Bohemian, "lefty" free range middle class parenting really just lazy neglectful parenting jazzed up?

[Naturelover5]

In my three dc's classes we have some of these bohemian, creative lefty parents.. The children are unkempt, scruffy, hair undone & dressed without fail in mismatched clothes... Some of the children have very questionable manners & are either running amock or with their heads glued to screens constantly (as seen on holiday recently, loud obnoxious parents quaffing seccy while the kids were largely ignored).. If council estate kids were dirty, scruffy & looked uncared for social services would be called.. For this particular group (& they are everywhere) the barefoot, scruffy kids are seen as badges of honour..
The lefty parent types are also very anti homework & organised activities outside school as they think kids should be kids however aibu to think they are just lazy & couldn't be arsed putting the effort in?!

Not good enough! You need to describe to us some of the things you knew when you saw so that people have the first clue what you're talking about?

Is it spots with stripes? Green with blue? Top hat with swimwear?

And I don't buy that 'mismatched' is the same as 'worn out/scruffy/frayed/full of holes/covered in stains'. It's clearly something quite different so come on - what makes kids' clothes match?

<files alongside Platty Joobs, hollibobs, famalam, totes emosh>

Is it the stripy tights, wellies and fairy wings combo? 😁

Double points if it's a boy wearing them...

😂😂😂😂
oh my god Thank You. This almost makes all the evils of the interweb worth it.

I hope you are a writer - hapless innocent 🤣

@Puffalicious thank you, I was starting to second guess myself.. They really do exist!

It's this particularly sub section of the middle class parents in the school... Who sneer at the parents who bring their kids to extracurricular activities!

I didn't use name or private school clichés! Who the hell mentioned Rupert? Have you been on the seccy?

@Naturelover5 But are you Fork Woman? Enquiring minds need to know ...

JassyRadlett I think the poster further back who referred to “a miniature Helena Bonham Carter on a bad day” has it spot on. Describes the studied insouciance perfectly.

Also OP come clean, the fork???

I think Helena Carter is utterly beautiful but I will never forget her look of consternation when Graham Norton pulled her up on one of her outfits. “But it’s Vivienne Westwood” ?

< completely irrelevant > 😳

If I dressed like Helena BC people would buy me cups of tea and give me their spare change, Im not posh or pretty enough to pull any of that off.

I think both she and Vivienne Westwood are fabulous, but both kind of optimise the kind of mismatch some kids wear, only there's is mid range and faded not couture

Some great mismatch

Its North Oxford isn’t it?
Bingo.

And the boho (expensive) parts of Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland and Wellington, and the Pacific North West (Seattle, Portland, Vancouver).

Yes this it, spot on. My mum worked flat out keeping us absolutely immaculate: clothes, hair, manners, the house, car (although she wasn’t responsible for its state it too was pristine) to give me the privilege of not having to bother my arse so much 😉

This this,this as kids we had one or two half decent outfits each, the rest were cousins' hand me downs. We were taught from a young age not just to keep our clothes nice, but how to launder them carefully to maximise their life span.

Every outfit to be worn out of the house was thought through, there were no drawers and drawers of expensive clothes to carelessly throw on. There just wasn't the depth of wardrobe to still have smart things for school/church/weddings if we didn't keep our everyday clothes, in decent condition, paired and matched.

We were very well behaved and DH was draconian about table manners.

DH is much more UMC in background, his laundry habits drive me to distraction. When the DCs were younger he would certainly dress them with less care.

Dsis has certainly embraced Boho chic for her girls, coincidentally they rarely hear to word no and do very few extra curricular activities.

My lovely LMC DM (grammar school educated teacher) worked so hard for DSIS and I to be firmly MC, DSIS seems intent on throwing it all away and giving her DCs fewer opportunities than we had or she could give them. DN is now 10 and definitely aging out of the "cute urchin" demographic.

You need a new hobby OP, get yourself a Flash spray and a pack of microfibres, then give your kitchen cupboards a scrub. You'll feel a lot better afterwards and have less time to obsess over the imperfections of others.

@TiredYorkshireMam my mum was a social worker in a very posh south-east town that also had several big rough estates on the outskirts. It used to make her livid that the middle classes simply closed ranks while the lower end had SS involvement, so yes, it was certainly accurate in her experience.

There is an old saying that subconsciously people judge you in 7 seconds & form an opinion of you based on your exterior... Sad but apparently true

This is spot on! I think the image they portray though is a cover for poor, neglectful parenting eg "we encourage Nigel to express himself so don't encourage him to say thank you unless he FEELS grateful" 🤔
I think they never attempted to properly parent their feral kids who never ask just say "I want" or "I need"... Yet it's glossed over as a parenting philosophy & "people like us" mentality... It's a small sub-section of the mc parents in our school, but the most annoying... The majority of the parents both mc & wc have lovely, clean children with proper manners & are far less opinated than the ones with the feral kids.

They are far more likely to be Tory as others have pointed out.

Usually hand me downs (which they let everyone know as it's more eco friendly), a little too big or small (purposely not fitting properly), they don't like the girls in pink as that's too conformist... Girls always gender neutral colours but pink fine for their boys... Could be a pair of scruffy jeans with a scruffy denim shirt (old, faded & obviously not coordinated) if they child must wear footwear it's usually wellies regardless of the weather.

Yes Helena BC is spot on except the feral kids are either always barefoot (everywhere even walking home from school 🙄) or in wellies.. No other form of footwear

This thread is an ever more rdiculous s%^tshow of political and class stereotyping and becoming really distasteful. What makes people self-righteous enough to think that anyone actually cares about their venomous and prejudgist opinions?

OP if you think you're that clever then go show this thread to the parents you're slagging off rather than demeaning them anonymously all over the internet. I doubt they really care any more than anyone on here does though.... yawn

What on earth is wrong with hand me downs?? All my kids are in hand me downs. I have 3 kids! Why would I throw out perfectly good clothes and buy new each time? Absolutely ridiculous viewpoint.

And even worse than that, I get hand me downs from other parents! Perfectly lovey clothes they no longer need that are suitable for my children.

Double denim on a child - the horror! 😱

Who gives a shit that a child is wearing jeans and a denim shirt?! Bloody hell OP, you sound like a total snob.

I have three dc too, all wear hand me downs but I make sure they fit properly, are in good condition, clean without holes... Basically they don't look scruffy.