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.

I think I know the nursery group you’re referring to. It’s absolutely amazing! Both of mine (and my youngest one still goes) went there. At home - we have incorporated all of that Scandi wooden toys - grimms, tidlo etc.

@argeles awww it must be so hard to see crime rates fall and organic produce become readily available #PrayForLondon

I'm not in London our nursery is £80 a day without smoothies and wooden toys

And you sound a bit bitter about it OP - why? You don’t like it - don’t send you’re children there, save your judgements for stuff you care about.

NCforthis2019

I think I've explained quite clearly what my issue is, as have numerous others.

Bit like private schools really. I don't like them, won't send my dc there. But they DO affect me, and everyone else.

I think we had to build in at least a £150k period property premium for ours

This is why I love the north. I got mine with period features intact/restored for £160k

Im still amazed at the Nursery where Tree climbing ,sheep shearing and making Bonfires are on the agenda!.Worked in a Nursery here on S Coast. No one allowed outside between 11 to 3 in sunny weather,and on a walk no more than 5 mins, needed extra member of staff,first aid kit and no more than 3 to a group!.When my son was in scouts, they had to make do with a film of a bonfire to sing songs to !(real thing deemed too dangerous by health and safety!)

My child’s nursery in Hammersmith was £65/day 14 years ago and I had to supply the nappies. No smoothies. So £90 now sounds pretty good!

Is the day rate in the same area comparable? I wouldn’t be surprised given how much I paid in z2 SE 10 years ago. In which case it’s not creating more division

This was the cheapest HOUSE we could afford. Obviously we could have got something cheaper. A tent, perhaps, or a studio flat. The flat we had before, an ordinary 2 bed, was actually more expensive than our terraced house - in poorer condition and a less salubrious area, so actually it was the cheapest thing in our parameters.

My point is that you have set some weird status markers for middle class nursery-ness.

WTF is a period property premium, @GraceSlicksRabbit?

We dont live in a fair world Im afraid .If private schools ceased to exist, then we would have even more pressure on an already creaking system !.Most of the Govt is still made up of upper class white men and women .If you dont like them fair enough ,I would be unable to afford the fees ,but if I could I would send them there no problem!

I literally feel the world wants to hate at the moment

^

Yeah.

If you're on the 14th floor of your flat in some council estate with your twin toddlers, lift is broken and heroin addicts next door your should just STFU, eh?

N'est pas?

I literally feel the world wants to hate at the moment. There is not a subject I can think of where people don’t find a reason to entrench is extreme positions and criticise, criticise, criticise another group of people.

It is such a waste of time and energy and ultimately this type of discourse is so damaging. Yet here I am joining in. It’s like none of us can stop. Moths to a flame.

I was just talking to a friend about this recently. People are so angry all the time. Social media, the internet are a big contributing factor. This anger stems from somewhere or we are lacking something we dropped from our lives without noticing. We are all too busy being 'mindful' to notice how passive aggressive we have become.

I Googled too, ' when your child is two we offer Mandarin lessons'

😆

My son's council-run nursery in France used to feed him stuff like guinea fowl and fennel puree, all for about fifteen quid a day. Socialist-run councils FTW.

I think people have a perfect right to be angry about social inequality and gentrification.

Naturally I feel weird about my place in this whole system we call class. I went to university, so did my DH, we both have good jobs with good salaries and can afford a nice life. We would be considered middle class I'm sure. I generally don't, however, fit in with most of the middle class demographic where I live because most of them came from middle class backgrounds and I don't. I grew up on an estate with a single mother. My father was a refugee. Pretty much all my friends are either people I went to school with or people, like me, who now have financial security but did not grow up that way.

Ah - nfamilyclub.com/nursery/

To be fair googling 'nursery curated programme' brought up a series of nurseries that are definitely not hipster! 'Curated' is a very in word. And I daresay some curating nurseries also serve spaghetti hoops ans sausage rolls.

I would raise an eyebrow at the mash-up that is a "curriculum that blends influences from Rudolf Steiner, Reggio Emilia and Maria Montessori"

It is a bit precious but tbh when Dc were small and I was idealistically minded I would have wanted to choose something more like this than the chaotic, worn-carpeted purveyor of sausage rolls and hoops that was my kids' nursery.

As an aside when I worked at a Chinese co (in London) and learnt Mandarin for free about a second, I did think that it would be brilliant for children - the tones and the hand signs
It takes years though, not easy

I always wished there was a nursery near us that did the 3 course sit down meals that I have read nurseries in France do. I much prefer their approach to food.

I love it and the smoothie has much more nutrition than an apple. beetroot, banana, ginger, berry, lemon and hemp. Ginger alone has many health benefits.

And I am angry at established communities being broken up and pushed out by exorbitant house prices. Very much so.

Tbh it was more the inclusion of hemp that made me eyeroll at the smoothie.

Marsha They won't learn much Mandarin. Just enough to impress their parents when they sing a nursery rhyme in Mandarin. I learned some Latin at 4. Window, door, etc. Can't remember any of it and never used it.

Where there are people gullible enough to pay, there will be no shortage of people willing to relieve them of their cash.