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 ?

@MissM2912

Sorry are you saying im a crap parent because sometimes after a busy week at work or an evening socialising I can’t be bothered to cook and get my children a takeaway?!

Now I don’t often say I’m good at things, but I do think I am good at being a mum and it’s pretty shit that you’d judge me on the occasional lazy takeaway.

DS cut his head open and then broke his leg two months later when he was just over a year old and had only just started walking. Both accidents in the garden. It looked dreadful really, they were genuine accidents. He was literally a run before I can walk type. No ref to Social services for us. I worked on the University campus the hospital was on, as it was a teaching hospital and DH is a Prof at another University. I remember the Dr when DS was having his head stitched up joking about DS having the wrong kind of Dr as a parent.

I think you may very well be on to something op. I also think the throwing money at a situation is very true. I had PND, we already had a cleaner, I paid for some private therapy and also put DS in to nursery a morning a week so I could go to the gym and have a swim. I remember the therapy was £50 ph and that was about 19 years ago.

Yes, was going to say Brighton.

Xenia, I don't think your the kind of middleclass the OP is referring to. Most lawyers I know, especially middle aged ones tend to be quite conservative, same with accountants etc.

The reason I thought it was Brighton is that it is full of media, 'creative' types in certain locations, even down to certain primary schools so that is probably not the culture in Brighton suburbs like Withdean but centrally I think it sounds familiar.

You're not 'your'.

CanICelebrate No! I was responding to the poster that was saying that giving your child take away EVERY NIGHT was neglect! I was saying it wasn’t!
However it isn’t good to give your child take away seven nights a week! How would it be??

[quote CanICelebrate]@MissM2912

Sorry are you saying im a crap parent because sometimes after a busy week at work or an evening socialising I can’t be bothered to cook and get my children a takeaway?!

Now I don’t often say I’m good at things, but I do think I am good at being a mum and it’s pretty shit that you’d judge me on the occasional lazy takeaway.[/quote]
No one is judging that. I think a lot of parents on here don't realise the truth of what goes on. No one thinks you're awful if you have an occasional boozy night out and get your kids an Uber eats the next day. What we're talking about is functioning or even non functioning alcoholic parents or kids who are being neglected yet it's all behind a facade of middle class respectability hence never appears on anyone's radar

Is there a difference between happy partying parents, dc fed, dressed, everything they need and arguing, violent, scary people no matter what class?

People a always refer to alcoholics, messy chaotic lives but it can swing the other way, abuse from emotionally distance parents who have show homes, no room for dc to grow or even move freely around their own home, parents who need the dc to reflect them, don't allow them their own interests or personality.. No matter how wealthy that's also its own kind of hell to exist in. Without excessive drinking or drugs.

In fact I think the key here is extreme behaviour whatever it is.. Could be extremely religious, drunk, etc.

@EssentialHummus

That’s a good point about parents who are seriously not coping going under the radar.

I was talking about the situation of a shit week at work or a busy weekend and parents paying to outsource as much as possible to other people while you catch up on work/ sleep etc. I admit I do that with all my cleaning and ironing if I’m really busy with work and use my childminder a bit extra. I have never thought there is anything wrong with doing that.

Auntienumber8 These events are unlikely to warrant a referral either in a poorer home.

I don’t think hungover parents have SS involvement regardless of income. The threshold for SS has always been higher than a hangover.

However, I do think you have a point. My example being, parents leaving toddlers asleep in the car whilst they do school pick up. Where I grew up, that would’ve been, at the least, addressed by the school and the parents told it’s not okay. Here, a few parents do this regularly, and the school doesn’t bat an eyelid.

if I’m really busy with work and use my childminder a bit extra. I have never thought there is anything wrong with doing that

There isn't but it's a very privileged position to be in and it cushions you and your children from being in a shit situation.

CanICelebrate There isn’t anything wrong with that!
Seriously if people saw the type of things that have to happen for a child to be removed they would be shocked.

This is so true examples from DH's childhood and some friends:
All adults too hungover to get up and supervise under 5 ( drew all over the walls in one case and took the car for a drive in the other!)
Cocaine at a family BBQ year 6 leaving party
So many instances of adults too drunk to effective parent primary school (or younger) age DCs.
12 year old left in charge of multiple 6/7 year olds till gone midnight (definately drugs involved in that one too)

All very middle class Bohemian types.

Where are they getting cannabis tincture from? I also didn't know you could still get resin. I thought it was all skunk now.

On the point - yes I think we are very bad at seeing the signs of child neglect and abuse when it happens in middle class, 'comfortable' homes.

It can’t be denied that there’s a huge drinking problem albeit copious glasses of expensive red in the evenings amongst a large percent of mc parents that is largely expected and tolerated (where I am based).

Poppitt58 The school should be phoning that in! If not if you know this is happening you should phone it in and say school is aware.

@Comedycook I absolutely acknowledge it’s privileged financially but on the other hand I don’t have any family support which I also see as a privilege.

I'm the same @CanICelebrate - it's the holidays now and DD's nursery is shut for six weeks. I would be an awful parent left on my own with her for six weeks, truly, even before you get into the fact that I'm very pregnant and battling with mobility. But lo, she is spending a few days at a little forest school, and a bit of time with the nanny, and I'm taking her to some intensive swimming classes in the hope she'll nap after etc etc. If I can't get my act together to cook it'll be ready meals from, well, Cook. And so on.

I don't feel there's anything wrong with what I (or you, or anyone else) may do in a similar situation, but I can see how easily it can disguise parents' failure to cope.

[quote MissM2912]@MissM2912 I never said working classes are demonised by social services and I never said whether or not I think SS intervention is appropriate - I literally said below I don't know enough about/ how SS works to judge.

Sorry you have misunderstood me- I was simply stating that any demonisation was coming from wider society and not social services themselves. They don’t deliberately turn a blind eye to the behaviour of the better off. They just weigh up the evidence and what they can actually do.[/quote]
While I don’t think social care would ignore a serious safeguarding issue due to class I do think any bias inherent in society will impact on social care to a certain extent.

I remember working with a very wealthy and educated mother who who was suspected of FII. I felt the judge was a lot more understanding and lenient toward her than he would have been if a working class, uneducated mother had been in her shoes.

I think bias is hard to escape completely.

I do agree though that I don’t think social care would ignore a clear concern because of the parent class etc. Though I worked with a few middle class parents who tried to use their wealth and ability to access good legal suppport to intimidate thinking that would scare off SC.

I live in a wealthy area in london, i would say what your describing is unusual although not unheard of. Alot of the fellow mums who i hung out with were ex clubbers from the 90s, wild bunch and not unusual to see us skipping down the street pissed after a few bottles, cocaine was popular and still is. However I am not aware of anyone not being able to get their kids to school. If i was hungover on the couch my DH would sort the kids out. The only person I know who would behave like that was a mum who had no partner and regularly went out and left kids with baby sitters and brought randoms home.

WildSwimming nailed it at the beginning.

The difference is poverty vs avaliable money.

If you have the funds to party and provide all essentials for the children then that's one tick for the parents.

If you party and can't afford the essentials because you live in poverty then that's one tick for social services.

And it's just a balance of what is/can be provided vs what isn't/can't from there in. partying or otherwise.
Plenty of quietly neglected Mc children don't meet intervention thresholds just as much as plenty of visibly neglected Wc children don't.

@rogueone

I live in a wealthy area in london, i would say what your describing is unusual although not unheard of. Alot of the fellow mums who i hung out with were ex clubbers from the 90s, wild bunch and not unusual to see us skipping down the street pissed after a few bottles, cocaine was popular and still is. However I am not aware of anyone not being able to get their kids to school. If i was hungover on the couch my DH would sort the kids out. The only person I know who would behave like that was a mum who had no partner and regularly went out and left kids with baby sitters and brought randoms home.

No nannies, wfh husbands or grandparents doing the school run instead?

I should add that i grew up in poverty and used to live in a tenement with an outside toilet. Noone stopped kids going to school, or got mullered regularly, big adult parties happened at new year . So its not class issue

I agree with you, @catfunk.

I think that some people are interpreting this as you saying "all middle-class parents" rather than the some who behave like this. Just as it's not all working-class parents who are "rough" it's not all middle-class parents who are, basically, neglectful. If you're working-class and party too hard and this is found out you will be punished whether you are feeding your children or not.

This is ultimately about bad parenting. Middle-class parents get away with a lot more than working-class parents do.

AllTheSingleLadiess no nannies or grandparents. Those that had them werent wild drug and alcohol consumers.