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

I often find that people who claim to enjoy questioning things, do not enjoy their underlying assumptions about their own value system being questioned. Interesting.

Might it be possible to return to the OP's question now?

@TotallyIneffectual who is stopping you?

Fifth Avenue?! Ronelles 😃

Off topic but personally I think it's fascinating to debate and have opinions about how such languages 'should' be spoken when there is surely no way of knowing given they haven't been in use for hundreds/thousands of years. Or maybe are there written sources for phonetic pronunciation?

Filth! Oh I’d forgotten that! I once saw the bouncers there throw someone down the steps that led up to that level of the building. 😳

LOL my DM says Ronelles. I'll see your Fifth Avenue (Cinderella's?) and Robert Sayles and raise you my nan, who'd refer to 'new Addenbrooke's'

There was not even an agreed way of spelling many words in the past. Standardisation came relatively recently.

I remember old Addenbrooke's I think. Was that the building that is now the Judge Business School?

Yes, the building almost opposite the Fitzwilliam. I’m old enough to remember the Petty Cury area before Grand Arcade was built. Heffers was there in a beautiful old building with twisty turny staircases and panelling and there was a boutique called Snob.

I spent many horrible times in old addenbrookes having surgeries. I still struggle to walk by the building.

This. Two nd children, eldest is a dream and always has been. Youngest tests our patience daily. Dh thinks he can punish and reward the behaviour out of the youngest when in fact it makes her very much worse. She knows right and wrong, she feels shame, remorse and embarrassment about her behaviour. It's far more effective to keep her emotionally regulated in the first place (and I don't mean giving in to her every whim, but setting expectations of her early, preparing her well for changes, understanding when she's out of her comfort zone and working with her) than it is to apply consequences for something she has absolutely no control over due to to a physiological fight or flight response. Yes, my more gentle approach against his more authoritarian approach does cause multiple points of conflict. Just one of the things parents of nd kids are navigating on a daily basis. It's why so many of us separate/ divorce.

Yes this is how our family is too. Helping the DC to stay regulated is a lot of work. We do have boundaries and rules, but DC needs help to stay calm and work with the boundaries.

I remember Robert Sayles, in the complicated building too. It was so different from the new John Lewis. I do like the new one and the Grand Arcade though.

So many things have changed. I can just remember the old arts cinema too, down the long corridor in Market Passage (I had to look up the street name, I never knew that before).

I saw a lot of films in the Arts Cinema. I bought a lot of beautiful things in Joshua Taylor that was just opposite too.

Fifth Avenue?

It's cindies.

I still miss the old Robert Sayle.

🤣🤣🤣

Classical Latin pronunciation, obviously!

Interesting!

can you give some example? I mean do you just say « we are going to… in 5min. », « we are not going to… » or is it a more complex process?
For mine, I take them from school and unvariably say « no ice cream, no cake, no yelling about it » 🤣🤣 because of course the ice cream van is just at the door…every…sunny….day! Even some rainy ones 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

I have family in Cambridge and they would happily discuss for (at least) 20 minutes literally anything because they are just interested in literally everything.

Sorry you had a horrible time in Old Addenbrooke’s. I had operations there in 1974 and in 1980.

New Addenbrooke’s existed then, why was Obs and Gynae one of the last departments to move? Oh, women’s matters. Enough said.

Would women of Cambridge still be giving birth in the old workhouse on Mill Road (where the windows were nailed shut and couldn’t be opened in the hottest summers, because otherwise it was too draughty and cold in winter) without the generosity of Mr Robinson?

Perhaps the women of Cambridge were ineffectual then, too.
(I don’t really think that, not uniquely in Cambridge anyway.)

This is an unpleasant thread deriding the population of one town. Would this be acceptable if it was another town?

Probably not. But people think we can take it, and they are probably right.

“I didn't learn Latin at school or go to a posh school of any kind, but that's the impression I get.”

“That makes sense. So it is a class marker. We are posh people who went to a good private school.”

Or you went to a state school in Cambridge, for example Chesterton, Hills Road, Parkside.
Perhaps that’s not making the point I want it to!

State school education in northern former mill village here. 1200-plus students. Not a place people were storming the gates to send their kids.
Mathematical talent in the family (see earlier post including comparing abilities playing snooker, that's who taught me) but not languages. Parents both first ever in families to go to university, and in one case, through O-levels.
So, not sure you'd pick me out as a posh person who went to a good private school if I was doing any parental (or other) activity in Cambridge.

Yes I know what you mean. LOL.

I don't have any of that kind of educational background - oxbridge or private school or Hill's Road type schools, or anything. Wasn't educated in England, but in a deprived industrial town in the north. But I know a lot of people who do, so I've had plenty of opportunity to see what it looks like and why they love it.

It doesn't bother me tbh. The are many worse crimes than making self-deprecatory jokes about loving latin grammar.

All my latin enthusiast friends are very kind and quiet and sensible and I like them. I don't understand what they are talking about a lot of the time, but I do like them.