“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?

We ended up in Merton to be close to my parents. Thankfully all secondaries are good, so no need to stress.

I live nowhere near London, and there is very little talk of house prices (bit insensitive to those who are stuck in rentals... might occasionally come up in small groups where everyone is known to be a home owner / mortgage slave.) But there is loads of talk of secondary school places because we live in a city with lots of schools and ways to play the system (mainly the Church card which is a way for non-religious people to hypocritically pretend to love God to get into the best and richest school). I don't think that's just a London thing. I think it's a people caring about their kids not getting beaten up thing.

Latymer!

Church Streeters!!

I am probably being way harsh as other posters have said. I’m definitely a bit pre-menstrual today, so have the rage. I do love where I live really 😁. I am going to start talking about any other small talk topic when these things come up instead!

Yes I agree with you both here. And I think I miss the area and people I identified with once. Probably fuelled my ranting a bit.

Latymer, definitely. To be fair, they have all been to South East private or grammar schools themselves (like me, although I was a scholarship kid) and are fucking terrified of what seems to them to be the high likelihood of their kid getting stabbed at state secondary school . It does calm down a lot after year 7.

Well Jason Statham is Alleyns, not sure if that fits Carrie's vibe. And yes, not just ok but compulsory to ram him. Although I suspect he'll have to take a number and wait his turn

I live there too OP and I never have conversations like that! It’s a very densely populated place, maybe find some different neighbours/people in it to talk with.

That sounds way snarkier than I intend :-) I suspect maybe the issue is socialising with other parents which I appreciate can’t be helped. School gate and all that.But maybe explore ways of meeting different people locally if time allows - music, sport, art, volunteering…

@IAmADancer

I assumed op was talking about the weird bragging that happens with these types of conversations within certain groups.

It's a how long is a piece of string thing isn't it? When does it stop being a conversation and start being a brag? I think people who talk obsessively about house prices and schools are incredibly tedious to be around and I avoid them like the plague.

But anyone who is, for example, renting and can't imagine themselves ever getting on the property ladder, surrounded by people sitting on million pound houses, is entitled to feel anxious about this and to offload about it to close friends.

I have a good friend who for complicated reasons struggled to get her kids into any decent local school and had a long fight with the local authorities over it. It did become fairly tedious because she did some fairly extreme things and I cringed inwardly about it sometimes but she was faced with a fairly stark situation: the only school the LA would place her kids in was failing and she was genuinely worried about how her kids would fare there.

One person's bragging is another person's discussion about the market: another person's school league table obsession is someone else's concern for their children's future. It's easy to say that this is declasse and sharp-elbowed if your family is never going to be faced with this outcome.

I wasn't sure if this 'stereotype' was real or not. My only reference being Reigate, pre M25 a quiet ex-market town; post M25 started to become a gentrified outpost of London; by 1995 not my base camp anymore.

I suspect that the Reigate 'schoolgates' have evovled backwards nowadays to smilar banal levels that the OP finds in London.

Don't move to Teddington! Folk there are obsessed with schooling and guard tutors for grammar and particular private schools to the nth degree.
We escaped!

So True

There is apparently a "Charlton Heights" area now.
Pah
OP come to Lee in SE12 or Grove Park also SE12 but nearer Bromley
Not gentrified as yet (though pockets of it are I suppose)

I've never heard of someone being too woke to care about their child's education. I've heard it all now.

Except in Edinburgh, where a quarter go private and you have to endure this with a side of working class guilt: We just feel Robert would do better at Watsons because he's so gifted at maths and they're just not stretching him.

Ah gentrification. I don't really see the school thing as an issue tbh. Who doesn't want the best education for their children?

But if you're looking at London and want somewhere not posh etc then go south of the river. Stockwell is still pretty local focused, lots of housing estates, a few old man pubs etc. just don't walk through the park at night (issue with robberies). And it might 'come up' soon now it's surrounded by posh Vauxhall, Battersea and Clapham on all sides.

Agreed. Posh, old-money people would find such talk incredibly dull.

What the op is complaining about is just the bog-standard middle-class.

Why don't you just stay put and make friends amongst "the demographic "? Someone is sending their children to your local schools. Failing that I'd suggest the rougher parts of Rotherham or Barnsley. Folks there have bigger fish to fry.

Amen. Bloody love the mums in Streatham.

Give it another ten years...

Absolutely my experience too.

I’ve posted about this before, as it’s happening in my neck of the woods now, too!
When we moved here with 2 Primary School-aged DC 20+ years ago, we were an IT Professional and Engineer, moving next to a Builder and Caterer and a retired couple who had been Schoolteacher and Businessman, with a Lawyer, a Court Administrator, another Engineer and School Bursar along with another retired lady.
Now we have Accountants, retired Hoteliers, Finance Directors and a Diplomat that have moved into our road and we feel like the poor relations too.
However, the thing that separates us from the incomers is that they have huge mortgages, while we’ve paid ours off, so, swings and roundabouts, really…

Amen. Bloody love the mums in Streatham.

Depends on the part, you get it on the Balham side certainly

. Agreed. Posh, old-money people would find such talk incredibly dull.

They have more exciting things to discuss, like whether their ancestors were involved in the slave trade!

This made me laugh. Someone had to be snobby about all of this. It is not a class issue. No one is interested in the price of your house, or how your castle need reroofing and the enormous cost, or in how well your investments are doing. Bores will be bores I guess though.

It's not about certain classes not being bores, it's about the nature of the boringness. The OP's problem is apwxifically with house-price dicsussions, and unsurprisngly the obscenely rich don't talk about that.

(Believe me, I wish I was rich enough not to care about such things either.)