Page 13 | To think 'chav' is not an okay thing to call people?

enternow99 · 2024-07-19T14:11:17+00:00

I find the use of chav on Mumsnet shocking. Is this name chavvy? Is this holiday destination chavvy? Is this outfit chavvy? Chavs moved in next door (I'm a leaseholder, they rent!!!!) I understand its snobbiness but isn't it a bit horrible?

chav1 · 19/07/2024 18:52

Maybe posters could ask one of the "chavs" on here what it means...anyone?

Original poster

enternow99 · 19/07/2024 18:53

MyOtherWheelchairIsABroomstick · 19/07/2024 18:38

A couple of years ago I would have agreed because I took it personally. I grew up on council estates. My family was the scruffy one. 1990s/2000s and we lived in absolute poverty despite my stepmother being disabled by depression and my dad driving a mobility car when he wasn'troaming the streets pissed up. No carpets, no clothes except school uniform, no food except school dinners sometimes. We had bin bags of rubbish all over the garden and my 'parents' drank all night, playing rubbish music from their jukebox (yep... they had a fruit machine in their living room too, which was financed in the finest unpaid hire purchase would buy). They kept us around long enough to keep claiming child benefit then chucked us out and presumably drank themselves to death. They weren't chavs in the sense that people think it's all Burberry and gold chains... just selfish alcoholics. I'm the eldest of 13 kids. My brother would beat me because he was my dad's punching bag and then go out and rob everyone's dust caps or siphon diesel for farmers. There was always drama. It was a horrible childhood, lots of domestic violence. Council house, alcoholic, violent - C H A V. So we were chavs and I disliked the word.

I spent years working hard and got myself out of poverty. Well, we are technically on the breadline but I'm breaking the cycle for my children. I know I'll never be rich or a high earner. I've been paying bills since I was 16, at a time when everyone at school was being given car keys and had a family home to stay in. I'm about 10years behind most people I know, financially. Due to working with older, more mature people and having to change the way I spoke and acted to "fit in", and doing well at school, college, uni, - I've always been surrounded by successful, better off people who would be horrified by the things that went on where I grew up. I just don't mention it. Not because they would judge me but I find it embarrassing. My "family" call me a snob and always bring some embarrassing drama to my door when we are in touch, like the police looking for them or taking out credit in my name. I'm happy to be called a snob to protect my family.

Chavs aren't salt of the earth sorts of people. They see people better off as their enemy. Not in a socialist/communist sort of way. Anyone who uses this site and has empathy or common decency would be eaten alive if you had to be around them.

After surrounding myself with "normal" people, owning my home, then renting privately, working, enjoying life... I started to think that I had been harsh and maybe a be snobby. I discovered socialism and started volunteering. I thought that maybe people who seemed rough around the edges were sort of "cheeky chappies" who had fallen on hard times. I too thought that chavs no longer existed.

However... I became disabled and when I couldn't get into my home I was given emergency housing in a council estate. I moved as soon as I could. I would rather die than go back there. It was a lawless cesspit. I was relentlessly harassed by my next door neighbours. A couple of drug users and their 4 adult children, none of them working and at home all day playing "gabber" music through their tinny phone speakers rested on the window sills. Drinking and smoking weed in the street like Shameless. Why do they all sit at the front of their house? I did my garden. They encouraged their ridiculous dogs to shit there and trampled it all. Threw cig ends and chewing gum everywhere. Footballs would hit my my house 100 times an evening until I stopped answering the door as I never knew if it was a person or a ball, or unsupervised kids playing knock a door run and I would get in my wheelchair for nothing. Instead I put a ring camera up. That's like a crime to these people. My nickname was then "the grass" as they couldn't use the side of my house to sell pills. They stole off me. Kids would climb over my back gate and just wander around my house like they knew me. Never put their bins out then would steal mine and not put those out either. They were all new builds with meter cupboard doors and letter boxes hanging off. Within a year it just looked like a bin. When I moved, kids were eating old freezer food from my skip while their mums [who were all single but had male sofa surfer friends for benefit purposes] would sit on their phones smoking on garden chairs and shouting across the street at everyone walking past. It was fucking awful. I am sorry to swear but while anyone is defending that kind of behaviour it makes me so angry. There were 22 houses on my street and 14 of them were on Homeswapper. All decent people desperate to move away.

Chav is the kindest word to use because I can think of A LOT worse. Would you want to live on an estate like that? Everyone thinks they're a kind, accepting people-person until the first night in your lovely new house the baghead next door slams her bedroom window 20 times and calls your 8yr old a c*nt for opening her curtains to look at the garden. I sued the housing association, won, and used the money to do up my new house. If you dont believe me about how bad it is then maybe join a social housing swap group and see how many put "no estates" on their ad.

Sadly, it's nearly impossible for children to come out of an environment of addiction, poverty, parental neglect, anti-social environments and a lack of community care as functioning adults. You've done amazingly well xx

OP posts:

Original poster

enternow99 · 19/07/2024 18:54

Skinglow · 19/07/2024 18:51

So you think all people who live on Council estates are chavs? Is that what you are saying?

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I think shes sharing her story and her perspective of the word.

OP posts:

Butchyrestingface · 19/07/2024 18:54

@enternow99 I don't use 'chav' (English) but have been know to say,

'Och, she's a right wee Senga, so she is.'

Needmorelego · 19/07/2024 18:55

@chav1 ok ...this is what I have always taken it to mean.
Me PERSONALLY that is. Not saying it's the actual meaning - but this is what I have always taken it as.
A chav is a person who wears a type of fashion. The fashion is often fake designer casual clothing (usually sports wear for males) worn with very bling jewellery, bags and watches etc.
Females will often have lots of make up.
The style seems to be a mix of casual but expensive looking (so "designer" tracksuits - the velvet Juicy Couture type ones) clothes.
The Burberry tartan was popular with the "chav" style - but fake Burberry was what was usually worn.

MyOtherWheelchairIsABroomstick · 19/07/2024 18:55

Needmorelego · 19/07/2024 18:44

@MyOtherWheelchairIsABroomstick the environment you have described is not what I would I associate with the word "chav" though.
That's my whole point to many of my posts - people seem to use it as an insult but not always in the way and meaning the same thing.

I understand - I've always known it to mean council-housed, alcoholic, violent... which describes the people I grew up with and my old neighbours. I never understood why the chavs on TV had matching tracksuits, jewellery and grey velvet, mirrored furniture houses. The council estates I grew up on with alcoholics were shitholes with unshaven gollum looking people with swinging jaws from all the drugs. They didn't care what their houses looked like and wouldn't even fix them if the windows were broke because it meant getting the social out and anyone who works for the government is a tosser and an enemy in those circles. We were allowed to draw and stick stickers all over the walls...

I can't believe people are saying people like that don't exist! Come to Bolton 😄

verabarbleen · 19/07/2024 18:55

I thought chav stood for (originally) council house and violence. That's where it stems from , now mostly it's about someone looks/acts . I hate it. Most people assume I'm a bit posh because I'm quite well spoken. I come from a council house , I live in a little village that doesn't like "chavs" most of the "chavs" I know are the kindest people who will help you in your darkest hour. It's so classist and disgusting and it really pisses me off .

Original poster

enternow99 · 19/07/2024 18:56

NastySting · 19/07/2024 18:45

Yep, but don't forget the drink in the can is alcohol and most people don't scream at their kids no matter how difficult they are. I notice you missed a few key details in your simplified version of events...

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Discreet and well done tattoos?

OP posts:

arethereanyleftatall · 19/07/2024 18:56

No @Skinglow that isn't what she is saying at all. She is saying, very articulately, that the people who lived there who behaved appallingly, were chavs. Rather obviously, there are millions of people living in council houses who aren't chavs.

chav1 · 19/07/2024 18:58

They are chavs but well behaved ones?

verabarbleen · 19/07/2024 19:02

@arethereanyleftatall I understand this then she should now call them arseholes which is what they are...rather than lumping everyone in together.

MyOtherWheelchairIsABroomstick · 19/07/2024 19:03

Skinglow · 19/07/2024 18:51

So you think all people who live on Council estates are chavs? Is that what you are saying?

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No. That is not what I said at all. I said that chavs do exist. I lived on an estate mostly full of them. I came from a council estate and I would not describe myself as a chav. I never was, which is why I'm no contact with my abusive alcoholic family. But the meaning of the word when I was growing up was that CHAV stood for council housed...

mumbo34 · 19/07/2024 19:05

chav1 · 19/07/2024 18:58

They are chavs but well behaved ones?

Edited

No because if they were well behaved they wouldn't be chavs. I'm not sure why this is so difficult to grasp...

I'm not saying all chavs are evil people. As I said, I certainly acted like/was one for a while in my younger years. I wasn't evil but I was behaving antisocially and illegally.

chav1 · 19/07/2024 19:05

Today 18:48
Maybe posters could ask one of the "chavs" on here what it means...
Today 18:52
Maybe posters could ask one of the "chavs" on here what it means...anyone?

No-one? Not curious to hear from the horses mouth?
Lost opportunity.

Just one thing before I leave,

If working class, romany, gypsy and traveller peoples are telling posters in this thread it's an offensive slur utilised against them and their people, why continue to use it?

ABirdsEyeView · 19/07/2024 19:05

@chav1 stop plugging that book! Are you Owen Jones im disguise?

Even if it is a term related to class, its not about working class, it relates to the 'underclass' of jobless, feckless types, who finance their lives through shady income streams and spend their days hanging round McDonalds and vandalising their town centres and housing estates!

arethereanyleftatall · 19/07/2024 19:08

You could flip that @chav1

Since it's a word aimed at antisocial behaviour, why continue to behave that way?

MyOtherWheelchairIsABroomstick · 19/07/2024 19:09

enternow99 · 19/07/2024 18:53

Sadly, it's nearly impossible for children to come out of an environment of addiction, poverty, parental neglect, anti-social environments and a lack of community care as functioning adults. You've done amazingly well xx

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Thank you :) I just want my children to have a normal life without the stresses I had. I feel like it's breaking the cycle. I am not bothered if anyone thinks I'm a snob. I'm really not. I do have sympathy for people who have got to where they are because of their own childhood, but not when their behaviour affects my family because I've dealt with my fair share of antisocial people in this lifetime x

thisiswheretheseagullfliesaway · 19/07/2024 19:09

I prefer the word cunts to be used for those with anti-social behaviour. It's a fit all.

mumbo34 · 19/07/2024 19:09

chav1 · 19/07/2024 19:05

Today 18:48
Maybe posters could ask one of the "chavs" on here what it means...
Today 18:52
Maybe posters could ask one of the "chavs" on here what it means...anyone?

No-one? Not curious to hear from the horses mouth?
Lost opportunity.

Just one thing before I leave,

If working class, romany, gypsy and traveller peoples are telling posters in this thread it's an offensive slur utilised against them and their people, why continue to use it?

Are you ok? Who on here has confirmed themselves as a chav? And even if they had they are no better placed to define it than anyone else. As this thread has proven, people seem to have very different perceptions of the word.

Southener · 19/07/2024 19:09

chav1 · 19/07/2024 18:00

If working class, romany, gypsy and traveller peoples are telling posters it's an offensive slur utilised against them and their people, why continue to use it?

Exactly this. This is going right over some heads.

Skinglow · 19/07/2024 19:12

enternow99 · 19/07/2024 18:54

I think shes sharing her story and her perspective of the word.

Show quote history

Hmmm, as well as saying all council estates are full of chavs. That's offensive.

mumbo34 · 19/07/2024 19:13

@Skinglow it's her experience. Where has she said 'all' council estates are full of them?

Skinglow · 19/07/2024 19:14

thisiswheretheseagullfliesaway · 19/07/2024 19:09

I prefer the word cunts to be used for those with anti-social behaviour. It's a fit all.

Exactly. Rich cunts, poor cunts, middle class cunts.

Skinglow · 19/07/2024 19:16

mumbo34 · 19/07/2024 19:13

@Skinglow it's her experience. Where has she said 'all' council estates are full of them?

Maybe the line that says Chavs means Council housed?

Toottooot · 19/07/2024 19:16

Fit aboot bams or neds?