competitiveness and normal life

[ehuiph999]

I would like to preamble this by saying that I have only lived in the UK for a couple of years and am still trying to figure things out.

Spent the weekend socializing with friends and acquaintances - it struck me that so much of life seems so competitive. We're all parents with school-age kids and my impression is that most people around us are just constantly striving for more or the next thing or this but better. E.g. schools - not just any school but the right school, similar with houses, but also things like cars, clothes, hobbies. We're all professionals in London and yes, I do expect for my kids to say go to a good uni and have ok job, but I am also often just dont care about having to get the right thing - when my friends and people around me seem to care quite a lot about stuff. I just feel somewhat at odds, I guess.

I also feel unsure as to how best to navigate things for the kids. We are unlikely to leave the UK in the near future so they will grow up here. As any parent, I would obviously like them to have a nice life and I guess go to a top uni and get a good job, as I did. So do I have to instill this sense of competitiveness at a young age?

People who are insecure need to establish that they fit with the group, so they buy the 'right' coat, bag, bike, whatever.

I think it's far more important that a child can ride a bike than they have the 'right' branded bike. I think it's more important that a child is warm and dry when they're out and about than having the 'right' coat. Etc etc

Striving, competitiveness, achieving highly - these are slightly different I think. Instill in your children a desire to try hard at everything they do, regardless of the standard of outcome. Teach them how to be good losers, but also humble winners.

@gannett

I'm not immune to competitiveness and social status but I've always recognised it's driven by insecurity. As I've got older it's become a virtuous cycle - the more secure I am in who I am and how I validate myself, the less I care about how far up or down I am on someone else's hierarchy, and the happier I am the less I spend time thinking about it, and the less I care etc etc.

It's very hard to take people seriously when they outwardly put so much stock in such superficial things. It's like they're just exposing their insecurity to the world.

• zillions

I think in part its the hideous British class system and the insidious way in which people's progress through life can be accelerated or decelerated by who they know.

It's a really tricky one because much as I personally loathe this and everything it stands for and much as I would like my kid to avoid this, to some degree if you want your kids to go to university and be professionals you have play this game a bit.

I definitely think its important to instil a sense that material and career success aren't the only measure of your value. My parents were hideously competitive and essentially valued people only in terms of what they did for a living and it scarred me for life. It took years to get past the idea that you are only as good/interesting as your job title and I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

But some people swing to the opposite extreme and try to shield their kids completely from competitiveness and I'm not sure that's entirely healthy either. The reality is that if you want a good, interesting and well-paid job you will have to fight for it and a degree of competitiveness is healthy.

It's really tricky. I think the critical thing is to not internalise it too much: keep in mind that everyone is bullshitting their way through it to some extent, some people have been doing it for longer is all.

I know it’s hard but just try not to give a fuck. I live in similar place; my DC’s friends tend to have more money than us (single parent household) and I can’t afford a fucking Tesla or an Isla bike. I have good friends who also think that nonsense is ridiculous and focus on all the things I do have; compared to most I am incredibly privileged. I came off all social media which helps.

You don’t have to get sucked into this at all. If you do, it’s a choice. Personally I just want my DD to be happy. I don’t care if she goes to uni like I did or does something different.

Why are parents spending loads on a child's coat ? Most of the children in my school end up losing them anyway.
I lived in a snobby place once and some people would not speak to me because we were renting a place and dh didn't earn enough
('Fuck em all ' was my stance on all that !)
It was a long two years ! 😂

In UK, there are multiple very different social groups at every level (social, educational, economic, cultural) and there is no obligation to stick like glue or conform

Feel free to dive in and swim against the current.. Nobody will give a hoot.

This. We're wealthy. We underplay it massively. My neighbourhood is a mixture of what you describe and the "we're so well off our kids are in third hand clothes and all our jumpers are holey" lot. I can be talking to a council estate single mum at the school gate one day, and a CEO or pop star the next - I'm not exaggerating! It's fine, really. Have the confidence to "do you" and fuck anyone passing judgment on your kid's bike or whatever else*.

• Though fwiw I think at a certain income level, and time poor, it's not about status per se - it's "I'm short of time and both kids need new coats, I know P.OP is good quality."

Interesting to hear everyone's perspectives and learn a bit more about the place. I don't really care about the stuff, it's when it gets to the other stuff like hobbies and tutors that I start worrying I guess because it just wouldn't cross my mind to get a tutor. Being a migrant does mean that I don't really know any for the more subtle practices.

DH is just totally oblivious and doesnt care. He's in tech and frankly never thought about these things and never had to, comes from a working-class background and just went to a super good uni because he was bright. Wasnt particularly competitive in his job but still earns well enough and loves the work.

For myself, my expectation would be that my kids would go to a good uni and get a good job, by good I probably mean what they are interested in but if they don't quite know then I guess something that's fairly interesting and pays alright.

I love our school no one ever talks about stuff like this unless you're actual friends, we're in Kent grammar area and it's just a decent unwritten thing that we don't talk about schools tutors etc.

@idontlikealdi but people do use them, right? See in a way I prefer it if people do 'talk' about it because otherwise how would I know that it's even a thing. You can definitely see in my eldest' class that kids with tutors are obviously doing better.

I live in your part of London @ehuiph999 and know exactly what you mean except in my area, it's parents who are not native English that have this mindset. I've heard of playground conversations where mums are recommending tutors for nursery/Reception children, which schools their children will be going to, where they live, what jobs they do, etc. It's really anxiety provoking just listening to them- imagine being them. These people belong to a certain community that do very well in education/making money not just where we live but worldwide. Maybe it's part of their culture after all.

As for POP clothes, etc. My children wear these, not as a status symbol but because they last forever. I buy everything else secondhand.

Oh, this is such a London/SE thing. I am raising my kids a long way away from London but grew up there and have friends raising their kids there. So much talk of tutors and the right this and the right that. They are putting their kids through the private school system and there have been tutors since pre school. (Have a look at the primary education board here and the 4+/7+ threads for more of that madness.) I think for them, getting kids into the right prep = right secondary = right Uni = right job.

When I was a child (90s/00s) tutors definitely weren't required to get into the best private schools in London but maybe they are now because so many parents are doing this?

By the way on the clothes/bikes etc I think there is an element of being cash rich time poor so buying what you know is decent without having to worry about researching lots of different options.

Never been swayed by brand! When DC were small, the bikes were safety first, not colour or brand, coats were waterproof and warm for English winters and DC and their clothes were always clean.
Manners were made very important, and activities were what they wanted to do and that we could afford. We also changed these fairly regularly, so once they had learned to swim, for example, they were given the opportunity to take up another sport, and they’d go to acting or music lessons for a while, then horseback riding Etc.
Once they were about 14, we gave them an allowance for them to continue with activities or find new ones. One DC became a youth journalist, the other started a band with this allowance, and those activities are still their passions, and continue to this day even now they both work full-time.
Neither DC has ever compared themselves negatively to their peers, and neither lack ambition - they both feel that they were allowed to choose, and feel lucky that they weren’t bribed, cajoled or forced to do things just because we wanted them to have/do the same as other parents were doing.

the bikes were safety first, not colour or brand

But the two bike brands mentioned are the most likely to be "safety first" - other bikes now certainly meet the build and size of those so they are not the only one, however they are likely to be a safe option if you have no idea about bicycles.

Isla bikes are the best children's bikes around! You can by a 2nd hand one for the same price as the ones from Halfords that weigh a tonne.

I agree with everything else you have said though. It is no better in Birmingham. It is all, Grammar School place prepping, private ballet, drama and language classes and on and on and on...

I agree with the PP who said you start off ok but it slowly seeps through your pores.

@wolfstarling exactly and then you end up on mumsnet asking total strangers ;-)

I also dont have anything against isla or frog bikes, they are fine though I have no idea how they compare to any other ones. grant you I did buy a halfords one, it was terrible. Lesson learnt. And it's obviously easier to just get DCs what their friends have, no need to think or do any research. I just dont feel like I got the competitive edge that seems to drive everything else

I'm past this stage now, but can I ask what is so good about isla bikes?

shylatte there was a time when bicycles for kids were built in the wrong size and with little care about weight, essentially too short and tall which made riding harder to learn and more dangerous when falling off (as you were falling from a higher height) in older aged bikes other components were often sized for adults as that was what was cheap which made them difficult to use by older kids.

Weight of bicycle is also a big deal, it's much harder to ride and pick up a light bike than a heavy one, and the cheap kids bikes were normally heavy.

Other brands than Frog and Isla now do it - partly out of their success has meant components are now available, and because halfords also have good sizes (as well as lots of bad, but the ones named after Olympic cyclists a few years back and most Carrera's now are good) so you don't need to pay the overhead from those if you know what to look for, but if you don't they are very reliable brands that also hold their resale value - or in pandemic times actually increased in value.

Having moved to the UK from Germany and then left after 15 years, I'd say you've noticed something very important.

It's partly to do with specific social milieus, but overall I'd say ppl in the UK are more thoroughly defined by their jobs/lifestyle/professional status - there is less sense of having a subjectivity apart from these things, if that makes sense.

I think it has to do with the pervasiveness of class hierarchies and the active contempt of some well-off for the disadvantaged, which sets a tone even if most ppl are much more decent and generous.

There is also the fact that the middle class is relatively thin and the penalty for not being middle class, in terms of quality of life, health outcomes, life chances is steeper certainly than in the West Germany of my youth.

These things were very glaring where I worked (Cambridge Uni) and I didn't find a good way to handle them. I don't think you can really escape it. But some ppl are much more perceptive about it than others. Choose your friends well and teach your kids not to believe ppl who claim to have earned all they have.

I just feel like I use up my competitive quota at work and the rest of the time just want to have a chilled life.

In my experience this is highly unusual - people with 'top jobs' tend to be people who can get competitive over just about anything.

I'm trying to find a way to sound this that doesn't sound patronising, but it sounds like you don't realise quite how financially and otherwise privileged/'abnormal' the circles you describe are. And I wonder if your life in your home country was really as average/unremarkable as you make it sound. Of course not everyone lives like this and you must be quite sheltered not to realise why it couldn't possibly be the case that they did.

@Hardbackwriter not sure if I have a top job, just a professional one with an ok though not spectacular wage. I've got a job that requires multiple degrees and long hours. But I also know that the system is silly and while I engage in it professionally, I certainly wouldn't want the rest of my life to be about that. DH is in tech and doesn't have a competitive bone in his body but again earns well enough.

I wouldn't say that I come from privilege but am originally from a privileged country. In comparison, the UK does seem quite competitive but also a bit rubbish - which seems all the more baffling.

Not exclusively a London thing, more a wanker thing.

I spend the first few years of my eldest's life in West London and yes, it was like that! Never really thought about it til you said it though, just a sense of underlying competition even about friendship hierarchies, being good enough for the group, brands, all very tiring although I met one nice person.

I now live in a different part of the Uk and would have no-one to be competitive with as my friends are not like this, I also have lots of friends who are European/other nationalities and we all muddle along a bit although within those nationalities there can be quite a lot of competition about whose kids are doing the best etc.

Glad to be out of it!

All this brand obsession is v nouveau riche. Do not get involved, being understated speaks volumes about your character. Money talks, wealth whispers.

I live in a quietly affluent 'commuter' village in the Southeast, plenty of old money around. Most children around here wear hand me downs. ‘Loud’ luxury is considered déclassé.

Yes, perhaps this is more about where we are. We didnt really know where we wanted to live so just moved somewhere convenient for work. It does also seem very stratified, which am not used to.