To think for women born in the '50s, driving is a class thing?

[DaggersDrawn]

Of my friends who's mums are 40s/50s born - I've noticed that every one who's mums don't drive are working class. Those whose mums drive are uni educated/ middle class - bar a few exceptions.

AIBU to be surprised at this in the Year of Our Lord 2023?

I was also born in the 50s, council house working class and was driving my own car by the time I was 21. My mother, born 1935, w/c was driving in her early 20s, MIL born 1925 was also driving in her early 20s.

Seems a bit snobby to assume that every single woman born before 1960 didn't drive because husbands didn't want us to. I know very few women who haven't been drivers.

I had an ex who said I should only drive small cars because I was a woman and wouldn't be able to handle a big car. I got rid of him and bought myself a Capri 3.0 Ghia - happy days!

What an awful snob you are!

My paternal grandmother drove from the age of 17 until she died suddenly in her 60s. Born in the 1940s, very working class.

My maternal grandmother never learned to drive. My grandfather did all the driving until he had a stroke and could no longer, then my mum or her brother would give them lifts. She was born in the 1930s and was very middle class.

I think the area where people live has a lot more bearing on this and it may be different depending on whether people live rurally or in towns and cities. Although rurally living woman of previous generations who have now died might have managed with buses, bicycles and tradesmen making deliveries, that is not possible today. Rural public transport has almost disappeared, roads are too busy for family cycling trips and most women need to get to work now rather than wait in for the butcher, baker and grocer to call. In the village where I live every adult drives unless ill health has caused them to let their driving licences lapse.

Absolutely not the reason in my family. Dad is, and has never been, misogynistic. It was simply money priorities.

My apologies @AbraxanYour money point is equally as valid, but my point about men who won't let their wives drive still stands.

My mum was born in 1949 and learned to drive when she was 17. My dad born in 1948 has never driven - I think he did try once but it is never spoken of!

I remember when I was 6, at school we had to say what colour car our daddy drove and made a bar chart of them. I was very worried and asked if it was all right to say what colour car my mummy drove 😂😃

You can be uni educated and working class OP.

I can't think of a single woman I know that doesn't/hasn't driven regardless of age, including all women that I remember from my Grandma's generation. But nearly all of them were brought up in, or married into, rural families. Some were maybe classed as middle class as farmers, although most I would call working class. Maybe it's location as well as class?

My mum was born in the ‘30s and learnt to drive in her 20s. Working class household. Her older sister didn’t learn, but married young. My mum was single for longer - got married at 30 - so she had more disposable income after paying for her board while she lived at home with her parents.

I was born in 1958 working class and have been driving 42 years. Absolutely love it. My mum didn't drive but my maternal gran did.

YABU - DM born in 50s met my DF as he was her driving instructor aged 18. Both DM and DF resolutely working class, although climbing.

My mum (1949) learned to drive in her 40s. Prior to that my wc parents wouldn’t have been able to afford 2 cars. Things were more localised, there was less traffic, so me and siblings walked to the local school. Loads of buses. I went to one after school activity a week. You could manage without driving.

I agree. Working class lives were very gendered before the mid to late 1960s. Most WC households did not own cars. For those who did, driving was definitely the man’s role. Neither my WC mum, who was born in the early 50s, or her sister, or their mother ever learned to drive. My middle class MIL did drive, and always owned her own car.

My mum born 1939 drove from 17 (distinctly upper middle class - v wealthy)
My grandmother only learned to drive in her 50s due to Grandfathers illness and living very rurally. Born 1908.

Thanks to dad betting away all the loot ... we were distinctly on our uppers (mum now widowed and on supplementary benefit as UC was then called) but made it her life's work to teach us all to drive (5 kids)

As did I. I taught 2 husbands , 2 kids and 5 step kids.. double lesson for 17th birthday and then I did the rest. I consider driving an essential life skill.

Nothing riles me more on MN to see the words 'DH/DP drives, i don't' ... if you are blind, have uncontrolled epilepsy then fine... otherwise if you have a car in the family and are an actual adult human than do you understand exactly the pressure you put upon your other half ?

I have wheelchair bound friends who have adapted cars through motorbility.

I have a step child who attended a school for children with moderate to severe autism.. who learned to drive.

I even have a friends sister WITH ONE EYE who is allowed to drive.

There is literally no excuse if you live outside London or another big city with great public transport links .. but most of all if your household has a car .

Have not RTWT. Has anyone suggested there cd be a link with the availability of public transport?

My family background is rural. My grandmothers, countrywomen born in mid 1880s and 1890, did not drive; their husbands despite being born earlier, did. My father, b 1912, did; my mother, b 1921, learned in 1957 when he hospitalised for 3 months after a bad fall from a horse. I had 10 aunts; all but 2 drove; one of those had an urban background. The other was just ... odd. All my 17 female cousins drive; dobs range from mid 1940s to 1960s.

I live in a village. All the elderly women drive until their health fails.

Waves @Ragwort

I was born in 1955, definitely WC. We never had a car, didn’t have a TV until 1966, but my Mum would never have driven. Only female who drove was my Aunt who broke the mould and went to Uni just after the war.

I drive, as do all my friends my age but none of us got licences until we were in our 30’s.

Both my dgm were working class born in 30's and 40's. One drove, one didn't. My sil is from a wc background and doesn't drive and neither did her dm. The men in their family drive the women around. I look at my db who drives everywhere and brings sil everywhere and it would do my head in.

My mum was born in 1918, she drove, my dad didn't.

Both my working class parents were born in the 40's, my dad always drove but my mum didn't learn to drive till she was about 50 when she was with her 2nd husband. Majority of the women and quite a few of the men too in both my parents families don't/didn't drive. Some did learn in later life, again talking age 30 - 40+. We do live in a major city with good public transport though so that might also factor in.

Mum was born in 1940's, drives not university educated.

A MC ex colleague of mine (both her dcs went to Oxford), born early 1950s, never learned to drive for 2 simple reasons - in the early days of their marriage they couldn’t afford lessons for her, let alone her own car, and later on it didn’t seem necessary, because she had only a short walk to work, ditto her dcs to school - and the area always had v good public transport.

My mum was born mid 40s-very working class family and drove at 17. Moped test first then car. She left school and went to work and paid for her own driving lessons which she says weren’t as costly as they are now.

I grew up in a very working class/ council estate area and all of my school friend's mums drove and would all have been 1940's born. Our town was a 'New Town" designed to be driven around so maybe that's why.

Mum didn't take her test until she was almost 30 but as soon as she did she bought her own car to get some independence.

I'm intrigued by the 'family could only afford one car' comments - I've only ever been part of a household with one car (or none), and that's the norm where I live, but virtually all my friends (male and female) can drive.

Incidentally, my mum (born in the 50's) didn't learn to drive until she was 35, but that was a choice; the family could have afforded it much earlier. Her mother had a licence (and her own car).