“Nice” London areas where parents do nothing but obsess about schools and house prices. Where can I escape this?

[Ohhiho]

I live in an area that has “come up” in the 15+ years I’ve been there. By “come up”, I mean become absurdly and stupidly expensive, and wealthy families (ones who have benefitted from the bank of mum and dad usually) have moved in.

People I had things in common with moved out, new people moved in, and now all my kids’ friends’ parents talk about when I’m standing around at the school gate or watching football lessons, is where their children will go to secondary school (Ie: where the parents are planning to move to because the local one has poor people that go to it - i’m guessing this is their problem because the results are fine) and house prices.

These people are obsessed. It’s really depressing.

I am probably being unreasonable. But it feels quite lonely not connecting with the people who I live among anymore. They’re rich people who went to private school themselves, but don’t want to pay for their kids if they can get away with it, pretend they’re liberal but move to get their kids into an outstanding state primary school and are now agitated that the secondary isn’t outstanding and planning to move next to an outstanding state secondary / tutor their kids to the extreme to get into a grammar that’s heavily oversubscribed / remortgage to get their kids into private school.

Am I the only one who has noticed this London obsession and is exhausted by it?!

I dream of taking myself and my kids (and my partner!) and finding a nice wholesome life somewhere, one without Roblox and pushy, exam-obsessed parents. AIBU?

@WeAreBorg 😂

Ahh you all sound like my people! I hope we find each other in CP!

A few years ago, I thought I’d take a peak at “Secondary Education” board on Mumsnet.

I thought it would be chat about whether your school streamed in Y7, and how much homework was set.

Nope. It’s pretty much wall to wall requests to compare the top London day schools, and who has experience of <insert private school usually biggish name> 10+/11+/13+ entry.

Generally for MN standard very clever children who are musical and sporty too.

Basically what I’m saying is that your school gate is that MN board, but you should be able to pick off some AIBU / Chat / Telly Addicts board types too. Recommend you go in tomorrow with a breezy, “OMG! What about that recoupling huh? Who saw Love Island last night?” Find your tribe!

I live in a commuter town in the Home Counties and that’s is where all these tedious people move to, and continue the same boring crap when they’ve finished with London. Just not to me because I give off poor vibes. I think initial conversations about extensions, what secondary school to choose and the merits of the latest electric SUV or whatever leave me looking baffled and they realise I am a Herbert or whatever name they give to us. A colleague once discussed the merits of a nearby village school, which was apparently great if you could put up with the local oiks!

@AreOttersJustWetCats they are all down south apart from Norfolk, which is, last time I looked, in the East of England. Norwich is north of Birmingham and the North Norfolk coast is roughly equidistant to Stoke-On-Trent.

YANBU. I met, who I thought was a lovely mum when my child was at preschool. A couple of meet ups later I realised she was just OBSESSED with talking about which school her child would go to and what her next house would be. Honestly, it was the most boring, pointless chat ever.

I soon realised, I wasn't a friend, I was a sounding board. So I stopped messaging and that was that.

I hate snobbery.

Knew you would be talking about some part of Hackney or another. I grew up here, went to Clapton Girls, am still here. DH grew in London Fields. It's changed so much, mostly not for the better. Broadway market, Columbia Rd, all my favourite people have gone, replaced by overpriced coffees and artisanal sourdough. No more Percy Ingles but £4.50 for a Donut. Describing places as villages! Depresses me hugely.

Try to find community people that suit you. Community work is good for this. Avoid the MC nightmares or wind them up. I love banging on about the good old days of murder mile and the turkish gang wars, nearly getting shot at Chimes or our love of Best Kebab. Pretend I've never heard of Ottolenghi, that sort of thing.

I’m fairly middle class and my kids go to a very middle class school, but never have I encountered people standing at the school gates or at birthday parties talking about house prices 😂 what do they actually say??? “My house cost this much” “well mine cost more”

how weird….

We’re in Somerset and no one talks about house prices. When we visit family in Kent they seem to revel in telling us our house would cost so much more if it was in Kent. It’s like they enjoy expressing that they’re better than us. Dh and I find it weird. We grew up there but love Somerset and wouldn’t consider moving back.

Out of interest OP where are these people planning to move to? I'm interested in what a good secondary school looks like according to the fancy Stoke N types.

We got to peak craziness in Yr 5 and beginning of Yr 6 due to 11+ in our area.

To be fair it's calmed down a lot since the results have come out as you tend to know where your child will go.

You need to go far out of London and the South East to escape all of this.

I live in a similar area not far away from you. Whenever I socialise with other parents I walk in, bottle of wine in each hand, and say "If anyone talks about Brexit, house prices, home renovations and schools, I'm leaving.:"

I can't stand the self-satisfied arseholes on MN who describe their efforts to secure a 'good' education for their kids, as though the rest us just haven't understood properly.

They are well off and buy a house within catchment of an outstanding school. Or pay for a fuck tonne of tutoring.

Then they talk about sacrifice, likening it to donating a kidney.

I don't mind that they want the best education for their kids, I can't abide it being hailed as a personal virtue.

Nonsense, we all talk about what BoJo paid for his house and whether Wilf will be HH, DPL or Ducks

I'm not a million miles away from you and remember this secondary school obsession from the school gates for most of year 5 and 6. V tedious. There seemed to be a lot of anxiety, possibly born out of too many choices available. When I was at that age in another city you chose between the girls school, the mixed school or the catholic school and everyone already knew their choice way in advance. In parts of London there are 6-7 schools to chose from before you start even considering private and those wierd state schools with 'governor' places.

We just ruled out all the ones that required exams/ money/ privilege went to see the rest and avoided the madness of the school gates.

But to answer your original point, just avoid these people. There will still be plenty in Stoke that aren't like this although frankly we just make our friends at work and avoided the school gates- once kids are at secondary you won't see these people anyway

Lol I assumed this was Stokey. I also live in zone 2 north east london, this is NOT an issue in my area.

Move to Scotland. Your kids go to the nesrest school. That's it.

Norfolk might be geographically more Northern, but culturally it is definitely not! (having lived both there and Northern England)

Ha! Years back I had a friend who refused to go to the local park at the weekend because it was used as a networking base by media people. Thing is, plenty of normal people lived in that area too. Maybe you need to find them in your area (it wasn't Hackney).

If someone did this people would look askance

It’d be so out of kilter with normal chat

I live in an area of S London which used to be normal but has slowly become ridiculously expensive and you can’t move for artisan cafes and cranial osteopaths.

I need to move before my children start to think everyone has a huge Volvo, bifold doors and goes ski-ing every year.

(I just but it’s not far off the truth 😂)

I agree with @Exasperatednow - stay for secondary and they will all fuck off :)

It's been like this since time began

Just to let you know Lewisham is no longer safe from this.

And Brockley???? For all its gentrification, it’s Brockley!

Loads of them will move out and get big places in Surrey and Kent and Sussex and talk about how big a property they could get for the price that they sold their London pad for.

And someone else will move into their London house. Better off than they were because they had to afford these prices. And then the circle starts again.

We have been in W London for almost 50 years now. It will just go in a cycle. Find your tribe, stay with them, ignore the rest.

I live in an unlovely part of NW London that is relatively normal. My ds unfortunately plays a posh sport which means I spend time closer to the river. That's when the boring school/house talk sets in. First, they look confused that my son is at a gasp state school. Even better, his autistic brother usually butts in and they slowly creep away. Neurodiversity has its benefits at times.