To think that good things seem to be seen as, middle class?

103 replies

QuertyGirl · 15/02/2023 12:34

I see this a lot on here and in other places.

At the moment we have people discussing whether Park Runs and 15 minute cities are middle class.

I've seen the same around loads of other stuff, from breastfeeding to getting outdoors, gardening, museums to healthy eating.

Do we have an inherent snobbery in our culture in that we equate good, healthy stuff with being a bit posh?

I come from a very working class family and arguably live a middle class lifestyle now, so this stuff fascinates me.

Anybody else?

OP posts:

Bubblebubblebah · 18/02/2023 08:37

bellamountain · 17/02/2023 10:43

@Bubblebubblebah but it's very obvious that parents want their children mixing with their kind of people (even if they don't admit it). School A is full of aspirational families with the money to live close to said school. There are also so many schools selling off land to 100% private housing developments which in turn builds a brand spanking new school and pushes out poorer backgrounds even further because they can't afford the new houses.

School B, will have to take on every other child in the town who cannot afford to live within 600m of School A. School B will have kids from various types of backgrounds but there will be kids who come from poor or unsupportive backgrounds. The kids in School A are sheltered away from those pupils. Of course if School B manages to achieve an outstanding ofsted (but let's be honest that's very very hard to achieve) if not all children are adequately supported at home, then over time housing will be bought up in that area amongst the more affluent and price out lower income families.

We have state funded mini private schools in effect and that could easily be stopped if catchment allocations were abolished (we are not talking about schools 50 miles from another, kids can easily travel to school A or B.

I feel like you just came up with a but to me original question to your original statement about how people move to catchments of good schools pushing out others by raising prices.
I said it might be better to make all schools good then?
To that there is another but of "but they won't want them mixing".
So now problem moved from "too expensive to live by good school" to "it doesn't matter because schools will be segregated anyway because people don't want to mix" then back to "rich will price oit poor". They don't have to if schooling in UK actually moves where it should be. That was my point. If all schools are good, there is no need to move and price out people.
I feel like whatever I say there will be another but.

I feel like sometimes this class thing on MN goes like saying where I am from about se type of people.
"When their neigbour has a goat, they don't wish for goat or two. They wish for his to die"

Explodingatomickittens · 18/02/2023 12:37

A lot of the "middle class" stuff is so cheap & doable..
-getting outside for fresh air for walks
-breastfeeding
-visiting the library
-very little screen time

Explodingatomickittens · 18/02/2023 13:03

NotAnotherBathBomb · 16/02/2023 10:04

I think the issue isn't strictly class, but the value attributed to particular activities that is the issue. So I think you're right in that different activities attract different groups, but one of the activities is praised and aspired to and the other is sneered at.

However it does seem to be that the class of people doing the activity seems to be what makes people decide which is more worthy.

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Definitely. In my community many kids play football outside from morning til night. This develops their skills, team work problem solving, social skills. They get lots of excercise & fresh air. This is not deemed middle class however... If it was rugby, tennis, hockey or lacrosse it would be viewed completely differently!

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