to think people who grew up with money haven't a clue sometimes??

[Herroyal]

I work in a profession which is traditionally full of MC or monied people. I'm from a regional,WC, scholarship background - grew up on an estate. Cos of the regional accent my 'class' isn't recognisable to most English people.

Anyway. Chatting with a colleague who's just been ski-ing, and it came up that I've never been skiing. He was properly - what NEVER? what about as a kid? What about with school? You MUST have been. I jokingly said 'not many mountains where I'm from' and he said, but that's why you go to the Alps, silly.
So I told him not only did I not going ski-ing as a child I'd also never went abroad til I was an adult. His response? Did you family have a place in the UK then? Is that where you summered? He had an eccentric uncle who insisted only only going to the hse in Cornwall etc
He then told me it was practically child neglect that we weren't taking our kids skiing now. EVERYBODY skis.

And this was the week after I told one girl at work I needed to try to pop to Argos at lunchtime, wasn't sure if I could get there and back though in time for a meeting. Her suggestion was to open an account at the Harvey Nichols and pop there ( it's closer) that where's she gets all her household stuff. An account?
Yes, just like at Argos. Turns out that she thought Argos let you put things on 'account' and pay at the end of the month. She'd never used one, been in one. Had no idea what a catalogue shop was. It's another world...

True. We hired a young, very well spoken temp admin assistant at a workplace a few years ago. Our office was in Victoria and she once dropped in to the conversation she "lived in the next street".

I rather naively enthused that it was great she had got a council flat so central - they are really sought after and she should hang on to it. She looked at me in utter confusion - turned out she was fron a very grand family who had loads of land in Africa and the UK, she had moved to London as her dad thought she should experience "real life" before getting married and workign on the family estates. So he bought her a flat to live in in one of those rather grand mansion blocks between Victoria st and Pimlico.

I had never heard anthing like it!

I grew up skiing and went to private school. I'm not clueless enough to assume everyone had a similar childhood. I'm sorry your colleagues are so stupid.

‘As for the posters saying that now OP works in that industry she should have the same standard of living as her colleagues;’

yeah this. I’m very happy with my life, my lifestyle. We want for nothing. But no, it’s not the same lifestyle at all because everything me and DP have we had to provide for ourselves. Uni on scholarships, no help with deposits or travel, or holidays, no being given old cars, or new cars. Nothing to fall back on. We won’t inherit anything, not that we care. In fact we help our parents out a bit and I’m so happy and pleased we can.

part of the reason we’re not fussed about going ski-ing is because it would be a REALLY expensive trip for us and I can’t justify the cost. If I’m doing to blow £6k or £7k on a holiday it’s going to be a month in Australia not a week in the Alps.

For many of my colleagues that’s not a lot of money, but they have bigger houses with lower mortgages, kids in private’s school who fees are paid by the grandparents. They’re staying in houses owned by family abroad. One of my friends went skiing with her DH and kids and the grandparents paid for them all to go.
I don’t begrudge them any of that, my parents would have done the same if they could have. We’ll do the same for our kids too if we can

it’s just different. And a lot of people born into families where this is the norm juts do t realise that .

I grew up so middle class that my sister had no idea people actually lived in ‘houses like on Coronation Street’ until she went to university in Manchester! 🤦‍♀️ I’m still shocked from when she confessed this years ago!

We had horses and a huge rambling money pit house that took all our money.

We never went abroad, skied, had video games or even a video player. We had horses and a huge money pit house so there was literally no money for anything else!

As a child I remember feeling very hard done by as whenever I wanted anything that my friends had I was always told ‘we can’t afford it’ so I assumed we were poor. However I look back as an adult and I had an idyllic ‘Enid Blyton’ upbringing and I feel incredibly lucky.

But this chap sounds like a nob. The majority of people I know who had privileged upbringings, even if they didn’t realise at the time, as they get older, appreciate it and recognise how lucky they were.

Yes this says more about levels of intelligence and empathy than anything else.

Yes, packed. Famously packed. 6.5% of privately educated children took 37% of Cambridge places, and 40% of Oxford places. That's a LOT of privilege in one place. And the other places are NOT being taken up by kids from deprived areas - overseas students and students from those 'excellent' state schools and grammars that wealthy people buy houses to be in the catchment for take up most of the others.

Agree not "packed" but your data is not accurate. 17% of sixth form students in UK are privately educated. In Oxford 2021 they made up 31.8% of UK undergraduates admitted (and about 26% of all undergrads). A gap, but nowhere near as big as you suggest. And based on survey results in my own College in 2021, 23% had household incomes below 30K and the median household income was just over 50k. Bearing in mind that households with young adults are probably going to be at peak earning age, this doesn't suggest they are hugely wealther than average really.

@mast0650 take your beef up with The Times and TES then. That’s their figures.
part of an article on how hard done by some rich people are feeling now they can’t automatically buy their way in.

Thye've used total figures for private schools rather than sixth forms. And they've used very out of date figures for admissions.

Oh come on op. Clearly the 2 colleagues you refer to are in cloud cuckoo land and are very entitled and out of touch with reality. But you must know this, so why are you commenting.

@mast0650 yes, because going by whether or not you were almost completely private’s educated or not is a better indicator of background than just going in with form.
many private schools don’t have 6th form and above but more importantly Uni was are realising that more and more parents are sending their children to state 6th forms in the hope that their children look less, well privately educated and privileged.

admissions aren’t daft though, I know lots of parents going down this route for various reason, which is why they look at the whole Education for an applicant, not just where they did A Levels.

as it should be if they’re genuine about trying to make Oxbridge and other universities more diverse and equitable. Hopefully the world is changing a little, money won’t be able to buy everything.

Unless of course, you believe that the children who go to private school really are more intelligent and hardworking than ALL of the other 93% odd state educated children in this country?
personally, I don’t think that’s the case. £££ can buy grades and success though. Just look at the Royals and people like Boris Johnston

You sound a bit chippy @Herroyal

I don’t know why you’re mentioning Oxbridge admissions because this isn’t anything like Oxbridge. This conversation has been had on mumsnet before. The problem is that there is a difference between being around posh rich people in highly paid professions and being around posh rich people in low paying high status professions. Working-class people in publishing and the arts have the worst experience of posh people and complete contempt for them because they are meeting the thickos.

I know for a fact that highly paid professions aren’t like this. Sorry if this bursts your bubble.

I've known people be utterly baffled by my relatively straitened circumstances in the past. At university, I went off a completely gorgeous young man when he couldn't accept the fact that, to me, a holiday was a week in another family member's council house in a different part of the country. 'Yes, but where do you go for your real holiday?' As in, the Caribbean, or maybe the Seychelles?
Another, a woman this time, had an argument with my room mate when she didn't believe that not every British person had their own passport. Literally could not get her head around it at all. I think that argument sprang, ironically, from talk about a skiing trip. My room mate's idea of a treat was a half of cider or a packet of digestives, and she was trying to extract herself from the unaffordable plans.

@Chickenly I judge people from the privileged nonsense that comes out in RP not the RP itself. I could give you a thousand real life examples… as a WC person in a MC working environment I experience it every single day. Some of it would be comedic if it wasn’t so demeaning. It’s so ingrained they’re not even aware of it. I don’t doubt your credentials for EDI but really, seeing that trumpeted by the affluent and educated has a different resonance through working class eyes.

When I was early 20s an older friend of mine who liked flashing her wealth knew I was looking for a house to buy, my 1st one. She used to show me photos of houses 450k 500k and say look round this one. I had uni debt and was on a low salary in my 1st job. Noway i could afford that. She nust have known and was being spiteful. Annoyed me as she only got money through inheritance, not through hard work herself.

many private schools don’t have 6th form and above but more importantly Uni was are realising that more and more parents are sending their children to state 6th forms in the hope that their children look less, well privately educated and privileged.

I just think that the 17% going to private school at sixth form level is a more relevant benchmark to judge Universities by, since Universities are recruiting only from the population who stay on for sixth form, that's all. Universities can't really influence who stays in education beyond 16 and they can't be expected to admit those who have no education beyond 16.

Otherwise you are correct. Universities are looking at a lot more than whether applicants went o a private/state sixth form. They look at where they were at school for GCSEs, the grade distribution of both schools, proportion of free school meals, socio-economic characteristics of postcode etc. Just switching to a state school for sixth is very unlikely to help. Not sure what relevance that has to my data though!

Anyway, this is totally off topic. I just felt a need to interject.

I've heard people talk like that. I once overheard a group of tween/teenagers (they looked 12 or 13) talking about one of their friends only being able to go skiiing twice that year - and another friend responding that it's basically neglect. But they were young so I didn't think too much of it.

And I've had older colleagues make assumptions about where I ski (I've never been) and pastimes such as theatre, galleries and private member clubs. But generally they don't insist otherwise if I tell them I'm not familiar with the topic they are discussing.

That said, I have had a private schooled colleague make fun of the fact that my shitty state secondary wasn't ranked (I didn't even know schools were ranked tbh), and compare it with their top 20 ranked school. And I have had a local parent "joke" (on our first meeting) that the side of town I live in is the "ghetto" and they bring their kids to my side of town for "exposure", and to see how poor people live.

I think I'm really easy going, not assertive at all, and don't get offended easily so people "joke" a lot of things to me that the probably shouldn't say out loud. Long way of saying, I wouldn't be surprised if the OP is telling the truth.

See, there’s a difference between being super rich and being incredibly poor. I grew working class and have never skied in my life but I still went on holiday. Also, we didn’t live in a council house. Not every non rich person does.

@MarieRoseMarie I genuinely have no idea what point you're trying to make in the context of this thread. Yes, there's a difference between being very rich and very poor. What does that, or the fact that you didn't grow up in a council house, have to do with anything?

YANBU DH grew up with lots of money and I frequently have to pull him up on talking rubbish - asking people why they don't 'just' do something that costs a fortune, it just never seems to occur to him that people need to save money/don't have the money/can't just take another more expensive option. It has also been very difficult trying to get him to understand that we need to keep the heating at a reasonable temperature over the last few months...

My husband when to private school and went to New York on a school trip.... we went to Tesco's ones to see how they made the doughnuts 😂
We can laugh about it though, but he's not from a rich background he had a scholarship.

Chatting with a colleague who's just been ski-ing, and it came up that I've never been skiing. He was properly - what NEVER? what about as a kid? What about with school? You MUST have been. I jokingly said 'not many mountains where I'm from' and he said, but that's why you go to the Alps, silly. So I told him not only did I not going ski-ing as a child I'd also never went abroad til I was an adult. His response? Did you family have a place in the UK then? Is that where you summered? He had an eccentric uncle who insisted only only going to the hse in Cornwall etc
He then told me it was practically child neglect that we weren't taking our kids skiing now. EVERYBODY skis.

He absolutely did 'have a clue'. He knew what he was saying, he totally does know how non-rich people live, and he was saying it deliberately, to try and embarrass you or put you down.
Some rich people have no class.

I think maybe this is where you may differ from the “average” person. You are saying that a guy you knew was baffled that your “holiday” was a trip to another relative’s council house in the UK. Well, that would have been a pretty shocking holiday for me and I grew up working class! Working class people can go and do go on holiday. Maybe not to the Seychelles but to Blackpool or a cheaper destination in Europe. I don’t think your experiences are common tbh.

Your roommate had to “treat” herself with half a packet of digestives. Again, that is not typical of an average not rich person. The non rich go to restaurants and cinemas and buy things with disposable income.

If you are talking about the poorest people in the UK, fine, but I’m not sure your experiences are any more typical than his. It’s very different from not going skiing or not having someone give you a free house. You are talking about extreme poverty but presumably the OP is talking about everyone BUT the rich.

EXACTLY!

@Herroyal they are mocking you. I’m sorry but they are making a fool of you. They are saying it as a put down, pretending not to understand and delighting in you explaining it to them.

Please understand that they are being sarcastic. They completely understand that not everyone skis. This is just a very English way of insulting you. You seem to genuinely believe you are educating them. You aren’t. Please stop going along with it.