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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Mixing with deprived children?

329 replies

Thisneedsachange · 24/07/2021 20:04

I’ve changed my name for this but long term mumsnetter. I had a very sheltered but working class background, but mum was a social worker so I was sent to holiday clubs where she was working - with children from very deprived backgrounds and on child protection plans. My life experiences changed when I got a scholarship to private school and it’s been a middle class bubble since then - but I think those early exposures to how tough life can be for some gas the making of me. It’s made me more compassionate, more politically aware and I’ve volunteered since a teen working with deprived children.
My own 5 year old daughter has a very sheltered existence and so I’m thinking of sending her to a free church holiday club at the church I grew up with for a week this summer. It’s free because it’s a very deprived ward. We do have one friend who will go so she will be fine. As a child some things I was exposed to in these schemes aimed at deprived children really shocked me - bad language, bad behaviour, unhappy families..but by my teens I understood what was going on.
Am I unwise to consider this?
I contribute to the funds (although we don’t worship there as not Christian) so not concerned about taking financial advantage, just wondering if I should wait until my daughter is older to have these experiences?

OP posts:
OverByYer · 24/07/2021 20:19

I can see you mean well but you can’t engineer the situation. It’s not an experiment for your daughter or the ‘deprived’
Leave the places for those who need it.

chunderwunder · 24/07/2021 20:20

Also 'these experiences'. You know that's people's lives you're talking about not something you dip into for an 'experience'?

Southwestrunningmum · 24/07/2021 20:20

I think you mean well but it’s the wrong method to achieve your outcome.

LtDansleg · 24/07/2021 20:20

Are you fucking serious? Is that how you actually think? If you think that’s made you more ‘compassionate and aware’, think again..

notanothertakeaway · 24/07/2021 20:20

@Crabbitcrab

It's a free club for those who need it not a petting zoo for mc children
I'm afraid I agree with this

OP, I think your motivation is good, but your post came across badly

ObviousNameChage · 24/07/2021 20:21

@Westfacing

How would a five year old know she was mixing with deprived kids and learn anything from the experience? She would just be playing with some new pals for a week.

Very patronising idea.

This. If we go to the local park , due to my work I know if some children are poor/deprived/have SS involvement etc. DD just runs around with them and sees them as friends until it's time to leave. I don't give her details of their background and they obviously don't say anything. They're just kids playing and running around together.
CassandrasCastle · 24/07/2021 20:21

Wtf!? 🤯

Fourmagpies · 24/07/2021 20:22

I do get what you are trying to achieve but at 5, I don't think this will have much impact on her (and the points others have raised about taking a space another child could use).

Highfive2021 · 24/07/2021 20:22

I don’t think a 5 year old would learn anything in a week, you said yourself you didn’t understand until you were a teen, as long as you have an ongoing dialogue with your daughter I’m sure she won’t be ignorant to the way of the world.

grapewine · 24/07/2021 20:22

@Seesawmummadaw

‘Darling off you go and watch the poor children’
It's like something out of Catherine Tate show...

YABVU, OP.

FourTeaFallOut · 24/07/2021 20:23

Look, I think Jarvis Cocker had this nailed, it's best to start in a supermarket.

NigellaSeed · 24/07/2021 20:24

@FourTeaFallOut

Look, I think Jarvis Cocker had this nailed, it's best to start in a supermarket.
😀😀
WoodPell · 24/07/2021 20:24

I understand to a point but, eek. Very patronisingly expressed. I don't personally want to send my DS to private school for similar reasons (we live in quite a pretentious 20 square mile area!) but that's about a 13 year commitment to the local primary and secondary, not a week's whistle-stop tour.

EYProvider · 24/07/2021 20:24

Surely your child has the experience of mixing with a diverse group of other children at primary school?

I own a nursery in London and some of the children have parents who are bankers and lawyers, where others come from refugee families. The kids don’t see each other as different at 2, 3, 5 years - at that age, they have more in common than not anyway.

Perhaps your daughter goes to a private school, but if not, I wouldn’t give it a second thought. The best thing about a state school education is that it teaches you to get on with everyone, and that’s the reason that I would never put my own kids into a private school.

VodselForDinner · 24/07/2021 20:25

I wouldn’t. Feels a bit like poverty tourism.

You can raise her to know about how different live without turning them into an exhibit.

BlatantlyNameChanged · 24/07/2021 20:25

"Oh I completely understand poverty, Mummy used to send me to play with poor kids for a few hours in the school holidays. It's so character building..."

I wouldn't. As others have said, you could be depriving another child of a space and those children don't exist as a learning experience for your DC. If you want to discuss poverty with them then do it while making a donation to the food bank and/or writing to your MP to ask him/her to support policies that actually help people out of poverty (instead of punishing them for being there), don't pack her off for a week of Poverty LARPing.

Port1aCastis · 24/07/2021 20:26

@FourTeaFallOut

Look, I think Jarvis Cocker had this nailed, it's best to start in a supermarket.
Absolutely Star
Highfive2021 · 24/07/2021 20:26

@FourTeaFallOut

Look, I think Jarvis Cocker had this nailed, it's best to start in a supermarket.
This was going through my mind too 😂
username18702 · 24/07/2021 20:26

Best way of helping deprived children - don't vote Tory.

Next, donate to charities that fill the gaps for the government. Teach your child how to be non judgemental and kind.

LemonRoses · 24/07/2021 20:27

Entirely irresponsible to ditch responsibility onto others and take a place others might need.

Ours learned about the challenges some face from us. We lived in special schools for children with learning disabilities and significant disadvantages that caused emotional and behaviour disorders.

We took them with us to summer camps we ran for children from poorer inner London communities.

They grew up seeing people not deprivation. Perhaps take her along to wherever you volunteer?

beigebrownblue · 24/07/2021 20:27

By the sounds of it, you sound 'deprived' yourself. Culturally deprived.

It would be a priviledge for your child to attend this group.

Perhaps you should be asking 'them' if they think it is okay that you take a place, or indeed that you are posting on mumsnet under an assumed name discussing this.

My thinking is if you were honest about it, you wouldn't last two seconds. And quite rightly so.

Michaelknightsleatherjacket · 24/07/2021 20:28

You wanna live like common people
You wanna do whatever common people do

Michaelknightsleatherjacket · 24/07/2021 20:28

Oh I didn’t rtft Grin

Hellocatshome · 24/07/2021 20:28

You dont need free childcare so.dont take it just so your DD can experience 'the deprived' its a holiday club provided for struggling families not a zoo!

OuiOuiKitty · 24/07/2021 20:30

This thread makes me uncomfortable. There's something really ick about using 'deprived children' as some kind of educational tool for yours.