To be irritated DS is 'posh' like DH?

[highlandsabroad]

Ok slightly clickbaity title but please don't flame - supposed to be (sort of) lighthearted!

I am early 40s, DH early-mid 50s. We have 1 DS, who is 13. (who we both totally adore).

I am Scottish and from a very loving, but very ordinary background. My parents were a primary school teacher and a countryside ranger / handyman / tour guide.

DH is from a v. posh part of London and from a family where his mother was basically an heiress + his father a lawyer. They can trace their family back for generations and it's all a bit ridiculous. I don't quite know how we've ended up together but we do love each other. (even though he has voted Tory in the past)

I was stunned that as soon as our DS started talking, he's just sounded exactly like DH. Despite my best efforts to teach him how to use the short 'a' in words (e.g. 'bath') out it comes as if he's been living in Surrey all his life, and as if he didn't have a Scottish bone in his body.

We live in a European country where he attends an international School, which is private but has kids from all over the world, so it's not as if he's even surrounded by little Hooray Henrys.

The other day it emerged DS knows all the distinctions in importance for various noble titles and ranks of the armed forces etc because DH has essentially taught him all this stuff 'because he just ought to know it 🤔'

• *I have taken DS back to my home several times, which he agrees under duress is beautiful, but he already seems more at home in DH's world.

There are some differences in parenting as well - DH assumed we would get a nanny, despite only living in a flat and having quite flexible jobs, and he wants to send DS to some posh boys' camp in the summer (in the UK) that he used to go to with his brothers.

I love DH and DS but I am disturbed by seeing just how strong those English public school genes are from generation to generation ... and I can't quite understand how I, a proud Scottish highlands woman, have somehow contributed to this!

You have absolutely NO idea about my world @WinterDeWinter - what do you actually know about me!?! Literally tell me everything you know, because it is barely anything is it. You know I have a child and pronounce things a certain way. Exactly the point - I would never judge someone on such scant knowledge because you don't know what individual circumstances people live in.

Actually it doesn't matter. Taking the piss out of people is wrong if they are the richest person in the world or the poorest.

That would definitely be enough to put any privately-educated, overseas-based 13 year old off drink and Scotland for life!

I was mercilessly bullied to the point of a mental health crisis as a child when we moved to an area where my RP accent was 'posh' so quite frankly you can shove that tiny violin.

Because of all the people that have so very little of it. It's a pitiful substitute for justice, but it's all we've got.

Well OP's son wouldn't be 'associating himself with that' if she hadn't married into it, though, would he?

I mean at least be principled and turn down that privilege for yourself and your potential child(ren) if you feel so strongly about it. And if you don't feel strongly enough to avoid 'associating yourself with it' then I really don't think you get to have a chip on your shoulder about it further on down the line.

No-one is standing in front of this child and taking the piss. You are massively over-reacting displaced guilt

😂

@Mirabai "My children are trilingual -posh, Yorkshire and Estuary Kentish

Peak MN."

Nope. Peak MN would be asking how to eliminate the Estuary Kentish and people suggesting a private school.....🤣

@kshaw as it's spelled. So to rhyme with "gone", then. 😉

(Yes, I'm Scottish and married to an Englishman.)

Why would you expect a child that doesn't live in the Highlands to sound like they are from the Highlands?

'international School, which is private' in a foreign country - what do you expect?

I went to an international school in a European country and everyone comes out with a a homogenous, non-accent close to RP or posh east coast US accents because its a melting pot of different people from differnt backgrounds. No one sounds like their parents, they sound like all the other people they hear around them. So I sound like your son even though I didn't live in England until after university. My friend is Welsh with a stong valleys accent and lives in Surrey and her kids sound like all the other Surrey /S London kids! He's not going to go around saying tidy when all his mates are saying innit is he?

Inverse snobbery.

Oh of course. It's absolutely fine and dandy to reinforce outdated cultural stereotypes and judge people on how they talk IF THEY CAN'T HEAR YOU!
Makes wonderful sense. Bitching about people is fine as long as you do it behind their backs.

Good I'd rather my accent and moral code than yours any day of the week - you are quite literally telling me I'm overreacting because I've said it's not right to take the piss out of people 😂. Not sure how you get to a point where you say it is, but hey ho!

Thank you @ThanksItHasPockets. I had the same. But apparently it's fine because we say bath the posh way.

Robbie Coltrane had a middle class Scottish upbringing but dropped the upper crust accent when he went to Glasgow School of Art. Maybe your son will too. Perhaps you should discuss the merits of a Scottish university

Fucking hell, first world problems. I think this is the last post I read on this site.

@highlandsabroad

Sometimes this just happens. I am Scottish, married to an Englishman and we live in Scotland. My son, when he began talking, sounded like Bertie Wooster, not helped by a slight difficulty pronouncing his r sounds. My mother would say "Don't you ever talk to that child?" 😠

As time has gone on, both my children have become slightly more Scottish-sounding but I would not say they have Scottish accents. I thought school would do it for sure (they went to the local state primary). Nope.

They are about as interested in Scottish culture and history as any kids (which is to say only a wee bit) but then they get it at school all the time. If your son doesn't feel that part of his heritage I think living away from Scotland is probably why, not your husband specifically.

I would agree with you if This child were named or identified, or if any of this impacted in him in any way. But it doesn’t. For the purposes of this thread, he is symbolic only, a way of discussing the reality of class and inherited privilege, and the price most of us pay to support it.

I think it’s far, far murkier to weaponise ‘be kind’ to protect your own unfair advantage.

I think you need to get over the chip on your shoulder to be honest. You’re being a reverse-snob. ‘Resist the English oppressors’ do you realise how racist that is? You sound like a drunk old man from the 1800s, not a 21st century mum.

Your son is not having the same type if childhood that you had. So he isn’t going to grow up like you did.

Don’t try to teach your son to speak differently to his dad and his teachers, that’s confusing and mean.

The ‘it was only a joke’ response is a bully’s attempt to evade being called to account for their behaviour.

You’re perpetuating that behaviour.

What’s wrong with being able to trace your family back? It’s brilliant! My mum spent a year researching our family tree and got back to the mid 1600s. Turns out we’re Scottish on both sides, posh and common! 😁

He is who he is, be proud of him.

Come on OP - you're really not 'stunned' that they haven't got a Scottish lilt or mannerisms, they have never lived in Scotland.

Just like my DC, they don't have Lancashire accents as they've been brought up in and around the home counties.
I take them to the post-industrial mill town I was brought up in to show them 'real life,' but a few times a year for a few days is hardly going to make a meaningful impact.

No i actually do disagree. The world would be a nicer, simpler and better place if people WERE kind to each other. This is my hill, I'm happy here. Privilege and disadvantage is an ongoing conversation that does need discussion, but without the slagging off. Which ever side you are in, being a dick about the other undermines your position and argument.

Does that mean I can't say people should be kind because I have a posh accent!?! 😂
I'll say what I damn well please thank you!

I wonder if there’s something.. not quite stronger, but I can’t think of the word.. about an English accent?
I’m southern English, XH is Scottish, with a broad Scottish accent, but despite both ds’s being raised in Scotland (one from pre school age, one from birth) they both have an English accent. Perhaps because of the additional influence of media, where there tend to be fewer Scottish voices, but I’m not sure that that would override where you’re educated and everything. It’s an interesting topic 🤔

International schools are more “monied” than posh. And attract thick, rich, French kids in Paris, who would struggle at one of the better French high schools, and with a Bac (my experience, my kids went to one in Paris). Mine ended up with a sort of mid-Atlantic accent (one) and standard RP (the other). The American twang was lost within months of return to U.K. And to be honest, in an international school it’s either going to be an RP accent or an American one that they come out with - where would they pick up a regional accent from?

Yep, there’s a definite ´international school’ accent that has nothing to do with poshness. It tends to be more prevalent in the non English kids and sounds slightly mid Atlantic. My son is at a (French) international school and has already picked up ´elevator’ and ´takeout’ (which I’m also now saying), although his accent remains unchanged.

The French state system is merciless, btw. Although son’s school is bilingual/international, it follows the state curriculum and the amount of homework is soul-destroying, plus teaching methods rigid. We’d love to be able to afford to put him in a fully international school.

Also, not every kid attending int school is posh. Many families are military, or having fees funded by the companies as they might have to move every few years. The int schools give the kids a uniform education.