To feel this way about family and class

[Conflictedcara]

I don’t know if what I am feeling is very unusual or not and am wondering if anyone else feels this conflict.

I was raised in a working class (albeit owned home) environment. Parents separated and money was tight etc.
Growing up DM always placed an emphasis on not being in her words ‘common’. Not in a hyacinth bouquet way and her own mother had done the same.

I went to Uni, moved out of the area and have settled not too far away from home.

My DM has now gone the other way, embracing those things she would have turned away from - singing in pubs, tribute acts in the legion etc and I find I just really can’t embrace this and I’m feeling very conflicted and caught between the life I am living now and the life my family are living.

Values etc haven’t changed but there is that feeling and conflict that I might be ‘above myself’ or a bit of a boring snob when I feel it’s more that I’ve just changed and that so long in different environments mean I just can’t and don’t enjoy some of the things my family do.

We all get on perfectly well and are close but I feel like I am almost caught between 2 lives

I think I get you about being stuck between two lives. I think you can only live your own life. Do what makes you happy. I definitely worried to much about how I was perceived in my twenties that I didn’t take opportunities when they arose. Your background is what makes you you, you’re not a fraud.

You should watch Educating Rita, with the incomparable Julie Waters. There is a scene in it about exactly this.

FWIW I was brought up by a single parent in a council house and went on to university and all that so-called middle-class lifestyle. My tastes range from Jane Austen to 90-Day Fiance, don't get too caught up in the class bullshit! Just enjoy what you enjoy.

But why would you feel the same? People change and change their mind all the time. My mother used to tell me that gym closed these is for the gym and a woman should wear "tidy" clothes and feminine shoes. All my life!
At the age of 60 she started wearing trainers. Am I horrified? No. She changed her mind and started bothering more about her own comfort than about what people think of her.
People change and it's a good thing. What does it have to do with class, I have no idea

Unless your DM is forcing you to go with her to the legion to watch tribute acts I can't see what the issue is. Let her live her life however she wants to.

I hate karaoke, but it has nothing to do with my upbringing. I just hate hearing people sing badly.

I love a good tribute act though.

And I dislike even more the MN obsession with class.

I know exactly what you mean.
Yes, we all can lead a tacky/exquisite life (Love Island and Tosca at Cov G), but there are certain things that one grows away from, and seeing it within your family/friends can be nails on blackboards for some!
Pub singing or calling 'dinner' 'tea' may have been part of one's early life, but a spell away and different life experiences can throw you local flat-roofed pub into a stark light.
This also works the other way; those who have been brought up with money and class can equally find conflict when they have less 'exclusive' experiences
So, don't fret about it, and ignore the haters/holier than thou's.

Hurrah, a voice of reason, and who has read the OPs post properly!

Your upbringing can only be partly to blame for putting thoughts in your head. As a fully grown, together and educated adult, you are responsible for raising your consciousness to things that you suspect you might be wrong on.

And that includes looking down on others for the activities they do. You say values haven’t changed – start there and as MN would say ‘give your head a wobble’, which means to enlighten yourself away from being a snob.

Princess Margaret was also excellent at being a princess, and she would pull rank on anyone she pecieved 'stepped over thexmark'. So she was all 'knees up Moth Brown' one moment, and 'off with her head' the next!
Tribute acts; amazing how tacky imitators have reinvented themselves as a'tribute' to another.

OP is not being a snob

Which really, is the essence of Shirley Valentine; the relentless repetition of boring life patterns; work, the pub, courting, marriage, babies, the pub....
Life can throw other interests at you, which can alienate you from what you know and open your eyes to the problems

Is it more of a case that now you have grown up she isn't as tightly wound? You are a very different version of yourself when you are raising children, and can get that back once they have flown the nest.

I understand what you mean op. Similar here.

I think you’re worried that your mum and wider family would consider you as somehow rejecting their lifestyle/ being a ‘snob’ when you’ve just moved on from those things, and like other things now.

that’s the part you have to deal with.

if you can find a way of explaining this to yourself and to them, that may help. ‘It’s just not for me thanks’ or ‘yeah I’ve seen enough tribute acts for the minute, giving it a rest’ or similar. And maybe go to one in four events, not because you enjoy them, but for love of your family.

and if they start muttering ‘snob’ or anything similar, or sa6 anything negative about the things you like - then that is their problem. You’ve done well, moved on, and your choices are up to you.

I feel similar, OP. My WC DM had a horror of anything 'common', and 'common' in those days included a lot of innocuous things (remember white shoes being common?) Fortunately she's not into pub karaoke or tribute acts, but she does love charity shops, as do I- and we were banned from them growing up, because they were common! (Although probably common in the sense of "people will think we're poor" rather than common in the sense of behaving badly - and maybe not the best example as charity shops are now quite upmarket, which wasn't the case then.)

My parents do love a lot of "common" things which seem to have escaped their aspiring middle class censure: pier shows (cringe) shouting at the telly during England matches (double cringe) and DM loves the naff disco dancing part at weddings, although DF sensibly draws the line at that! I'm on the introverted side and any kind of loud, crass behaviour like that really upsets me. Obviously each to their own, but I don't like being judged for being unenthusiastic about shit embarrassing entertainment when I grew up being told that every other harmless thing was "common" and therefore off limits to people as supposedly genteel (not!) as we were!

OP used the word ‘snob’. And it completely depends on if are genuinely doesn’t such some activities or if deep down (or not so deep down), she looks down on them.

This resonated. I think I just need to be less aware of what others think and just like what I like

@Didimum You are wrong - I m not looking down on anyone. It’s just that I don’t enjoy the same things they some friends like. I feel like that makes me a bit of a traitor to them. No one is looking down on anyone. Not liking the same things is not the same as looking down on someone . To be honest that’s kind the of the approach my DM is taking - you don’t like it therefore you think you’re above it - no I just don’t like it.

Genuinely don’t get it. I went to school with a lot of REALLY rich kids (I got a scholarship). Went to same uni as many and hung around with people whose families had serious $$. I remember many drunk pub nights with ding along AND seeing tribute acts with a lot of genuine fun and merriment all round. They would have thought it bonkers if you said it was too low brow and beneath them.

I see your point up to a point 😬 But it suggests everyone from your background likes singing in pubs and tribute bands. There’s probably many, all of the same ilk, who don’t. Even some of the people from that background who go to these events might not especially like the activities but go for the community spirit / fun atmosphere and to have a night out with friends while tolerating the noise.

Don’t be hard on yourself

I’m not wrong, because I didn’t say you looked down on the activities, I said it depends whether you do. It was a ‘it’s either this or that’ question. And your OP does not make it clear what you actually think, just that you worry about it.

If you’re so sure that you simply just don’t like X, Y or Z, then what’s the conflict and what’s the concern about being a snob?

Yes I agree.

I also went to uni with proper rich folk and I was from a working class northern city which has been in headlines for all the wrong reasons over the last week.

The richest and poshest of them were also weirdly some of the least snobby, loveliest people you could meet. Much nicer than the middle class social climbers.

In fact sometimes I think the upper classes and working classes have lots in common. Things like having lots of children,
Smoking, horses.

I think lots of people experience the type of conflict you describe OP.

I have to check myself sometimes around aspiration, because it can verge on judgemental. I have family who are content with a simple/basic lifestyle, whereas I've always aspired to the next 'achievement'.

I think in my case I wasn’t allowed to like those kinds of things when I was growing up (my Mum always said she was working class roots with middle class aspirations) and some things the wider family did were just seen as not the kind of thing we did/ values we had.
It’s meant that I’ve always felt a bit on the outside- seen as snobby and different (I’m really not) so if my Mum did a total turn around and started embracing those things I’d find it really jarring.
I’ve learnt to just embrace what I like and try not to worry about it. I now have friends of all sorts of backgrounds and enjoy a wide variety of things.

my Mum did a total turn around and started embracing those things I’d find it really jarring.

So basically mum was an insecure hypocrite and you resent your upbringing?
I wonder if mum was bullied or discriminated in her youth and felt the need to keep appearances? And only later in later in life she learned not to worry what others think so much?

This is exactly the point. OP is struggling with her mother embracing things she used to drill into her daughter were "common".

It's not that she's a snob or class obsessed. It's just hard to get your head round.