clothes and because a lot of it is hand me downs it doesn't go together
Often have mucky faces too but that's because they're impossible to keep clean

Why? We are lucky enough to have hand me downs and I don't see the point in spending a lot on clothes they'll only wear for a matter of months. They're kids. I also think it's more important for them to have the responsibility and freedom of choosing their own clothes than to look smart. I occasionally feel like I should step in because they look faintly ridiculous and scruffy, but I don't.

But I realise I'm potentially seeing this from a position of privilege.

OhTheRoses · 28/12/2018 08:16

We are very middle class. Very expensively educated children. I do not recall this very unkempt look at the school gates. Did a bit when they went to a leafy cofe primary reception to year 2.