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 was literally pointing out that there ARE working class people in Cambridge! Until that point neither the OP nor anyone responding had acknowledged their existence!

I agree with you, Cambridge is hugely unequal, and the generalisation about educated middle class people completely fails to acknowledge it.

It’s an unequal city because the top end (for want of a better word) is so very wealthy. The poor are much the same wherever you go; the wealthy range from normal middle class to extremely affluent indeed, and therefore the gap widens. Unless we demand people earn less I don’t think there’s necessarily a way around that: it doesn’t help the poor if the wealthy become less wealthy.

And somewhat wryly I’m wondering how many of those bossily complaining about Kids These Days are going to move to Middlesbrough or Jaywick or Blackpool or Bradford. Because according to this thread, the most deprived pockets of the country are the places with the best behaved children who are deferential and respectful to adults at all time.

Anyway I think OP has her answer: it's not unique to Cambridge as Hebden Bridge, Muswell Hill, Stroud and Oxford are just the same apparently! I am only surprised no-one has mentioned Brighton yet.

Enjoying this thread. Never lived in Cambridge although my father was a graduate. I can well imagine a 'type' and gentle or permissive parenting ruling the day.

Have a friend who practices permissive parenting and I'm afraid her child is someone we give a wide berth to, despite giving them loads of chances. The sense of arrogance, entitlement and nastiness is very apparent to all except the family of course.

Interestingly my brother and I were raised with a permissive parenting style. My brother cringes at his past behaviour and wishes he'd had more boundaries/ guidance.

There are ineffectual parents everywhere. I don’t know whether it’s sheer laziness or if they genuinely think this “gentle parenting” will help with turning their kids into nice adults,

Meanwhile, feral kids run wild, and parents sit there pleading with them. 🙄

Useless parents can come from any class, and income group.🤷‍♀️

North London here - see it a lot. Parents who try to cajole their 8 year old child to let other children have a turn on the swings. Child refuses so everyone has to watch the v gentle and pathetic attempts by the parent. In the meantime no one else has the swing and the child isn't learning to share.

Surely the very wealthy people in Cambridge are sending their DC to the Perse or St Faiths rather than darkening the door of their local state primary.

Academics in fact don't usually earn enough to send their kids to private schools so I'd suspect it's the middle class people rather than the very rich whose parenting is being complained of here.

And if you are properly rich your nanny would take them to the park.

It's definitely NOT the "gentle" parents defending themselves in this thread that are the problem. A lot of us don't shriek at or hit our kids. If you're living in Cambridge and raising polite, kind, well adjusted kids, then you're not the parent OP is taking about. It's the entirely permissive, don't set boundaries, encourage children to push themselves to the front of everything parents that are making it unpleasant.

It is entirely possible to be hugely academic, ND, wealthy, whatever else you find in greater numbers in Cambridge, and raise wonderful, lovely kids. BUT there are also a very large number of parents who think they are so brilliant that they are above the need to effectively patent their children, leading to rude, selfish, arrogant children.

I'm sad that the actually good parents in Cambridge are taking offence at this - it isn't about the nice kids, it's about the awful ones who are being raised to think that they can do and get whatever they want because they're never being told to respect, or even to consider, other people.

The money is mainly centred on the Science Park, the excellent state schools in Cambridge make private education much less attractive in Cambridge and there’s a lot of ideological aversion to it. Class and wealth aren’t the same thing anyway.

A friend of mine who has a kid at the University of Cambridge Primary School remarked to me recently that she has seen absolutely no instances of bullying at all in her child's entire time there, which I thought was really lovely. Suggests that both parents and school are doing a great job.
No bullying at all or no bullying she acknowledged or the school would admit to? 🤔

Shuggles, I can’t dispute US politics or television with you as I’m not interested in them and therefore don’t know much about them.

In keeping with this thread, I’ll use the Cambridge Dictionary definition of liberal: “believing in or allowing a lot of personal freedom, and believing that society should change gradually so that money, property, and power are shared more fairly”.

As far as I can see, my friends tend to be (or try to be, or consider themselves to be) open-minded, progressive, in favour of human and civil rights and of social justice. All good things.

They may be less concerned than I am to get the railways and utilities renationalised. And they are (in my opinion) tolerant of some harmful social trends, eg genderism.

Ideally, we would all vote for a party or candidate who perfectly represented our beliefs and wishes. In reality, we have to vote for the best option available. The SDP and the Communists are the only two non-rightwing parties I know of that support women’s single-sex rights, which is an important issue to many of us. They put up relatively few candidates for election, so we have limited options.

Wow, we don’t live in Oxford or Cambridge, but have friends / colleagues who were both at Oxford, and match your description perfectly!, especially “socially gauche to the point of rudeness and convincing themselves it’s because they are too intellectual to worry about day to day concerns.”

And yes, they are raising their DD exactly as the OP describes 🙄.

This post is reminding me of the actual food fight I saw at a birthday party in North London where the parent looked on smiling at "the wonderful time they were all having!" Highgate School. 10+ years ago tho.

Imo the OP is talking about a different sort of parenting to how the very wealthy parent their children. I think the two groups would probably view each other with a fair amount of contempt. In the wealthy parts of West London, for example, children by and large are NOT running around free-range with matted hair in my experience. They are being ferried from school to tennis lessons to French club to fencing lessons. And the private tutor comes 3-4 times a week (in addition to private school) even for 5/6 year olds, to ensure they get into the "best schools".

Its not just cambridge.

Parents seem to think their children are in charge. No one actually imposes any boundaries, or if they do, they wait until their child is about 7 to attempt it, often because school are reporting bad behaviour.

Everyone is trying to be their child's friend and thinks that imposing a consequence that leaves their child crying is a step to far.

Its actually not fair on the children. They are given too many choices, its actually a lot of responsibility for them. There's a lot of security for a child to be told that mummy knows best, mummy has all the responsibility and mummy will sort everything. All these anxious kids are probably crushed with the weight of having to decide what they need/want.

None of you have lived in Totnes…

We fit this pattern, although it is not permissive parenting in our case. It’s low demand parenting, authoritative when it has to be, rooted in attachment parenting when they were small, and now fits with what they need as ND older kids/ teens.

Oxbridge parents, both ND.

The nicest sounding people on this thread are the ones saying they recognise themselves in the OP’s description. 🤣

Well there is a Steiner school in Cambridge..

I would say it is common occurrence when people don't parent their kids. Not related to nationality or income. But is very much related to class, in my opinion. IN other words, I've noticed that those who are on comfortable incomes and would be considered middle-class, but grew up in working class are most likely to act that way. It's people who have not gone through higher education or whose parents have not been through higher education.

On a slightly side note, I have graduated school 12 years ago, until 12yo studied in ordinary comprehensive and since then studied in private high school - both outside of the UK. And at the time I have loved my private school because kids there were sooo much better behaved and had respect for others and adults. In an ordinary state school - it was shambles. And it was actually a grammar school. Still, the fact that parents at home didn't parent their kids was obvious. That's why I think the reason is very much family class, not individual class. It's important where you come from.

Shuggles, I’m guessing you are much younger than me. Without knowing me, you insist that I have picked up [my] definition of the word "liberal" from American articles and/or TV shows, even after I have denied that. I was very ready to give my opinions when I was young! But I didn’t try to tell people what theirs were. And I don’t see any problem with my friends’ belief that they are liberals.

I formed my political views in the Britain of the 1970s, and though they have evolved over the years, they have not essentially changed. The only US input was from the women’s movement, flourishing there as it was here.

This. 100%
My friends kids are like this. They are rude, spoilt, disrespectful, condescending to anyone that they don't feel is their 'intellectual equal' and can't hold down a job.
The father is an intellectual snob with no social or practical skills.

My sister went to Oxford and observed a lot of the rude and entitled behaviour in adults who were Oxford graduates. These were largely people who grew up in boarding school and were also quite emotionally repressed. Could some of this be parents who did not get much parenting themselves?