To think that 'middle class' parents get away with murder

[catfunk]

I grew up in a beautiful but modest part of the north with a fair amount of poverty and unemployment. Lots of families were under social services' care (?) police called out a lot, etc.

I now live in a fairly expensive city in the south, a fairly left wing liberal place where people party, lots of mums are 'trendy' types and generational wealth is quite common.

It struck me the other day that if the parents in my home town behaved like the parents in my current home there'd be real repercussions.
Noisy house parties whilst kids are in bed upstairs, parents getting drunk and staying out all night, recreational drug taking and being too hungover to do the school run. But it's ok because they're drinking champagne and expensive gin instead of tenants, and expensive cannabis tinctures instead of smoking resin?

None of the kids seem unhappy or affected and they do have lovely family times together of course but AIBU To think this is not fair ?

@WhatsMyNameGonnaBeNow

but she'd never dare let her child run round with unbrushed hair in wellies and mud covered 2nd hand boden clothes like the stereotypical MN child, she'd worry someone would report her for being anything less than perfect now.

And this one of the things that so many wealthy/MC people don’t get when they express their confusion over how the less well off/WC spend their money (so often seen on MN). You don’t even have to have experienced the involvement of the authorities but historically the less well off have been judged harshly for visible signs of poverty.

Spending on new clothing and shoes for dc rather than charity shop or hand me downs is one of the ways many WC demonstrate that they are able to provide for their dc. There is an awareness that their child going to school looking like a tramp is likely to be noticed by the teacher, interpreted as a negative thing and filed away as something to keep an eye on. Then the next minor thing is something else for the school to note… Historically WC have been more at risk of coming to the attention of the authorities for things that are nothing more than approved MC signifiers in another area.

Having done a Subject access request to my dc school I can absolutely say this is what happens They note EVERYTHING and then add it all up to come to the totally wrong conclusion

There is an awareness that their child going to school looking like a tramp is likely to be noticed by the teacher, interpreted as a negative thing and filed away as something to keep an eye on. Then the next minor thing is something else for the school to note

Absolutely. The poshest, richest family at my DC's school dresses their children in the scruffiest clothes. Most days they don't even wear the correct uniform. They are completely secure and worry free in relation to others judgment

@NickyOy

And why Madeleine McCanns parents got away with leaving their kids in an apartment when they were out having a meal. If that was a working class family they would have had social services come down on them like a tonne of bricks

If they'd been working class they'd have gone to jail and had the other kids removed.

I know parents who take coke at parties where there are kids around. The nip in to the toilet to do it.

@colouringindoors

LonelyBut

WTF??!!

Yes, it didn’t go down well at all that I had a cleaner. Many comments about how I shouldn’t need one, should be organised enough to do my own housework etc - I’d never even said I struggled to clean (I didn’t particularly but with a child with high needs I wanted to spend time with my child rather than cleaning so I got a cleaner ) things like ‘a high level of assistance is required by lithe with household tasks’ I had a homestart volunteer at the same time who would play with my dc and that was noted down as me trying to get ‘free childcare’ and ss then told hs that I coukd not be permitted to leave the room as 1) they wanted me to also be engaging with my child (I was using the time to do things like organise paperwork make appts and I would have a cup of tea and read the paper) and then due to the FII concerns they said it was safeguarding and the hs volunteer didn’t want to be left alone now with my child

Lithe-lonelybut (I wish I was lithe though 🤣)

YABU - unless they are partying every night of the week and getting so rat- arsed that they can’t look after their children for most of the time and they can’t function day to day then I don’t see a problem.

The idea that one adult has to be sober enough to drive at all times is just bollocks! Someone always comes on to make this point on every thread about parents who drink. But Some families manage without owning a car or even being able to drive- call a bloody ambulance if you need to go to hospital- my dd is 16 and never has she needed to be rushed to hospital in the middle of the night- that would have been 16 years of me and DH never sharing a bottle of wine over dinner on a Saturday night- do people really set themselves these silly rules?

I have always had tremendous sympathy for the McCann family. However I do believe that if they'd been working class, they'd have been treated very differently.

Many years ago, a good decade I think, a woman in my area left her child at home to go clubbing. Child died in a fire. The young, black, single mother living in a council flat had the book thrown at her.

That is disgusting LonelyBut

hope you're ok now

Agree. I know a middle class family and the parents regularly take coke but they act like it's just a trendy, bohemian habit of theirs.

If it were a less affluent family snorting coke off their kitchen table instead of in their expensive drawing room I suspect it would be viewed as much scummier behaviour.

Reading this has helped me. I was actually feeling so hard done by (well I still do) but to know it is a thing and it’s not just me is helpful in some small way

With the cleaner issue I really did feel like they felt only MC families should have a cleaner !! It was presented as a real issue and it wasn’t

@LonelyBut

Reading this has helped me. I was actually feeling so hard done by (well I still do) but to know it is a thing and it’s not just me is helpful in some small way

With the cleaner issue I really did feel like they felt only MC families should have a cleaner !! It was presented as a real issue and it wasn’t

Yes I can imagine.

@colouringindoors

That is disgusting LonelyBut

hope you're ok now

It’s taken a while to get back on track but I’m ok.

This thread although not surprising to me is valuable in that it validates what I suspected was an issue in general

@Notmoresugar

Yawn, another north versus south thread.

Reality check - there's neglect EVERYWHERE.

Come back when you've got concrete like for like statistics.

@Notmoresugar Not north vs south at all. It's just what I've observed from my friends in the south. I'm pretty sure poor/ WC families in my city are also looked down upon for drinking and recreational drug use too, not just up north.

Thé Mccann s and their child leaving mates are a classic example of this.

Had it been sharon& Steve from the estate on a cheap package deal who got together with a bunch of similar friends at the all you can eat buffet at night all leaving their kids in hotel rooms and little Logan got lifted by a kidnapper the British police would have been waiting at the airport to arrest them with social services in tow to put their other kids in foster care and their mates would have been investigated by social services too.

The poshest, richest family at my DC's school dresses their children in the scruffiest clothes. Most days they don't even wear the correct uniform. They are completely secure and worry free in relation to others judgment

I think that hits the nail on the head. It's that the wealthier you are (which often goes hand in hand with having been able to access a higher level of education) the less bothered you are about being judged. Because everyone knows that if you wanted to dress your children in designer clothes, you could. You have nothing to prove.

@HunkyPunk

Are people saying that no working class people regularly get drunk and take drugs?

Of course they do, and their kids aren't taken into care and social services aren't involved either.

But I dont think it's just about SS involvement. I think that working class parents are judged by society much more harshly than parents for whom money very obviously isn't a problem. As has been mentioned by pp, if a child from a comfortably off family has tangled hair, muddy jeans and a Boden jumper with holes in the elbows, it's bohemian. If a poor child has tangled hair, muddy trousers and a jumper with holes in, the child isnt being looked after properly. SS wouldnt be involved in either case, but I do think there would be a tendency to regard the parents differently.

I’m seeing this stated a lot, but I’m not sure it’s as universal as that. Perhaps you would see the two differently, but personally I would regard the child and parents in both scenarios the same. I think the majority of people wouldn’t even be able to recognise expensive brands like Boden on sight anyway unless there’s a very prominent logo, and even then I don’t think it’s a mainstream enough brand for people to see it and recognise it as a class marker or sign of wealth.

Is there anyone here who would admit to regarding parents differently in the described scenarios?

I knew this was Brighton immediately. The primary school parents were just like this at my DC private school. It was such a relief to go to secondary and not have to be at the school gate anymore!

I write Child protection reports, what we look for is "clean, weather approriate clothing which fits". Worn is fine.

@MissM2912

It’s all to do with thresholds. It takes an awful lot of neglect to get social services involved. As long as there is ‘good enough’ parenting social services stay well away.

This.

“Good enough” is ( apparently) only good parenting 30% of the time. If the other 70% is made up with enough money ( a nice home, plenty of food, access to good education) of course they’ll get away with being crap.
Unfortunately lots of children with less attentive parents also have the burden of overcrowded houses, poor diets and lack of investment in their child’s education, whether it be resources time or their own lack of.education

What annoys me more is the double standards in children. An entitled brat is “spirited” or “confident” if MC. Or a yob if WC.

I don't think it has changed much . Many years ago I had a sw and she put that my dd had clothes on that were to small. Sw failed to say she was painting in old clothing. She also said I had minimal food in the house even though i shopped daily. I was only lucky enough that at a conference the heath visitor actually used the words you are lying to the sw and they started arguing. I thank the health visitor with all my heart for what she done that day . I got a new sw and she was the kindest person ever . She always used the words belive in yourself she was lovely she never had a bad thing to say about me and really built my confidence up.

YANBU I'm middle class, I've got a home counties accent, live in a nice big farmhouse. If I'm being honest, the house is a proper shit tip. But because it's a big, expensive house, I get away with it- it's a "cozy, lived in, scruffy farmhouse" vibe. My kids are always grubby- must be because I take them on lots of lovely adventures, probably involving ponies (not true- I'm just lazy). If my kids are wearing scruffy, patched, 5th hand clothes it must be because I'm super eco conscious (not true- I've massively over stretched myself on the lovely big house, all my income goes on my mortgage, we have a very tight monthly budget)

By contrast I have friends who are working class, single parents, even (shock horror) on benefits, and they work so hard to keep their houses nice, and their kids clean and presentable at all times, because the rules are just different for them. If you present as rich/middle class you can get away with anything.

@NickyOy

And why Madeleine McCanns parents got away with leaving their kids in an apartment when they were out having a meal. If that was a working class family they would have had social services come down on them like a tonne of bricks

Agreed.

If she'd come from a less affluent family, her parents would have gone to prison.
But upper-middle-class doctors can do no wrong, apparently.

Madeline Macann didn’t die of neglect though did she? She was kidnapped and murdered.

I’m not saying the parents were right to leave her alone in an unsecured apartment, but Madeline was a victim of a callous murderer, not her own parents. However, a child who comes to harm in an accident because the parent wasn’t there to safeguard is a different matter altogether. Look at Ben Needham- he was from an ordinary family and died in circumstances of neglect really- yet they were always given every sympathy!

@FreekStar2

Madeline Macann didn’t die of neglect though did she? She was kidnapped and murdered.

I’m not saying the parents were right to leave her alone in an unsecured apartment, but Madeline was a victim of a callous murderer, not her own parents. However, a child who comes to harm in an accident because the parent wasn’t there to safeguard is a different matter altogether. Look at Ben Needham- he was from an ordinary family and died in circumstances of neglect really- yet they were always given every sympathy!

What neglect?