Are parents in Cambridge uniquely ineffectual?

[ohrly]

Name change. I apologise for the clickbait title, my observations are based solely on our (primary) school and not all parents here.

We moved here six months ago from a more working-class area. Although that area had its problems, parents generally ensured their kids had basic manners, proper grooming, and weren't violent.

However, at my son's new school, I've noticed a significant lack of manners among many kids. Parents don't seem to enforce them either. The children demand things from their parents and others and are generally rude.

There are a few kids, despite being over seven years old, who frequently hit and push others. Parents respond with mild comments like "Oh no, that's not nice" instead of a more assertive, proportionate reaction like, "Do not hit. If you do that again, we will go home."

Parents also don't seem to enforce boundaries effectively. Instead of saying "5 minutes until we leave the park," they ask, "Are you ready to go now? Okay sweetie, no worries."

Moreover, parents often talk about their kids in a way that suggests the children are in control. They say things like, "Oh, she won't let me..." or "Oh, she doesn't like..." A common issue is kids refusing to let their parents brush their hair, resulting in matted hair.

At parties, no parents watch what's happening, and the kids go quite wild. I've had to stop myself from telling off so many kids.

These observations span a mix of nationalities, but all are middle-class families.
Is this a common occurrence now, or is it specific to Cambridge, this school, or the middle classes? Or am I just going mad?!

I honestly thought I was a super liberal parent until I moved here!

YABU - Stop judging / this isn't a real thing
YANBU - Yes these parents sound dreadful

You said excessively concerned with material comfort. If my family were living in a bed and breakfast all in one room because we were homeless, you are damn right I would be excessively concerned with obtaining a safe home with enough space.

@AvrielFinch you're choosing to misinterpret what I'm saying, or possibly just misunderstanding, so best we leave it here.

I don’t claim to be an expert @BestZebbie but it does seem to be along the lines of ‘You can’t stop yourself hitting your brother so I will move you over here to stop you’ rather than STOP HITTING YOUR BROTHER!

In many ways neither are ideal, although it depends on the age and the development of the child. Just yelling at a child is unlikely to be effective unless you have a child who is easily quashed - and a lot of the scathing ‘they won’t tell their child no’ on here do make me wonder as I’ve no issue saying no to my child but it generally goes unheeded when I do so have to think of other strategies!

Equally though there comes a time when you can’t physically move a child away from hitting their brother, or it happens in a blink of an eye before you can intervene and then what do you do? You can’t sanction because the assumption is that they just couldn’t help themselves so that’s where you are left a bit weak and ineffectual without wanting to or meaning to.

Obviously I’m not claiming I have the answers there because neither really ‘work.’ And this is what some here are doggedly refusing to believe - that sometimes kids will misbehave and do stupid stuff. It doesn’t mean we ignore it but (especially in public) people are sometimes caught wrong-footed and not really sure how to respond. I have in the past come on far too heavily out of embarrassment usually but I can see why people opt for the vague ‘oh don’t do that,’

But on a very general sort of point usually the behaviour problems and the attendance and punctuality issues and the poor literacy skills come hand in hand with poverty, and they are all interlinked of course. Like I say - if anyone on this thread complaining of the awful parenting in Cambridge or in the suburbs of Cheshire or Brighton or anywhere affluent puts their money where their mouth is and moves to Bradford or Birkenhead or Oldham fair enough but I won’t be holding my breath!

A peak Cambridge moment was emerging from a children’s art workshop in the basement at the Fitzwilliam Museum, to see a Naked Bike Ride go past, and a girl aged around 10 mused aloud, “look at all those silly - penises? penii? What is the correct plural? - waggling about. Don’t they look silly !’ 🤣

(A parent then and there looked it up and it’s ‘penises’, but announced to the genuine and polite interest of fellow parents and also children , “if we were speaking Latin it would be penes.” End direct quote.

@AvrielFinch - no, I have never bought anything from Boden and have only heard of it through reading Mumsnet. I have never even heard of Oliver Bonas before. I tend to buy clothes in whatever shops are near to my home. I was very disappointed when Woolworths ceased to exist, because they used to do good children’s clothes. I wasn’t going to go out of my way to find Asda, or Boden to shop in. I nevertheless consider myself to be middle class. Also, you are admitting that it is normal practice to keep wearing your smarter clothes for other purposes once they are too worn to look smart, so I don’t see why you have such a weird issue with middle class children wearing scruffy Boden clothes at the playground? I tend to keep my clothes for donkeys’ years, regardless, whether bought in Primark or somewhere more expensive. I don’t judge people by the brand labels they wear, because I do not recognise the brands (unless something obvious, like Nike).

🤣

@Walkaround , there’s an Oliver Bonas in Cambridge. It used to be directly next to Sidney Sussex College, almost opposite Sainsbury’s, so you’ve probably walked past it. There’s also an Asda store and a Primark. No Boden, but the John Lewis in Grand Arcade sells it.

@HesterZig , I do like that - although I have heard or read about it before. Perhaps here.

@IliveInCambridge - I don’t live in Cambridge. I have visited it a few times recently with my ds, though. I shall check it out next time I’m there. 🤣

@IliveInCambridge perhaps you heard it from someone else who was there? I think it was in 2018. A defining Cambridge moment for me. I love this place, I am among like souls who find much, that others would deem esoteric or irrelevant, to be utterly fascinating. I can enjoy a good philology discussion for hours! Most fellow parents are not from the UK so they can add their perspective of their native language . Everything is up for discussion, to be questioned and thought about, which is I suppose at the heart of how we parent our children.

@Walkaround where do you buy your clothes?
Plenty of people update styles. It is why charity shops are full of clothes that have hardly been worn.
But I would not let my kids wear clothes that are two sizes too small. And I think there is a difference between your own house and in public.

@AvrielFinch - M&Co until it closed, Debenhams until it closed, H&M until it closed, because they were all nearby. 🤣 Could also be Next, or Sainsbury’s, or Primark, or John Lewis, or Amazon online, or Hobbs, or Fat Face. I still favour underwear from M&S, but have to get that online these days. Everything keeps closing. 😥

That’s interesting. It’s not my experience, but the academics I know well enough at that level are not medics, scientists or engineers. Do all the top academics you work get most of their income from their patents, consulting, their private companies or similar?

The only academics I know with houses elsewhere have family money or live in college. It’s a small sample, though.

Here’s the salary scale, read it with this. If I read it correctly, Professors and Teaching Professors are grades 11 or 12. Grade 11 staff earn up to £77 476 pa, which wouldn’t support a London and a Cambridge home, would it? Grade 12 goes up to £205k: I’ve no idea how many are on that point. Might they also have an income from their colleges, too.

I was surprised during Covid to find out by chance that several of my neighbours have other houses, but none of those are academics. The professors may have them, too, but it wasn’t mentioned.

@HesterZig Most fellow parents are not from the UK so they can add their perspective of their native language

That’s something I really enjoy about living in Cambridge, the different experiences of people we meet.

It wouldn’t support the question in the title, though, unless it’s multinational ineffectiveness or whatever the word is.

@IliveInCambridge Most are from wealthy families as well. They are all in STEM. I know they are on more than £77k, over £100k. They talk about having 6 figure salaries.

@IliveInCambridge ‘multinational ineffectiveness’ I love that image, us all bumbling around waving our arms and looking baffled 😁 It may have looked a bit chaotic at primary school, mine went to a state primary that eschews uniform, and who wouldn’t find the current curriculum asinine so yes they’d bunk off now and then on a ‘sick day’ to do something much more worthwhile instead (like an exhibition in London), and we always explained how the curriculum is set by fallible humans with a particular pedagogic ideology, so it should be interrogated and elements of it disregarded (the nonsense AI reading schemes, ignored).

by now, secondary age and beyond, they are all confident , curious , creative and highly academic. And yet very considerate and polite, comfortable in a variety of milieux, they know the formal dress codes and behaviour codes in different locales. All my four have gone/are going through the state system, their perspective is that the sex and drugs are wild in the private schools in town, state secondaries are positively nonogenarian and staid in comparison. 😁

Is something only esoteric if its academic? @HesterZig from the rest of your post that's what I've extrapolated.
Would an interest in Mary Quant lipstick through the ages and a collection not be esoteric, or Finnish metal bands in the 90s?

@DoreenonTill8 Now Mary Quant lipstick thought the ages and Finnish metal bands in the 90s sound like great PhD topics! Anthropology and Musicology ?! 😀

Although your previous post @HesterZig re how ineffectual schools are due to the 'fallible humans' of teachers who should be interrogated and disregarded ands a great example of the 'bumbling' superiority that others have noted of academics.
Do you see yourself and fellow academics as fallible humans whose work should be interrogated and disregarded, and install this in your children?

The famous experiment of telling the child they can have two chocolate buttons/sweets instead of one if they wait….
was revisited and partly discredited subsequently, as it was found the children who didn’t wait were from less privileged backgrounds.
IT’s easier to resist the chocolate button if you’ve never gone short /experienced scarcity.
its also easier to have better life outcomes if you come from a more privileged background.

TBF most scientific research is based on trying to disprove the work that your peers have done (while they do the same to you).

Are they useless and to be dismissed if not for PhD topic?

Surely that was a result in and of itself.
Or at least the jumping off point for a few other studies?

The school is "good," according to Ofsted (my kid is one of the 100!).

Yes - I said

“It possible they want to hide that the school received “Requires Improvement” at the previous inspection.”

previous inspection, not the most recent.

Can you tell me how big are the classes for y7 - 11? I can imagine that such a small school could be perfect for a certain sort of child who may have found mainstream difficult.

You will know this, but others may be as interested as I was to read that the Cambridge Steiner school only offers 5 GCSE subjects, plus a level 2 Diploma. (equivalent to GCSE grades 4 - 9)

       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“We offer the following GCSEs to enable a clear route to A-levels and further study in these subjects:

• English Language
• English Literature
• Combined Sciences (all three sciences, 2 GCSE grades)
• Mathematics

Along with the core GCSEs, we also offer the Integrated Education (IE) Level 2 Diploma is an Ofqual registered award.”

“It focuses on collaborative and individual project work and problem solving in transdisciplinary topics. This portfolio based approach decreases the level of exam pressure and also enables students to receive accreditation for their Steiner-Waldorf curriculum lessons.
Topics for the IE level 2 Diploma include: Art, Craft and Design, Natural Sciences, Global Awareness, Performing Arts, Languages and Physical Education. It also includes an individual project on an area chosen by the student, skill development and community engagement.”