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

579 replies

Naturelover5 · 02/08/2022 16:12

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?!

OP posts:
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ChristmasSirens · 02/08/2022 19:27

Yeah, you are definitely right. Scruffy quaffers who don’t take responsibility for their kids are all lefty.

Bohemian, "lefty" free range middle class  parenting really just lazy neglectful parenting jazzed up?
YesJess · 02/08/2022 19:28

Thepeopleversuswork · 02/08/2022 19:24

@YesJess

Can you give us any idea of where this town was? I travel all around the country for my job and have never met a town where everyone shares the same sentiment.

It's one of the big university towns. Obviously its not all people in this town (and nor did I say that), its a certain upper middle class enclave. A variation on the theme can also be observed in large parts of North London and probably other major UK cities.

Anyone else who's grown up in this world will recognise the syndrome.

I'm thinking you're more talking about scuffed brown leather shoes and old cardigans etc, rather than what most people see as 'scruffy' - e.g. guy in a dirty tracksuit at the lights with a cup full of change.

pylonpal · 02/08/2022 19:29

SleeplessInEngland · 02/08/2022 16:25

Im anti homework but if you want to look at our family schedule you will see we certainly arent lazy lol.

Yeah, I can't believe homework still exists in 2022. It's a miserable relic that benefits neither teacher, pupil nor parent.

For junior school kids the evidence is clear that it doesn’t improve outcomes.

it does, however, take kids away from time with family, friends, playing and other things which are good for them. As well as create conflict with parents.

apintortwo · 02/08/2022 19:29

And in fact the "superficial scruffiness" is not neglect in most cases. It's a studied kind of scruffiness which is a deliberate class marker. Children being too "primped" as my mother used to say is regarded as being dreadfully lower middle class.

Should we call it 'curated scruffiness' maybe?

pylonpal · 02/08/2022 19:30

Blossomtoes · 02/08/2022 18:58

Let me tell you a story @Naturelover5 (what an oxymoron your name is). I took my boy to A&E when some bastard knocked him off his bike. He was probably about 14. He had shoulder length hair and was wearing cut off shorts, a heavy metal tshirt and no shoes - it was summer.

Waiting for X ray an old man on a trolley looked him up and down and sneered. I could see what he was thinking, it was written all over his face. My son was called to go and he turned to the old guy and said “Would you like to go first?”. Never have I seen such embarrassment and never have I ever been so proud of him.

I imagine you’d have sneered at my boy and my parenting too @Naturelover5.

Brilliant! : )

alpenguin · 02/08/2022 19:31

Should we call it 'curated scruffiness' maybe?

did that not used to be called shabby chic?
ah the age of social media where everything including underwear has to be curated

LittleBearPad · 02/08/2022 19:32

There’s no logic in assuming that they vote Labour or LibDem. They may be Trustafarian Tories.

Nothing wrong with a bit of barefootedness either - particularly on a campsite

Camomila · 02/08/2022 19:32

Poor Brighton always gets such a bad rep on these threads Grin

I know lots of floppy haired/ non matchy clothing wearing little Margot/Pheonix's but none of them actually get to run amok, they all still have screen time limits/swimming lessons/have to do their reading books.

Hardbackwriter · 02/08/2022 19:34

@DarkShade I agree, I think one of the many advantages of privilege is that you just don't have to think about this stuff. People are speaking as people are going around trying to show off that they don't worry about people calling social services on their scruffy child, but if you're solidly middle-class it never crosses your mind that that's a possibility, it's so outside your world.

borntobequiet · 02/08/2022 19:34

Seccy? What is it?

LittleBearPad · 02/08/2022 19:35

To be honest the lack of manners is the only real issue.

MinglingFlamingo · 02/08/2022 19:35

borntobequiet · 02/08/2022 19:34

Seccy? What is it?

Prosecco at a guess

Dontwanttoberudeorwastetime · 02/08/2022 19:37

How do you all know how people you’ve seen on holiday vote?

LittleBearPad · 02/08/2022 19:37

borntobequiet · 02/08/2022 19:34

Seccy? What is it?

Prosecco

I did assume it was Sauv Blanc or Sancerre which would have felt more accurate for the type - or Provençal rose but the letters didn’t fit

GeorgeCat1 · 02/08/2022 19:37

Perhaps they dress differently when on holidays in a campsite than they do at home? Flip flops on holiday is hardly indicative of anything.

NumberTheory · 02/08/2022 19:38

You seem to have taken a dislike to a bunch of parents, mashed a lot of different things together that aren’t particularly connected and labeled them so you can feel better about yourself.

From a social services perspective, scruffy, dirty, barefoot kids aren’t a problem if they actually have shoes that fit, clothes that get washed and a shower when needed. And this is true on a council estate too. If social workers are sent to your door because your kids look scruffy but you can show them they have clean clothes available and shoes that fit but are just out having fun for the day, the SW is going to close the case wherever you live. If you have no clothes, their shoes don’t fit and the kids haven’t had a bath in two weeks, it’s going to be a bit different.

I do think there is class prejudice against families in poverty and middle class parents have some privilege in the eyes of many. It’s also more difficult for a parent who is having to choose between heat/food/rent some weeks to make sure the kids have clothes and shoes that fit and that’s a problem even though it’s not because the parents aren’t trying.

But none of that makes the “Bohemian” parent lazy and the council estate parent hard working (or vice versa). Believing your children will do better in life if they can work most things out for themselves isn’t particularly lazy, there’s plenty of other stuff that parents who believe that might be doing that is hard work. Some of which is “parenting” like going places with them that help them explore, spending time with them cooking or whatever, reading with them, etc. Some of which isn’t - like developing their career or pursuing their own interests or helping others. Similarly, putting kids into organized activity a lot isn’t particular hard working (but it is another thing it’s easy to do if you have money), putting your kids in activities after school or on a weekend might be a matter of you running around after them or making sure you can fit in a shift at work. Or it might be your excuse to sit on your phone without lots of screaming and incessant questions.

Similarly thinking homework isn’t a particularly good way to develop intellectually isn’t necessarily any lazier than simply insisting homework gets done. You might not insist on homework and just tell the kids to watch reality TV all evening, or you might spend the time playing games with them, encouraging them (and then, godforbid watching!) a play. You might send them out into the garden to run around, or take them somewhere you think they’ll see a meteor shower. Help them build a pond. Read and introduce them to books you love. And so on. None of which is lazy even if you’re also letting them do a lot of it on their own. And a parent who values homework might not do any more work than insist the kids sit at the table for an hour while they’re making dinner and never think about how to get their kids thinking about the world around them or engage with them beyond pushing them to complete something set by someone else.

Of course, most people are going to be between those extremes and just muddling along, not Tiger mum, and not uncaring, just dying to balance everything. But one approach isn’t necessarily lazier than the other.

And none of that is correlated with teaching kids manners. Plenty of parents fail to teach their kids manners whether they let them run around barefoot and investigate worms or drive them to soccer every Saturday and make them learn their spellings (and even if they do all of that).

lightand · 02/08/2022 19:38

Grendalsmum · 02/08/2022 16:34

I'm a bohemian lefty creative free range seccy quaffing parent and my two have turned out beautifully - so you can shove your goady stereotypes ...

Out of interest, what do you call "turned out beautifully"?

LittleBearPad · 02/08/2022 19:38

GeorgeCat1 · 02/08/2022 19:37

Perhaps they dress differently when on holidays in a campsite than they do at home? Flip flops on holiday is hardly indicative of anything.

I wear crocs on holiday. Wouldn’t do that in my naice suburb

Summersnearlygone · 02/08/2022 19:39

My children were educated alongside children from a Steiner community who would have been just like what you describe except they had good manners. It enriched my children's lives in lots of ways and an invitation to one of their birthday parties was really coveted.
I don't have any primary school aged children but the idea of sending a child to school all day then doing homework in the evenings is shocking.

Rowanberri · 02/08/2022 19:40

@Mummyford don't worry, I’m allergic to camping 😉

Moonface123 · 02/08/2022 19:40

If we had the kind of society where we celebrated mismatched clothes , messy hair and bare feet, we would all be alot happier. It's a much more natural way to live.

Puffalicious · 02/08/2022 19:41

Crikeymaccrikey · 02/08/2022 17:25

In the city we lived in there was a distinct champaigne socilalist parenting vibe. Earth centred parents with dc with names like tree and river. The long hair and mismatched clothes was seen as an anti consumer stance.
Quite a few, i know, we went, went to steiner school and this was also a place were the parenting was seen to be positive parenting were dc were encoraged and the word no saved for emeegencies and when it was really needed. This philosophy can go too far sometimes i think of boundaries are not established or actual parenting not done.
This look can be very much a tribal thing and in our city it signified and signaled
a certain social status.
A health visitor I know o ce did express concern about my friends parenting choices, she lived in a bit of a questionable area at the time, wereas, when I did the exact same as her, our hv was not a bit bothered and put it down to parenting style.. judgemental !

This, absolutely.

We call such parents in our city WEW- West End Wankers. You can spot them a mile off: the kids will sport things like tights and Crocs/ very faded Boden or Jo-Jo/ everything a size too small and have unbrushed hair. They speak in a very particular private school vernacular and are very entitled on the play things (pushing in/ hogging equipment). Parents generally have swishy hair, a subtle but expensive designer bag, keys for a eye-wateringly expensive car and a Waitrose reusable bag.

I know EXACTLY who you mean OP!

GeorgeCat1 · 02/08/2022 19:44

lightand · 02/08/2022 19:38

Out of interest, what do you call "turned out beautifully"?

Presumably like a show pony? Turnout is very important for them.

Ihavethisthingwithcolour · 02/08/2022 19:45

Prosecco isn’t very MC. Are you sure they weren’t drinking English ‘champagne’

Rowanberri · 02/08/2022 19:49

@Mummyford 🤣

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