Would you look down on someone who lives in a flat?

[Hattych]

We live in a flat in South London and could never, ever afford a house (short of winning the lottery). DC goes to private school and while the vast majority of parents are very nice there are some who make it clear they aren't bothered talking to me and id stretch to say that one clearly doesn't like me. I don't think I'm imagining it's happening and that it's happening because we are less well off.

Would you look down on someone who lives in a flat? Would you be happy to go around to their home? (when we can obviously!)

I don't care where people live , it only bothers me if it's really dirty.

@GreenWillow You called?

@GreenWillow

I wouldn’t judge you from a class/money POV.

I would think it a bit ‘all fur coat and no knickers’ though.

I’d always prioritise a house/garden over privately educating my DC.

Each to their own though.

Why though, genuinely curious, why this obsession with more than a single floor living space? I'd prioritise my child's education if I lived in an area where state education wasn't great and I could afford schooling in the private sector.

No, as I live in one.

Certainly not. Anymore than I would judge by colour or gender. We would all? like to live with 8 bedrooms and 3 acres but life is not that easy!

No, seeing as I lived in one until last year. But I'm not a snob.

Got to be very rich to live in some flats round my way (Zone 3 London).There is one on my street for sale. New build block, 2 bedrooms 1 bathroom, open plan living/dining/kitchen. So 4 rooms. £550 thousand asking price.

I've lived in different types of property including flats
No I would not look down on anyone
No reason to

Only if I lived directly above them.

I would think it a bit ‘all fur coat and no knickers’ though.

Do you think the same of people who live in Manhattan! 🤔

In Ds’s private school in London I reckon about half of the families lived in flats.
No-one cared

@lojojomo brilliant

No. People who care about this sort of stuff are rarely as posh or well off as you think - they are often just the kind who are insecure on their own position.

Brings to mind "I am considerably richer than yow" a la Harry Enfield.

Absolutely not. Lots of decent people living in flats, and actually some successful people.

Gosh no! I don’t care about stuff like this.

And people that do wouldn’t be good friends anyway

No I wouldn't look down on someone in a flat, I lived in a flat most of my life!!! Sorry this is happening to you OP. I hate snobs.

At the moment we are considering a private school for our DC (currently a toddler so a couple of years to go yet...) and see this is one of the things that's definitely on my mind when we're making our decision, because although we're not poor we're not wealthy either.

Flat or house is irrelevant to how I would view you. Whether you are nice, interesting etc that would make a difference .
Slightly off topic but I keep googling at the flats in this development - That wine cellar!

Nope. Call it an apartment and it would be aspirational😁
DS and partner live in an apartment ( aka 7th floor flat) that costs twice the price of our detached house 🤔..... ahhh, the joys of living in the South😁

Cant stand this kind of snobbery/judgement but it seems to be common. My sister had a friend at school who told my sister that her mother had said she didn't want her her to play with her (my sister) because we didnt live in the right party of the village!
We lived in a pretty normal road but it wasn't one of the ones with big houses..
My mum jokes about it now but said she was quite offended at the time...

@DPotter

Many of the Royal Family live in flats in places like Kensington Palace.

The school gates is not always a good place of meet future friends - ignore anyone who turns their nose up at you - Apples has the right approach - "If people are twats they will find something to be twatty about."

Not quite the same!! Apartment 1A at Kensington Palace is their main base. The property is a four-storey apartment with 20 rooms including five reception rooms, three main bedrooms, dressing rooms, a night and day nursery, and staff quarters

I wouldn't look down on someone who lived in a flat, no. That being said where I live flats are pretty rare and not a great deal cheaper than a house so I would be a tad surprised someone with kids lived in a flat but I wouldn't judge them. Anyone who lived in a city or in the immediate surrounding area I would be surprised if they didn't live in a flat

[quote Hattych]@Bluntness100 I definitely don't have any proof that this is why they don't like me. But I would say they definitely talk to me in a very condesending way[/quote]
You're probably right. There are people who need to believe that you're the rung beneath them! They kiss up and they kick down and they desperately need a 'down'.

I'm quite content and secure but I think there are types, peripheral in my life but still able to affect my life in small was at times, who perceive me to be ''low status'' because I'm a single parent, I don't have a degree, no car. OK job. I'm speculating here. But I'm proud of the way I have a secure place to live, a secure job. I don't need a car so I don't play keeping up with the JOnes. 95% of people understand that you do what works for you but i have noticed that over time, some people can attempt to scapegoat me. It happened recently at work. My boss looked around him and decided to scapegoat not the young pretty women, not the men his own age, but the 50 year old single parent with no qualifications. I pushed back. But I did think, this is all about perception.

No I wouldn't look down at some one who lives in a flat. Sadly you will get the odd judgemental parent at Prep schools but at my DD's Prep we had a range of parents from very wealthy through to full scholarships. I made friends with who I got on with not dependent on the car they drove. Although there is always one Mum who is a total social climber, it was embarrassing to watch, the majority were lovely.

ps, at your child's private school, it will be the parents with the most fragile sense of themselves who feel the need to ''other'' you.
Othering somebody secures their place in the group. And if you don't fit in some way then othering you and excluding you will reinforce their shaky sense of belonging. People who have no sense of them self will attempt to define themselves by what the group is not.

So if they want the group to be PRIVILEGED people and they sense that your place in the group does nothing to validate their sense of them self as a privileged person, they they get two benefits from othering you and excluding you. 1) they strengthen their sense of them self by scapegoating the least privileged person (phew! not them!) and 2) they have somebody to look down on, the othered person. Your purpose is to make them feel superior. The members of the group, their acceptance validates them. But it would be less validating to them if the group as a whole also accepted the ''poor'' person or the low status person

Hope that makes sense.

I live in a flat. I've never known anyone to look down on me for it!