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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be irritated DS is 'posh' like DH?

402 replies

highlandsabroad · 05/12/2023 07:44

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!

OP posts:
1mabon · 06/12/2023 08:32

Love it.

Istheworldmadorisitme · 06/12/2023 09:22

shellmo4 · 06/12/2023 07:21

I was born in England but raised in Scotland. There are some fantastic books written in broad Scots, give him a book of Rabbie Burns poems for Christmas lol. Teach him about the Lochness Monster. There are fantastic gifts on a site called pureminted You need to make him interested in your heritage so pull out all the stops. Unfortunately his schooling is going to make him a posh boy. Teach him how tae gie it laldy 🤣

This is a terrible piece of advice. Come on he doesn't need to be educated about the Loch Ness Monster or the Scots language. He needs to be taught about the clearances. And the awful state of Scottish land ownership. Then he might understand where his mother is coming from. Mind you I am in a similar situation to the OP without the upper class bit and the money and my son knows all about Scottish history because I've told him. It's that simple.

NeverDropYourMooncup · 06/12/2023 09:29

WinterDeWinter · 05/12/2023 16:35

I do think that people who complain about inverse snobbery must be absolutely blind to the optics of this stuff. The hurt feelings of a few in no way equate to the ongoing social, physical and psychological price extracted from those at the sharper end of inequality and honestly, you do yourselves no favours.

I understand it's not nice for individuals and bullying is shit - but when you look at what is lost by the majority, it's extraordinarily tone-deaf to do anything other than try to explain to your children that it's not personal but the outcome of inequality.

Try and step back and look at the situation honestly. It is hard (I mean it, I'm not sneering) but it can be done - and it's very shocking when you allow yourself to see what our system does to many millions of children just like yours.

Not always. It's also used, as in my experience, to silence and keep people 'in their place' - taking the piss out of my accent when I was trying to get the words out silenced me. Getting angry at me for watching a documentary instead of Big Brother 'because that's what normal people do'. Smashing up my (MFI, thirty quid) bookcase and destroying my books and CDs (including a copy of the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, Beowulf and a bunch of classical, opera, jazz and choral music as well as Metallica, Pink Floyd, assorted Blues, Reggae and Madness) because one of his friends had noticed them. There's the 'You aren't going to university, who do you think you are - Lady Muck? University's not for people like you' restrictions. It even permeates to things as ridiculous as 'You think you're so special because you've got a Waitrose carrier to wrap around your Primark umbrella - normal people get everything from ASDA' (not when ASDA is four buses away and Waitrose is one going practically door to door in fifteen minutes).

Somebody using everything they possibly could (and it wasn't just the ex, there was similar from the parent and other kids at school) to keep somebody down because of snobbery about TV, shops, music, books, clothes, their voice, everything about them is not character building and is most certainly not for the Common Good.

NippySweetie16 · 06/12/2023 09:34

Scot here. You and your wee family are very privileged so your boy will inevitably receive lots of 'posh' input. Up to you then to open him up to the culture and history of Scotland. As previous poster wrote, make sure he understands how Scotland - and indeed the UK - came to be as it is, pain and all. The clans, the clearances, the comings and goings of other peoples. Make him an internaltional citizen but a Scot at his core :-)

shellmo4 · 06/12/2023 09:45

How is it a terrible piece of advice? Away an gie us peace!

hydriotaphia · 06/12/2023 09:55

It's not just the son that's posh/privileged. Living in the expensive city of Paris (I guess) with a husband rich enough to be worried about IHT, pay private school fees, afford a nice lifestyle for the family (another guess) AND (I guess again) allow his wife to pursue her dreams as an artist without the usual artist's worries about how to pay bills etc is a level of privilege that most people can only dream of. Sorry, but you are not a working class hero OP, you are yourself a fully paid up member of the economic overclass.

monsteramunch · 06/12/2023 10:57

SuspiciousSue · 06/12/2023 07:21

I lost interest in your post when you said you were trying to dictate how he should pronounce his letter ‘a’. Sounds like he speaks better than you to be honest 🤷‍♀️

Better?

So one accent is somehow 'better' than another? I can only assume the 'better' one in your opinion is the one closest to RP?

NatashaGoldthorpe · 06/12/2023 11:19

You've got every right to feel this way. My advice is to make sure he experiences some Scottish culture. Stick Still game on the TV and enjoy

derxa · 06/12/2023 11:25

NatashaGoldthorpe · 06/12/2023 11:19

You've got every right to feel this way. My advice is to make sure he experiences some Scottish culture. Stick Still game on the TV and enjoy

How ridiculous. Urban Scottish culture is a world away from life as a crofter. We are not a homogenous lump. It's akin to saying that all English people have the same culture.

derxa · 06/12/2023 11:27

One quarter of Edinburgh kids go to private school

Barbadossunset · 06/12/2023 11:36

I’m beginning to think this thread is a wind up.
Op thinks “what winds up mumsnetters the most? I know, loo brushes and class. Hmm….class has more opportunity for personal atttacks so I’ll choose that”.
i reread the original post and it’s so ridiculous that it can’t be true. However the op has certainly succeeded in provoking a row.

derxa · 06/12/2023 11:39

Barbadossunset · 06/12/2023 11:36

I’m beginning to think this thread is a wind up.
Op thinks “what winds up mumsnetters the most? I know, loo brushes and class. Hmm….class has more opportunity for personal atttacks so I’ll choose that”.
i reread the original post and it’s so ridiculous that it can’t be true. However the op has certainly succeeded in provoking a row.

Think you're right:
Private school
Accents
Social class
Poor oppressed Scots
Anti Tory
Brava OP

Barbadossunset · 06/12/2023 12:03

Derxa I feel an idiot falling for it.

derxa · 06/12/2023 12:12

Barbadossunset · 06/12/2023 12:03

Derxa I feel an idiot falling for it.

Me too

newnamethanks · 06/12/2023 14:59

This reminds me of an ancient episode of The Archers.
Brian to Jennifer 'what about this new nanny we've got on trial? Will we keep her?'
Jennifer 'I'm not sure darling. Don't you think her vowels are, um, a little bit, well, dirty?

Charlize43 · 06/12/2023 16:36

As the OP and her family live in France, it will be irrelevant that she has an El Posho husband & son, as to the French they'll just all be 'rosbif' 😆

tennesseewhiskey1 · 06/12/2023 17:05

I’m not from this continent - my kids sound just like my husband who is from a boarding school and tbf - they sound posher than him 😂 doesn’t bother me tho - they were born here - all their friends sound like them. They used to try and sound like me but alas - I’ve asked them to stop because their accent makes the words sound strange 😂🤣

RampantIvy · 06/12/2023 17:07

When I worked in Sheffield my colleagues told me that they thought I had a posh accent. I think it was because I don't have a Yorkshire accent, and South London accents were perceived as posh (I don't know why).

coxesorangepippin · 06/12/2023 17:18

Has he ever watched Trainspotting??

Palewildflower · 06/12/2023 18:32

As long as he likes Irn-Bru and knows what a Jobby is, you’ve done your job.

MissBuffyAnneSummers · 06/12/2023 18:41

Palewildflower · 06/12/2023 18:32

As long as he likes Irn-Bru and knows what a Jobby is, you’ve done your job.

Brilliant

Beexxxx · 07/12/2023 11:30

scon IS the posh version apparently!

Ahwhatthehell · 07/12/2023 11:56

I understand that this is supposed to be a light hearted thread but (as someone who lives a form of this snobbery/inverted snobbery every day) it’s making me feel quite sad.

Isnt there a lot of bigoted people in the world. I love to hear ‘different’ accents to mine. My kids have a different accent to me and I’m certainly not horrified by it. Some people where I live are snotty about mine and mimic me though.

fishfingersandchipsagain · 07/12/2023 13:33

NeverDropYourMooncup · 06/12/2023 09:29

Not always. It's also used, as in my experience, to silence and keep people 'in their place' - taking the piss out of my accent when I was trying to get the words out silenced me. Getting angry at me for watching a documentary instead of Big Brother 'because that's what normal people do'. Smashing up my (MFI, thirty quid) bookcase and destroying my books and CDs (including a copy of the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, Beowulf and a bunch of classical, opera, jazz and choral music as well as Metallica, Pink Floyd, assorted Blues, Reggae and Madness) because one of his friends had noticed them. There's the 'You aren't going to university, who do you think you are - Lady Muck? University's not for people like you' restrictions. It even permeates to things as ridiculous as 'You think you're so special because you've got a Waitrose carrier to wrap around your Primark umbrella - normal people get everything from ASDA' (not when ASDA is four buses away and Waitrose is one going practically door to door in fifteen minutes).

Somebody using everything they possibly could (and it wasn't just the ex, there was similar from the parent and other kids at school) to keep somebody down because of snobbery about TV, shops, music, books, clothes, their voice, everything about them is not character building and is most certainly not for the Common Good.

Show quote history

@NeverDropYourMooncup i am so sorry that you went through that. I hope things are better now.

RampantIvy · 07/12/2023 13:46

I love to hear ‘different’ accents to mine. My kids have a different accent to me and I’m certainly not horrified by it.

I love to hear different accents and dialect. I have a South London accent and DD has a soft Yorkshire accent.

I love hearing local words - ginnel or snicket for alleyway (Leeds), bait for packed lunch (Geordie), ey up for hello (Barnsley).

I must admit I do get irritated by incorrect grammar - "You was, we was", but it is how local people speak, so I stay quiet.

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