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?

My mum was born in the 40's and she drove right up until she had her 1st stroke at 72. Her dad was a bin man and her mum was a cleaner in "the big house" so as working class as it's possible to get. My parents both insisted that me and my sisters all learned to drive as soon as we were legally allowed to.

My mum was born in 1918, she drove. I was born in 1953 and don’t know anyone who doesn’t drive. If you live here it’s pretty much a necessity.

Going back the generations, even those born in the 1890s drove, except one who had epilepsy. The generation born immediately after WW1 all had driving licenses as do those born after WW2. MC though.

My mum and MIL, both born in the 40's and from working class backgrounds, drive and have done so since they were teens. My grandmother was born in 1915 and applied for a driving license before tests were compulsory, she never drove a car but thought proof of identity was useful.

All my friends mothers drove, working class families. My mum really should give it up now.

My mum went to uni and never drove. Neither did my dad. All of my school friends mum's drove and they were all working class - working in supermarkets, admin, childcare. All one car families.

I know very few women born before 1980s who don't drive. I've never come across this phenomenon of working-class older female non-drivers and I grew up in a very deprived estate in the 80s. Everyone's mum drove or had a driving licence. How else would you get to work?

Most of the women I know who don't drive are middle class city dwellers 40s or under.

I think you're a gneration too low. My mum was born in 1950 and learned to drive in her early 20s. Her mum never drove. Neither did any of her MILs.

Working class background here, with the women the next generation up born in the 1940s. In my experience you're not far off the mark. A lot of it was to do with being able to walk to work, in local shops, factories and schools. Cars weren't needed for that, and the budget didn't allow for a second set of driving lessons. Jobs were frequently part time, to fit in with the needs of young children. In our family, there wasn't even one car, never mind two, so my mum learning to drive was so far down the list of priorities it was well out of sight.
MIL felt it was important for women to learn to drive, though she never took the car further away than a seven mile radius, and decided she'd had enough by the age of 70. But at least she didn't have to wait for her DH to get the shopping in.

My mum was born in 1939, working class, and learned to drive. She only stopped driving quite recently.

Perhaps the difference is how aspirational they were rather than the class they were born into or how much money was around? My aunt (on my dad's side) is younger and never learned to drive, but did jobs like school dinner lady just to supplement income, whereas my mum sometimes earned more than my dad, did white collar jobs and also ran her own business at one point.

Not in my experience.

My Mum was born in 1948. She died a while ago but I can't think of any of her friends who didn't drive. Working class background but middle class once married and friendship circle reflective of that.

I've also thought about my friends' mothers. All have a driving licence. They don't all drive very much - depends on the family. This happens even now my DBro is a petrolhead and my SIL is very take it or leave it so he does most of the driving when they travel together.

My maternal grandmother couldn't drive and I think this was a class/ self imposed "oh I couldn't" thing. My mother only learnt to drive in her late 20s encouraged by my paternal grandparents (they bought her a car).

Paternal family everyone drives. My Gran had her own car in the 1950s which was a pretty novel thing.

My grandmother can drive, my grandfather can’t. She was born in ‘42 and both were from working class backgrounds. She was married at 18, and had two children by 20 (definitely not university educated!). GF always worked ‘in the city’, whereas she was out in the suburbs with the children so felt that she needed to be able to drive. She learned when my mum was about 5 IIRC.

Oh and as a London dweller it's really common to find professional peers who don't drive which really surprises me (loads of us don't have cars - I didn't for years, not having a driving licence is the bit that surprises me. Having driving lessons was just expected of me. didn't even stop to think if I wanted them. I just did them).

When I worked out of London I needed a car to get to and from work as I did really odd shifts. It's part of the job.

A couple of my bosses out of London lost their licences for medical reasons and it was a totally bloody nightmare for them - one used to get dropped off and picked up from work by a combination of her teenage children and husband, occasionally someone from the hospital would take her home (this was a rural environment). Other worked on the periphery of a major city and got cabs and had to sleep in when on call (which was really uncommon then).

What a sweeping generalisation. My mother, her sisters and pretty much every other woman I know born in the 1950s, in the rough end of Hartlepool, all drive.

Oh and as a London dweller it's really common to find professional peers who don't drive which really surprises me (loads of us don't have cars - I didn't for years, not having a driving licence is the bit that surprises me. Having driving lessons was just expected of me. didn't even stop to think if I wanted them. I just did them).

Yes I found that moving to London too. I didn't drive for years, living in London boroughs and met peers who didn't drive. But where I grew up, I worked part time in a country pub from the age of 17 and had to rely on a bus or lifts to get there and back, so that was an incentive to learn to drive and pass my test.

My Mum was born in 1950 and every woman I’ve ever met born in the 1950s no matter what class, drives. I think it was all part of the feminist movement of the 1960/70s. Also a lot of them worked when their kids went to school, so they had to drive.

But since I moved to the Cambridgeshire countryside, the amount of Gen X women I’ve met who can’t drive is astounding. We’re an hour away from the nearest A&E, god knows how much a cab would cost in an emergency! Whereas every female Gen X’er in Surrey I knew could drive and it was considered weird not to be able to. So as much as I hate to say it, maybe a regional thing?

Driving, and learning to drive, is expensive. Always has been.

DH didn't pass his test until he was in his 30s. Until we married and moved away from the sink estate town he grew up in, he'd never needed to. He cycled/walked everywhere and his life/world was very small and closed.

We moved rural, and it became necessary for him to drive. I'd been driving since I was 21, which felt late to me because the bubble I grew up in was very different to the one he did. We're both 80s babies.

TLDR: poor people have, generally, always found it harder to afford driving unless absolutely necessary. Decade of birth is irrelevant.

There is a huge difference between driving when born in the 50s, which means being in the 70s now, and driving now when you are in your 40/50.

What on earth class has to do with it? I did not drive until I was in my mid 30s, I didn't need it. I lived in Madrid with fabulous public transport.

I've got my driver's license because I felt it was important in case of relieving my DH in long trips but I never did.

It changed when we moved to Australia. I only had to pass a theory test but in my case, being 50s, I actually had to learn to drive.

I've driving now for 10 years but I don't understand where is the class issue comes into it. School kids are picked up by government buses anyway.

I am in my fifties and I know people my age and older who can't drive - all women. Far less than there used to be though.

My parents were late 40's early 50's as were all of their friends. I don't know a single one of them who doesn't drive.

Of the late '30s-'59 women I know, it has tended to be the lower middle classes that either didn't drive or learned later into adulthood. Either very part-time pin money jobs or housewife set-ups. They weren't expected to keep working after having had children and tended to leave secretarial/ teaching type jobs in pregnancy. Household incomes were sufficient but not plentiful so the expense of driving lessons and second cars wasn't a priority. A husband being the primary driver and drives the big car and wife has a local run-about was a pretty common attitude.

DM passed her test in her 30s. DB and I were both old enough to drive in the '90s. DB had lessons from 17 and passed his test soon after. He was later provided with a basic car for commuting for his uni placement. I had to pay for my own lessons out of my gap-year earnings in my early 20s and source my own car. DM's old-fashioned sexist attitudes about gender stereotypes has affected my opportunities. DB can drive across the country and she won't bat an eyelid, but my driving a long distance will attract comment and concern.

I was born in 1951. Learned to drive in 1977 after many months of walking past our parked car and trudging into town with 2 DCs and a pram. I worked as a SS waitress in the evenings and paid for my own lessons. Best thing I ever did and I'm still doing it pretty well IMO.

This might be the case among your friends OP but unless you have thousands of friends it's just your observation from a very small percentage of women born in the 40s and 50s.

I was born towards the end of the 40s and know a fair number of women around my age from various backgrounds and all of them drive and own their own cars. We live in a semi rural area and driving is pretty much essential if you want to go anywhere.

The only woman I've know recently who didn't drive was from a very middle class background. Her husband used to drive them everywhere and when her husband died she had no form of transport other than taxis - she also lived semi rurally and was too far from the nearest bus stop to walk to it.

She ended up having to move to somewhere more urban or become completely isolated.