to think this nursery is the very embodiment of gentrification in London?

[roundaboutsroundabouts]

I won't name the group of nurseries as I don't know if that's allowed (is it?) but I've just seen them referenced on instagram by a scandi toy brand. They are all in vair gentrified hipster parts of London and the fees are fcking EXTORTIONATE - £90 a day for the under-threes. I know that isn't unusual in London (although in my much cheaper part of London I only pay £55 a day). It holds a "curated" "programme" of monthly "events" (including pilates). The children get a daily smoothie - tomorrow's is beetroot, banana, ginger, berry, lemon and hemp. It describes itself as "design-led" and it's all vair tasteful scandi wooden toys in neutral colours. Design led?! Why does a NURSERY need to be "design-led"?!

You just know that everyone who sends their child there is going to have an ombre "lob", wear clothes from Arket, carry a fjallraven kanken backpack, own a bugaboo or a babyzen yoyo, dress said children in varying sludge colours from Mini Rodini, and have linen bedding in their Victorian Terraced house with white painted floorboards and scandi style planters.

I am BVU I know. But it is so irritating. I grew up in London, the child of an immigrant, and I feel like it's just an endless line of artisan coffee shops and overpriced farmers' markets these days.

Sounds great - would love to send mine there!

I hope the nursery kitchen has a concrete floor and white brick tiles. Maybe some exposed pipe work.

I love wooden toys and good design! Sadly my children have no taste and prefer loud plastic tat. Heathens.

They are just symptomatic of a demographic whereby everyone has the same stuff and looks the same.
That’s called the class system. I have the same here in the middle of a not so nice area.

In fact, (if I've got the right group of nurseries of course), at one of the branches Ofsted reports ' Following our inspection, we served a welfare requirements notice on the provider' because they were so concerned about the quality of provision.

Not to worry. It looks nice.

Also I sent DS to a chain nursery which had a reputation locally as THE place to send your kids. They put them in front of the TV every morning after breakfast! (He left anyway as we moved away)
Don't believe the hype when it comes to nurseries.

Like goes to like.

Bit too pretentious for my taste. I remember choosing stuff for my first baby and picking out neutral classy scandi stuff and then my mum pointed at the colourful noisy stuff and said "this looks fun" and I realised that my choices were more about me than the baby!

95 in London probably isn't that unusual. We paid over 50 quid a day up here in the Midlands and that was about ten years ago now. They didn't have pilates but they did have a music man with a massive beard who came in on Wednesdays who was one of those jolly one man bands with a cymbal for a hat etc... He was hilarious.

I went for a show-round at a "Montessori" nursery. The manager was out and the assistant who showed me round knew nothing about what Montessori was. Some of them are absolutely shameless about advertising gimmicks.

Is it the nursery chain where every child learns Madarin from the age of 2?

Is it the one offering Mandarin lessons?

£90 sounds cheap for London, I think they’re mostly hitting £100 now. Nuts

I feel short changed. I paid £76 a day in posh west berks and they had to whittle their own wood toys out of sticks in the enclosed woodland during daily forest schools sessions. No smoothies, just organic meat from their own farm but they did grow their own pumpkins for Halloween.

Unfair.

Children like brightly coloured toys. This nursery is catering for the tastes of the parents and not the kids.

I am well into my forties and I still have memories of my nursery. It was in a prefab building and we drank juice and ate penguin biscuits. It was lovely.

Anyone who chooses their nursery on the basis of instagram hype is asking for trouble. I'd be far more interested in the quality of staff and staff turnover. do they employ experienced staff who really care about the kids and don't leave after a few months.

Yup. I actually googled this chain yesterday - they have a nursery in a co-working building quelle surprise and I was interested. But I didn't think there was anything stand-out positive about the staff, and it did seem a bit too, well, curated. But to the extent that you're venting about this as a symptom of a wider hipster/gentrification/homogeneity issue - yes, I agree with you. You can go to town on the Grimms rainbows and Babipur crapola, but if you're charging £90+ a day you are making a clear statement about the demographic you want to appeal to (and it's by-the-by that they are hipsters with bleached floorboards).

So could I for sure. I owned a babyzen. Think I even had a fjallraven at some point. Those things are nice, I'm not saying they aren't (the house too). They are just symptomatic of a demographic whereby everyone has the same stuff and looks the same.

From your description, with all the specifics that entailed (most of which I have never heard of), it sounds like you are part of that demographic but want to believe that you aren't for some reason. There's no shame in sharing taste with the people you interact with - we all do it to some extent - but you seem almost angry with the people targetted with this campaign based on your perception of their homogeny, which I don't fully understand. What is it that irritates you about the changing tastes in the capital?

That's what makes cities like London interesting- that you can choose from farmers markets or your regular market stall, an artisan coffee shop or a builders caf. All are welcome.

It does seem a bit OTT and expensive but no one has to patronise them - you don't. If people want to spend their money on such things it's up to them, not my business. I would have preferred something more cosy and homespun for my child back in the day but I don't judge others.

I do live in London btw, on the outskirts, in a fairly nice area. It's possible we have such things around here but I no longer have little kids so am not up to date.

(What does 'vair' mean?)

YANBU OP. It's wank. And part of the reason we left (once cheap, multicultural and exciting, now boujie, white and boring) SE London.

If I was paying that much for nursery I'd rather the extra money be spent on more staff, more outside play space and better provision generally, not wooden bloody toys and smoothies.

I also wouldn't want my kid to grow up thinking that everyone lives like that, even if we could afford to (which we can't). We use the local playgroup attached to the village primary. It's v cheap. I'm sure many po faced posters would bawk at the tired Local Authority buildings and plastic toys but it's had Outstanding status from Offstead for years. It's a real mixture of kids and families, particularly considering our rural location. I love it.

I guess it depends what values you want your children to grow up with.

What does 'vair' mean?

It's a representation of an affected way of saying 'very'. Think elocuted Thatcher.

How could a programme not be ‘curated’? They’re wanky to describe it as such.

😂😂😂 YANBU

I hope they brush the childrens teeth after the smoothies they are terrible for teeth.

It's also not about the "changing tastes of the capital".

When thriving communities like Elephant and Castle are seeing families who've lived there for generations being shipped out of perfectly practical social housing and forcing local business to relocate so they can build luxury flats, it's a social justice issue.