Is it a British thing to think that bragging about your ‘advanced’ child is crass?

[Anon778833]

You get people who say nothing about their child’s achievements. And then suddenly at 18, oh it turns out he’s oxbridge material. So they literally act like they knew nothing about it!

Then on the other end of the scale are people who brag about how many words their 1 year old has. But I think the U.K. has less of these! Thoughts?

OP, your logic is confusing. Are you suggesting that if someone’s children are Oxbridge material, the parents should have the decency to warn you about this years in advance by dropping hints about their reading band/exam performance/ level 40 oboe so that it’s not too much of a shock when they ace their interview, get a double First and then skip gaily on to an All Souls fellowship shortly after?

Maybe my OP wasn’t clear.

What I meant was that when people’s kids really are amazingly bright, they say nothing about it. Most people I know whose kids went to oxbridge seem quite underwhelmed by it.

It’s like someone else said that the braggers are usually the ones taking about a 9 month old walking.

@SugarbabyMilly

OP, your logic is confusing. Are you suggesting that if someone’s children are Oxbridge material, the parents should have the decency to warn you about this years in advance by dropping hints about their reading band/exam performance/ level 40 oboe so that it’s not too much of a shock when they ace their interview, get a double First and then skip gaily on to an All Souls fellowship shortly after?

Maybe my OP wasn’t clear.

What I meant was that when people’s kids really are amazingly bright, they say nothing about it. Most people I know whose kids went to oxbridge seem quite underwhelmed by it.

It’s like someone else said that the braggers are usually the ones taking about a 9 month old walking.

But people’s ideas of ‘amazingly bright’ are very subjective. DH and I both went to Oxford. I doubt either of us would be thunderstruck if DS did, precisely because we’re both well aware some genius level is not required, and it’s perfectly possibly not the best degree course anyway for whatever he may want to do. And also it’s not necessarily a life-changing phenomenon!

Sugar, no. I don't think I show off about my children. I have certainly said they went to a private school. I have mentioned my son who is a delivery driver. If mentioning children go to fee paying schools where that is relevant is showing off I'd be surprised.

I've been an academic for far too long to think it is wise to warn others in advance that your child is Oxbridge material or specially talented. I keep a box of tissues in my office mainly for the use of young people who know that their relatives and family friends have been told all their lives how specially clever they are and who now feel they have let their whole world down as they're heading for a 2:2 at a more modest university.

Always happy to celebrate somebody's violin exam or successful viva or win in the primary egg and spoon race as a happy occasion, something fun happening. But the general pronouncements of so-and-so's brilliance, the suggestion that they must be cleverer than other children, make me nervous.

I have a DS who’s 13 who is well on his well to getting in to any university he wanted to however I’m going for a guess he won’t end up at oxbridge out of choice.
I am so proud of him but no prouder of him than my DD who is less academic.
So I don’t feel the need to tell all my friends etc about my DS he is as he hasn’t really had any barriers in his life to mean he shouldn’t be where he is.

He has nice home / private education / no diversity issues. So I will always always make sure he knows I’m proud of him and he is rewarded as such but he knows he is lucky to have a good start at life to.

I have one who is amazingly talented and gifted not in the school sense, but beyond what can be offered. One on their own and a complete outlier.
Not saying this to boast because this child has put us through more than most parents would be prepared to put up with.
Has narcissistic tendencies and is really unpleasant.
I also have grown up dc who are quite normal and even with normal teenage rebellion didn't put us through half that the gifted one has.
So, I'm not proud and I don't boast, to be fair I never did.
The biggest mistake we made was going down this road. Kids don't need to be singled out even if they are way beyond their years, what does it matter if it's at the expense of their mh.
Don't label please, just be quietly proud of their achievements, don't allow them to think they are different or special.

I agree about sporting accomplishments being acceptable to brag about but academic achievements not so much.

I enjoy reading posts when children with special needs achieve something unexpected like telling their mum that they love them or they say their first words out of the blue 😢🥰

@Whattheactual20201- he’s only 13. My 14 year old perfect DS whom I had a special bond with and was absolute loveliness personified, as well as consistently top achiever at school etc, has morphed into a screen game obsessed Tasmanian devil who flies off the handle at the slightest setback. His grades have headed south as well.

I didn't brag about my dc's academic achievements. I admit though, it was hard when the school asked the EP to assess DC. The parent of a classmate saw my child through the window in the door and kindly 'sympathised ' with me after school that day. Her idea of sympathy was to say what a shame that my child clearly needed support and 'wasn't even any good at football.'. What she didn't know was that school had asked the EP to assess my child as they were finding that even in y4, they were struggling to cope with his level of intelligence and his ability to learn. The outcome of the assessment was that my DC was deemed to need access to much higher level work than his school had been giving him. A secondary school advisor supported the school to support my DC. Parents at the school, decided my child was severely behind his peers when the opposite was true. Even at secondary school I had people - parents and sadly, a couple of family members who still believed that dc's lack of sporting prowess was more important than his academic success. I am extremely proud of my DC. Of both of them, because in different ways they have both achieved amazing things in their lives. The saddest thing is that most of their achievements are not known outside them, dh and I and now their partners. We got fed up with family telling us how easy it was for dc's because they were naturally intelligent. There was no acknowledgement that in order to achieve what they had, they still had to work hard, they didn't wake up one morning knowing everything. How sad that even family don't know what amazing young men are part of our family.
I do understand how tiresome it can be to hear about a child doing well, especially if your own child is struggling in some way. But I also think it very sad that some children, don't have their achievements acknowledged, when others do.
It is sad that stating a child's achievements is seen as bragging.

But I also think it very sad that some children, don't have their achievements acknowledged, when others do.

YY @Erictheavocado.
Dc1 has some real abilities and knowledge that few other children his age have. He does because he spent hours (and still does) learning on that subject for fun. He didn’t just ‘know’ all those things.

Funny how some people are naturally athletic/good at football but it’s all down to their work and not their abilities (which is a lot of crap)
But when it comes to knowledge, it’s all innate ability and never linked to hard work (also a lot of crap).
When actually those who are good at what they do both have some abilities AND have put a lot of work into it.

The truth is no one apart from close family give a shit about other kid's achievements. It's really tedious.

But the whole, ‘bragging about you child is crass’, thing is pure hypocrisy anyway. Never was there a society more entrenched in feeling more superior than others than British society.

Interesting! I get what you mean OP.

I don't think I am especially "gifted", but am bright, had a natural aptitude for school and so found it easy to work hard, so I have lots of the conventional achievements - oxbridge, professional qualification etc.

My parents have always tried to ignore this, to the extent of showing as little interest as possible and rarely saying "well done" or suchlike, probably in part because they did not take the same route themselves (but might have done with more parental support, which wasn't really on offer given each of my grandparents' struggle to put food on the table for four kids) and have a bit of class prejudice against people who have degrees and think they are better (which honestly, I don't) but probably mostly because my sister is less academic and they don't want her to think that this is required or the be all and end all.

They probably have overcompensated though - I have never been told what I have achieved in my own setting is impressive or really been asked much about what I do, whereas my sisters' achievements (which are of course equally impressive, just that they are more "practical") are shouted from the rooftops.

I do understand why this might be the case and I know that I am lucky because my achievements are probably given more weighting than they should at times in the real world, so I try to brush it off as well meaning!

I do tell my DD all the time how much I love her and how proud I am of her, and I’d be here all night listing the positives along with some negatives as well. She’s got her faults she’s human
However I certainly don’t and will never brag about her. People don’t want to hear it. No one gives a shiny shine. They’ve got their own kids to be proud of. Not only that, but you don’t know the struggles people are having. It’s a bit shitty to brag that your kid could read fluently at age 2 to a mother of a child who is severely struggling.

@Refractory

I think it's a really tedious middle-class thing.

Only among the insecure ones. The old money have no need to show off, it's the new money who feel the need to prove themselves.

Stand by for Mumsnet tropes about patched jumpers, Labradors and battered old Peugeots.

as if being from old money excludes you from giving away those telltale signs to others

Its just done differently in a less showy way

It's a sign of insecurity I feel. I'm not a fan of bragging, not only for that reason but because I honestly don't think this constant and continuous rating of kids and then young adults is healthy. Growing up I knew I found some subjects hard and others less so. I was encouraged to work hard. It was around 15 that it emerged one subject would make sense for me to major in. I went to a decent uni, the best my grades allowed and did well. No sense of comparison in my friendship group to who was going off to a better uni, or college to do hair dressing, or off to work. I look back and marvel at that, it was brilliant and meant we all just pursued our own paths. That seems to have been lost a bit, and it's shown up on here too. Life is long with multiple chances for success and failure. There will be some that trip lightly from top set in reception, via Oxbridge to a glittering career and life, and others that find success later, earlier, or never at all. IMO best that kids have a decent work ethic and compass to find their own skill and pathway in life- whenever that may be- rather than someone else declaring them a 6 year old genius (unless they are a genius, which when it happens is bloody obvious, needs catering for, and isn't always easy judging from true accounts!)

It's a strange one, I think the insecurity lies with the people who get offended by a parent being proud of their child. There are some in one of my groups where people feel uncomfortable mentioning their child's achievements in case the certain others get all funny,

Those people are quite happy to hear if the others are struggling but don't want to know the successes, I don't understand that mentality

@OhWhyNot- absolutely, they have their own signifiers of status. Maybe you can say they are less insecure and less dependent on junior’s academic achievements to replicate their social standing as they know they have independent wealth, property, land etc to fall back on.

A friend of mine was forced every Christmas by her ‘friend’ to buy tickets for her whole family to go & watch her friend’s dd in her dance school ballet show. If that’s not self obsessed I don’t know what is.

Upper/Middle Middle Class American here, everyone fucking hates it but also everyone seems to do it