AIBU to want to start my own 'working class Mumsnet'?

[shoplifteroftheworld]

I see so many topics and conversations on here that just don't relate to my own life and experiences. Lots of well off women talking about their recent purchases from Boden or Uniqlo or some other place I can't afford to shop. Chat about dinner parties and holidays abroad. I'd like a site for mums and women on lower incomes as this site can leave a lot of us feeling left out of certain conversations.

Anyway its not about class, that's missing the point. The op wants a site similar to mumsnet with people like herself, instead of people complaining they can't get their usual 3 holidays a year, or asking how to manage on 100k a year or discussing clothes and restaurants and food she can't afford.
That's all. She wants like minded folk. Birds of a feather flock together and all that.

This thread is confusing class and money. They aren't the same thing. You don't suddenly win the lottery and become middle class. These days there are plenty of working class people with money, and middle class people without.

Working class people typically have different tastes to middle class people. Even if they have money, you're unlikely to see them shopping in joules or Boden. They're more likely to shop at places like ted baker in my experience.

Ted baker isn't cheap, but I think that most middle class people would consider it pretty naff, in just the same way as working class people consider joules or boden to be twee.

I think that most middle class people without money would rather buy quality second hand than go to Primark.

This of course is a huge generalisation (not every middle class person shops at joules, in the same way that not every working class person likes Ted Baker), it's just a general observation.

Actually i think a section on mn would be good for this.

@ssd almost all the posts on how to manage on 100k a year are in London/SE.. maybe they should post in the London section but then they wouldn't get enough traffic.

I think that is a problem with the site. I have posted in the holidays section but I hardly got any replies. Which is why people post in chat. I guess op would not be spending lots of time in the holidays section so would be better if they posted there. S & B would always have a bias towards less affordable brands; not that poor women can't like fashion but a lot of women who are really into it tend to devote lots of £££ to it, like Carrie Bradshaw buying vogue instead of dinner. I had the same issue with skincare, cannot afford to spend £100 on a face serum so left the Caroline Hirons skincare FB group I was in (though a lot of women there really were far from rich!)..

But yes OP might find Mumsnet more relatable if people posted their issues about clothes/holidays in the designated sections not in chat..and if there were separate sections- budget fashion and fashion.

The posts about Boden being cheap on this thread just prove how little MN users understand working class experience and class in general. I'm so depressed by this.

@Alysskea

The posts about Boden being cheap on this thread just prove how little MN users understand working class experience and class in general. I'm so depressed by this.

I’m from a middle class background and agree this is so messed up. Boden is not cheap! Things are like £40 on sale. That is not cheap!

Low incomes really can’t buy things like that.

@WonderfulYou

In some ways this would be a good idea because most of MN literally don’t live in the real world.

I remember one thread about someone struggling and the replies were about getting a cleaner in a few hours a week, or buying a robot cleaner and someone said about asking the nanny to do some cooking, which I found hilarious!

It can be frustrating too as one family were ‘skint’ even though they were on 45k a year (not in London) and someone was in a predicament and they were saying to WFH that day like it’s a completely normal thing to do. And the person who was gifted £400K to buy a house even though they had a house and a holiday home 😰

Sometimes though I enjoy seeing how the other half live and the fact that they can be a SAHM with a husband earning £100K a year - but they are down to earth and think in a similar way as I would do.

I’ve never judged anyone poorer than me but I think I used to subconsciously judge those who are a lot wealthier but I don’t since being on here.

Jesus, this made me feel ten different kinds of poor...

I get a LOT of judgement as a (disabled) lone parent. I'm actually widowed but in everyone else's eyes, a single parent! I've been called on here:

"A scourge on society"
"Scummy single mummy"
"Benefit scrounging layabout"
"Single mums have made [my] their bed so should lie in it" - This comment was deleted by MNHQ but the others above were left to stand, despite my reporting!

I have MS and I'm still trialling medications. I have ZERO choice whether to work or not. The truth is that I spent years qualifying for my dream job, only to have it snatched from under me by this cruel disease and then the subsequent tragic loss of my husband. We started a family and were hoping to buy a house. The average family. Then suddenly I'm a 'single mum' and universally hated & judged. I do get it in every day life but I've had far, far, farrrr more of it on Mumsnet.

One person even went as far as to say (within context) "Why should I/we have holidays when [you've] not worked for it?" (This was whilst fully aware of my disability)
The 'holidays' in question were a few nights in a rented static caravan next to the sea with my little one. Only an hour away. Hardly a luxury all inclusive to the Bahamas!! Even one caravan stay per year takes every spare penny I have for half of each year due to school holiday price increases. I've just booked one for next august and will be totally broke until July now whilst I pay it off. How is that an unfair 'luxury?!' Anyway, I digress....

So yeah, the classism & snobbery is RIFE on here. I wholeheartedly disagree with anyone who says it doesn't exist on this forum. Yes, some more specific boards may be free of judgement & friendly but as a whole, it's rife.

For me it's not the 'First World' problems that are posted about like not being able to go on holiday number 4 because of covid restrictions or where to invest money that's not needed to live etc that bother me, I can avoid those threads, or read them to gain some insight into that type of lifestyle if I choose to.
For me it's the high(er) income solutions to low (er) income problems and a complete lack of attempt to understand why those solutions may not work, and then writing the poster off as not trying/working/aspiring hard enough, or the old favourite 'making excuses'.

If I were to go onto a holiday thread like described above, where the poster is complaining about the loss of quality of life because they're not getting their exotic holiday, and reply that I don't have exotic holidays ever because I can't afford them and nothing bad has happened, I'm still here, I'm still alive, I still have things to enjoy, that if it's ok for me to live like that all the time, then it's ok for someone to miss a few themselves - I'd likely be roundly told off for not understanding someone else's POV, that it affects them and how, and that if I want those things I just need to work harder. That I need some compassion etc, etc.

Yet threads from lower income posters with issues are full of suggestions that aren't workable, it's explained why they're not workable and then the "You're making excuses OP" starts. Or talk about how lower income means you're a taker and you should just get a better job.
The thread then turns to talk of takers and givers and personal responsibility rather than actually addressing the issue the OP posted about in the beginning.
It's almost like some posters think that their 'better' education/employment/financial status/access to opportunity, makes them a better person all round, and always right, with the attitude that they need to impart their wisdom to us lesser beings because all we lack is a work ethic and a bit of aspiration.

@Maverickess

For me it's not the 'First World' problems that are posted about like not being able to go on holiday number 4 because of covid restrictions or where to invest money that's not needed to live etc that bother me, I can avoid those threads, or read them to gain some insight into that type of lifestyle if I choose to. For me it's the high(er) income solutions to low (er) income problems and a complete lack of attempt to understand why those solutions may not work, and then writing the poster off as not trying/working/aspiring hard enough, or the old favourite 'making excuses'.

If I were to go onto a holiday thread like described above, where the poster is complaining about the loss of quality of life because they're not getting their exotic holiday, and reply that I don't have exotic holidays ever because I can't afford them and nothing bad has happened, I'm still here, I'm still alive, I still have things to enjoy, that if it's ok for me to live like that all the time, then it's ok for someone to miss a few themselves - I'd likely be roundly told off for not understanding someone else's POV, that it affects them and how, and that if I want those things I just need to work harder. That I need some compassion etc, etc.

Yet threads from lower income posters with issues are full of suggestions that aren't workable, it's explained why they're not workable and then the "You're making excuses OP" starts. Or talk about how lower income means you're a taker and you should just get a better job.
The thread then turns to talk of takers and givers and personal responsibility rather than actually addressing the issue the OP posted about in the beginning.
It's almost like some posters think that their 'better' education/employment/financial status/access to opportunity, makes them a better person all round, and always right, with the attitude that they need to impart their wisdom to us lesser beings because all we lack is a work ethic and a bit of aspiration.

I agree with all this. And the worst of it is that people are so deeply buried in their own bubble, they are almost incapable of realising how atypical their lives are.

Mn is like these 2 being on the same threads

digitalsynopsis.com/inspiration/privileged-kids-on-a-plate-pencilsword-toby-morris/

think@shoplifteroftheworldmight be a Smiths fan rather than a genuine shoplifter

Well heaven knows she's miserable now

The 'Show us your Christmas Fridge' thread......vile

I agree with all this. And the worst of it is that people are so deeply buried in their own bubble, they are almost incapable of realising how atypical their lives are.

Yes, they are unhappy with words like privilege being attributed to them or their success, possibly because they feel something is taken away from them personally if they admit to having had advantages from the outset or along the way? Like it undermines the work they did put in. But it's not really about that, it's about acknowledging that not everyone has, or can take up those opportunities and advantages and that's not just because they don't work hard, or have a poor attitude.
I'd say there's very few people who don't put some level of effort in to what they have, the difference is that effort is not always rewarded in the same way.

@CSJobseeker 2 of my SIL are on UC. one lives away from home and we have had to pay council tax for her before. She is now overseas on an unpaid internship and her financial situation is not great, she gets us to transfer shekels to her and she pays us back later on. So far we have transferred maybe £1500 in total for the past few months.but I think she is getting by. She will probably manage to pay us back even if not on time.

I have told her how much I spent on clothes before cos she asked me where they are from and she never thought they were expensive. Same for my MIL who is really v poor, earned below minimum wage and raised 4 kids on that. According to ifs, she is in bottom 10% of the country in terms of income. But when I told her about food insecurity in this country, how I read in the paper that poor families were struggling to feed their kids, she rubbished it and said that it's a bit of an exaggeration . She isn't a daily mail reader at all, it's just that her own experience did not reflect that. Maybe its because she owns her house, is healthy and can walk to Aldi with a trolley and is good at cooking tasty vegetarian dishes. But my SIL is young and when she lived in Manchester earning a few hundred pounds a month, her rent was entirely covered by housing benefit and she could afford to travel back to London regularly. She had very nice clothes from h & m that did not look like they came from the discount rack. She gave us lovely presents for birthdays. She could even afford to travel abroad for the internship/pay for covid tests/pay for taxi , she got max grant but they reimburse her later on and she doesn't have a credit card.

So I think that's why my perspective is different, my DH's entire family have been or are currently on different types of benefits and they do have to live on a budget. But they wouldn't find £35 for a dress shocking or that they would never buy something like that. Maybe not everyday but I don't buy dresses everyday either. Different if it's £100...

If your MIL has always been on below minimum wage (illegal, but hey) how did she buy her £600k house?

Houses may have been cheaper 20 or 30 years ago, but they were not so cheap they could be bought by those on extremely low incomes.

Also, your MIL appears to have no housing costs (i.e. she owns that £600k house outright). That's not exactly representative of most people's experience.

@CSJobseeker she is freelance ,(WFH) and she earns less than a cleaner. Has always been as that is the only way she didn't need to pay for childcare costs for 4 kids. She did have help buying the house for 100k but then had to remortgage it all over again to pay out ex husband (who was long term unemployed) and they divorced when my DH was 18 so house prices had significantly increased by then. Her mortgage is about £400 and she is still supporting an unemployed adult child in terms of food and clothes.

I accept it's loads easier for her as an older person bbut then I am a bit shocked at how SIL manages and she is in her 20s! She doesn't manage to build a nest egg or have a pension or anything like that.

Didn't people on low incomes in the past get council housing? MIL said her income was v low even in 1989 and she had to have 3 kids in a 1 bed flat. And London was a different place then, a lot of the MC people moved out to the home counties and DH's neighborhood was v white working class. It isn't anymore.

@CSJobseeker what I meant to say was while my SIL has little money/was on UC, I think she manages quite well! I also can't quite imagine her saying £30 is too much for a dress, she is currently in the most expensive city in the world and her pronouncement- not too expensive.

It's the holiday threads that get me. Someone comes on asking for economic ideas for a holiday as they are a bit skint this year. I mentally prepare my list of caravan parks at Skeggy and the best papers to cut tokens out, then I read on to the part where they can only afford £10k and are wondering if they can get something with an annexe for the nanny at that price (or something equally non skint).

really dislike your username which i’m sure hard working honest working class members of MN would find very unsettling, especially when you seek to look for better representation

nvm, i see you have changed it

I would be up for that OP. I have two jobs and I'm still skint. I have never been in the position to buy my own property as when I did get offered a mortgage ,all I could afford at the time was a two bedroomed flat over shops . So glad I didnt buy it as 6 months later ,the roof fell in and all the owner occupiers had to spent thousands on repairs. By the time property prices in the area went down, (2008 )and I got together with my husband ,neither of us where offered a mortgage anywhere as we have zippo savings . So now we are too old but lucky we have a council tenancy which I am very grateful for . Definitely not in the fashionable area if the city and a bit dodgy but grateful I am. I wouldnt shop at Boden if you paid me but it is very dear . Sometimes I would like a chance of nightout without planning and saving for ages .

@Tillsforthrills What difference does it make ? Read the whole thread . It's a reference to a Smiths song. No need to Panic. It's not like the Queen is Dead or something !😂

@Tillsforthrills

really dislike your username which i’m sure hard working honest working class members of MN would find very unsettling, especially when you seek to look for better representation

Those of us who listen to The Smiths are fine with it.

@Tillsforthrills

really dislike your username which i’m sure hard working honest working class members of MN would find very unsettling, especially when you seek to look for better representation

This working class woman doesn't find it unsettleing at all, why would I? It's a reference to a smith song, did you assume it's a claim the working classes are shoplifters or something? .