To be too uneducated for Mumsnet

[est1999]

When I'm on Mumsnet I feel so uneducated.

MN seems to be known for being a bit middle class or maybe that is now a dated assumption

I've made a few threads in the past under a different username and some of the words other Mumsnetters have used I admit I've had to Google the meaning of!

Everyone seems to have a degree or their children are in the process of getting one (if they're old enough)

Most women on here also seem to be very high earners. 50k+

And private schools are a norm for sure.

Maybe that's just my Mumsnet algorithm so to speak lol.

I used to earn between 26-28k per year in a basic admin job. No degree. No A-levels. Now I earn even less after having DC and going part time.

Anyone else feel the same as me at times?

I'm not saying there aren't. It was just a reference to a cliche on here is all.

Maybe it’s considered they are too traditional to be able to turn on a phone or too out of touch to find a real forum! How utterly bizarre to make such assumptions.

What’s cliche about it? Is your life called a ‘cliche’ for whatever reason? Can you not reduce any one to a cliche? It’s pretty offensive tbh

She didn't invent the cliche!

It's a definite thing on here. Whenever there is a thread about wealth and class signifiers (ie, all the time), people pop up to tell us that they mix with viscounts and duchesses, and they all have old bangers covered in dog hair and mud everywhere etc etc. The joke isn't that such people may or may not exist, it's that this is the representation that's trotted out every time the discussion comes up. It's the predictability of it. It never changes.

There doesn't seem to be a cliche as such of working class people (just a general horror at the idea of being "common"). But it's as if this were also a popular experience to share, and everyone's known working class person is Vicky Pollard. It's ridiculous.

But that's the privilege isn't it. Despite higher than average earnings we couldn't afford to buy anything until we were in our mid 30s and we had to get a 30 yr mortgage to get a flat in London. I don't know many of our friends who will be mortgage free in their 50s without significant inheritance.

Privilege is a poor choice of word for something that should be a human right

It implies something undeserved I think

Whereas everyone (human right ) should have the chance of a decent and affordable home and the truth today is that without (!undeserved) inheritance most people are not having that option

I saw a thread on here where someone described the salary I earn, a salary that is more than my parents' household income twenty years ago, as 'a really low salary for London'. True, we don't own our own place and that seems to be the metric by which 'doing well' is judged, but for me being able to go to the supermarket and not have to keep a running total in my head of what I'm spending makes me feel a level of well-off that I never thought I'd achieve, and that's quite a nice thing.

Also, if you'd told me twenty years ago that I'd be earning what I do now and still feel like there's no chance of us buying our own place, I'd never have believed you. A lot of 'doing well' is thanks to generational wealth and/or advantages not everyone has - the parents who were able to pay off the student loan in one go so that they didn't have to pay off massive amounts of interest for the next few years, the family home big enough for someone to move into and commute to work from so that they can save for a deposit, the relative who left something in the will to allow for moving to a larger house or being able to have that second child - I work in a very middle-class industry now, and whilst my immediate colleagues are from a range of backgrounds (not all have degrees, even) I notice it a lot when I meet others. On the other hand, I was shocked when I learned how much childcare costs as where I grew up kids were looked after by extended family, which is less common for middle-class households, and it's easier to get things like housing association homes there rather than paying massive private rents.

Once again, I was talking about people who are in their 50s already. I was replying to a poster saying you had to be very wealthy to have paid off your mortgage in your 50s and I was pointing out that, actually, no you didn't. If you took out a 25-year mortgage on a house in your mid-20s and never moved then the mortgage was paid off when you were in your 50s. Were we lucky that this was (sometimes only just) affordable? Absolutely. But it's not privilege.

Of course I am massively sympathetic to the current generation of 20 and 30 year olds who can't afford mortgages – I have 3 of them myself after all, 2 of whom are currently having to live at home. The lack of low-cost housing and starter homes for that generation is a disgrace imho.

@thing47 I paid my mortgage off when I was 42. It wasn't a massive one to begin with though. I took it out at 25 when I started "proper" work and overpaid. Thank Christ I did.