My mum’s views are really making me angry

[Blackbird23]

My parents have recently moved to a new build house, around 18 months ago.
Now more new build estates are going up in and around the same area and my mum is constantly complaining about them and how they’re ruining the ‘ambience’ of the area! I have to keep telling her she’s living in one, and it’s almost like pull the ladder up jack mentality, but she doesn’t see the irony at all, or chooses not to.

She also came from a council house when she was younger and keeps saying things like “oh I hope it won’t be a council estate, I can’t think of anything worse!”

And then going on about people not working and claiming benefits, but she didn’t work at all after we were born. So hasn’t worked for 30+ years (she’s 65 now)

AiBU here or is this just ridiculous?

People ‘poncing off the state’ and other narratives around ‘benefit scroungers’ are unhelpful tropes that don’t accurately reflect the majority of benefit claimants.

People who can work and choose not too are Poncing off of the state. There are plenty of them. Nobody said that the majority of claimants matched this description.

Snap. Op you can’t stop her doing anything you can only control your own behaviour so that could be saying look we will have to agree to disagree let’s not discuss , if she won’t respect that then you can only physically remove yourself. Other way is to as others have suggested let it wash over you, guess beforehand how many times she will mention it, how far into your visit she’ll say the stuff. Observe the thing dont participate in it.

I think YABU about the new build thing, when do you allow complaining about your surroundings changing? 5 years? 10years? 30 years? Everyone's house has been built on a piece of land.

Likewise, if she did not have a good experience living in a council house, it is understandable she would not want to return to what she experienced as an unpleasant living situation and whatever stigma she experienced in relation.

My mum is Polish & came over with her family as, well basically immigrants. She is very against people trying to come here in the boats. My dad & I are just flabbergasted how she can be like that, about people wanting a better life, when it was exactly the same for her family.

Well no, but there are still a lot of assholes living there because they have no where else to go I grew up on one and got beat up a lot by the other kids when I was a kid. I've got friends who live in rich neighbourhoods and you just don't see that behaviour from the kids that live there.

Kind of agree with the poster on page one or two that said it's easy to call the ops mother ignorant if you've never actually lived on one. Let's be real most people are really nice but it only take a handful of assy families to ruin a neighborhood.

Just let her vent, seriously imagine raising a kid for 18 years for them to turn around and make a thread about how angry they are with you for going on a mildly controversial rant

That would annoy me too, OP. My mother is similar but alot worse.
What does your mum say if you reply
'But you didn't work...' etc.

I've got friends who live in rich neighbourhoods and you just don't see that behaviour from the kids that live there.
Ahh, all those angelic rich children.
People I know who grew up in nice areas/posh schools suffered much worse bullying than any rough kids.

I know loads of people who come from council estates who no longer want to live in or near one, sometimes for good reason.

She does sound like a hypocrite but I find I can't take everything my mum says seriously. Just brush it off.

I take a gentle, piss-taking approach when mine says things like this!

@DocileWimps
That is why I would hate to bring my children up in any kind of social housing or live in or near such housing myself.
Not sure where you grew up, you do life can change in a heartbeat and a day might come you need houses.
Where I live in Scotland some new SH developments are lovely and I'd happily live there.
Never be too quick to judge.

I tried this with my mother. She stated that there should be limits on the number of women admitted to medical school because they are likely to have children and give up work, or stop work for several years. Apparently women aren't strong enough to perform long surgeries or be orthopedic surgeons either - which is just nonsense.

I tried the 'But do you think I shouldn't have been accepted to study chemical engineering then'.

'Well that's different'.

I am sorry to say that I burst out laughing which annoyed her a lot.

I got beaten up almost daily as a kid by other kids that lived on the council estate I lived on. I'm yet to meet a single person who grew up in a rich neighborhood who got beaten up by their neighbours.

Well how do you quantify plenty? As part of my job I work with many people who claim benefits and who cannot work for various reasons - mainly linked to mental health, physical health or both. I’ve also done peer viewed research in this area. It tends to rarely be as simple as people choosing not to work. Sometimes people have been brought up in families who haven’t worked in generations and this creates a helplessness and hopelessness about gaining employment; there are no positive role models and self esteem is so low if you grow up believing that a life on benefits is your lot in life. If there are no examples in your immediate family or community of people finding satisfaction from work, a sense of identity, self worth and achievement then it’s hard to imagine that - you just accept your life as normal. Highly deprived areas tend to have fewer job opportunities too, it’s a vicious cycle.

Its complex and people need kindness and understanding, stigmatising language such as ‘poncing off the state’ does nothing except fuel stigma and create more barriers. I won’t de rail the thread so I’ll leave it here.

Plastictrees

Understanding? It doesn’t matter what the reasons are, these people are capable of work and the government is enabling them to not work.

Half the benefit and they’d all be seeking employment.

Of course it matters what the reasons are! Most people have legitimate physical and/or mental health issues which prevent them from working. People can hardly seek employment if there’s no employment opportunities where they live. It’s a systemic issue.

The government are better off cracking down on tax evasion and offshore banking - this costs society far, far more than ‘benefit scroungers’ do. But it’s much easier to pick on the deprived communities rather than the privileged isn’t it.

The government are better off cracking down on tax evasion and offshore banking

Why not both?

Both are taking what isn’t theirs.

Both can and should be looked at

They’re not though and that’s the point!

They’re not though and that’s the point

I worked in a deprived school. A lot of single mothers had another child as the youngest started reception. To avoid work. For as long as possible because they were better off in benefits:

DF works 16 hour a week, free childcare, dentists, eye tests etc and she takes in £53K a year - I work 35 hours and make half that.

Dont tell the government are allowing employers to under pay off top ups for child care (which people are grateful for - you shouldn’t be - your wages should be enough to support your family) They also pay thousands of households not to work - because nobody is going to say - get a job.

DF works 16 hour a week, free childcare, dentists, eye tests etc and she takes in £53K a year - I work 35 hours and make half that.
your friend doesn't £53k in her hand, that's what rules ppl up, they think she's getting a fortune to spend

Not sure where you grew up

What do you mean? You have no idea where I grew up, except that it was on a council estate. You don't need to be any more "sure" than that.

All you need to be sure of is that I lived on one of the many council estates in the UK and the experience was enough to teach me that I never want to live in social housing again.

Some estates might not be too bad, but I don't want to live on any of them.

OP, I empathise.

My mum weirdly did the opposite.

My mum lives in a 'nice middle class area'. My parents deliberately moved there when I was a child so that I could go to good schools in an area with low crime, and clean, safe streets. Its an area a lot of people locally aspire to live in.

She was an intolerable snob for the better part of my life, quite frankly.

And then, out of nowhere, she started referring to the area she lived in as 'the estate'. It wasn't an estate of any description. It never had been. But she insisted on calling it so and argued that it was.

She also started referring to the 'factory fortnight' a lot. Now, I'd never heard of the factory fortnight but she started insisting we'd always known about it and had to go on holiday during the factory fortnight. We just didn't. We went on holiday during school holidays and away for weekends when my parents wanted to and neither of my parents worked in factories. But she insisted it had always been part of our lives and we just didn't remember - silly us.

She also started talking about 'the social' and her life on benefits despite the fact that neither of my parents had ever claimed benefits or had any involvement with 'the social (social services, I think). It was utterly bizarre.

But she would argue she had been 'on benefits' because she'd claimed Child Benefit and would be getting a state pension and that we had had involvement with 'the social' because my elderly grandparent had a care assessment when she developed Alzheimers and needed Home Help.

When I had my first child, she was absolutely insistent that I needed a social worker based on nothing other than this weird shift in viewpoint that everyone did. Or everyone we knew. No one we knew had social services involvement except the couple who adopted.

She had spent my entire childhood making sure people thought we were 'middle class' and then decided that there was some romance in being working class or living on benefits and with social services involvement whilst living on a council estate when we just didn't.

And i apologise for anyone who is offended by the conflation and assumptions of people who are working class, on benefits, have social services involvement etc. It's why it was so fucking ridiculous and pissed me off so much.

It's easy for people to say, "Why are you bothered?" But it's ridiculous and infuriating when you have to entertain it.

My point is you don’t know WHY she is ‘avoiding’ work. You don’t know her psychiatric or physical health history, family history, etc. it really is not as simple as people don’t work because they are lazy. You will not move from your fixed position and consider any nuance or complexities. People claiming benefits are not the reason you are poorly paid. But sure, continue to put your frustrations and anger on them - but it is woefully misplaced.

Yep! Definitely this!

My grandad used to complain about immigrants when he'd been married to one for 40 years.