Is there a worrying class divide with parenting?

[teaandcupcake]

I saw a tweet (and subsequent TikTok) about this and found it interesting.

The author of the tweet and the girl on TikTok were basically saying they notice the way their middle-class friends parent their small kids is screen-free, lots and lots of books, lots of time and attention. Their toddlers can read and write. In contrast, teacher friends at deprived primaries have shared stories of reception starters in nappies, children who have no idea how to turn the page of a book or use a knife and fork.

The concern being that the divide between middle-class and working-class children is going to be so vast in the future we ‘can’t even fathom it right now’

I found it interesting as the topic of reception children starting school without reaching basic milestones has been discussed on here many times before but not whether it’s class issue and what’s causing this.

Oh, I get you and understand the nuance that you are highlighting.

I agree that it's worthwhile being specific about precisely what gives MC parents an advantage over WC and lower MC parents.

MC values alone would not have allowed an MC family of a lower earnings bracket than you to have muscled the system to their advantage as you have done in your case.

Valid points. Thanks for the clarification!

”with respect” do you realise how many families were still dealing with PTSD, disability and bereavement from ww2 in the 1950s?

All my dad’s male adult cousins were killed. Every single one.

My mum’s dad was killed. Gran remarried in the 50s but stepdad had been gassed and tortured in ww2 and was deeply traumatised (hung on until 1973 but couldn’t work much).

My gran ran the family shop because her dh couldn’t. My dm left school so she could staff the shop while my gran raised her step siblings and cared for her new disabled husband. Her deceased husband’s parents were so shocked by the loss of both their sons in ww2 that the mum never recovered from her grief - became a recluse, no help at all.

So please don’t paint the 50s as a golden era. There was still enormous suffering and poverty up and down the country - it was no picnic.

Toddlers aren't watching learn to code videos on YouTube, they're watching Ms Rachel or random videos of dancing fruits. Are we talking about the same thing?

Yes but I wasn't talking about 18mo, there are now huge groups of parents who campaign for banning smartphones even for teenagers - in all three private schools we have experience with there are blanket bans on any phones for all pupils (not sure about 6th forms). I'm personally on the fence on this - from what I can see, it doesn't prevent children from turning their school emails into toxic SM, without any phones, just using their school laptops. You can't really "ban" technology if the outside world is increasingly built upon it, it's just MC virtue signalling or plain delusion. You'd have to stop using computers for "8yo making a video for a school project" as well, and go all the way down getting rid of any devices and IT networks in educational environment. Which is probably doable, the amish live without high tech after all, but I doubt it will be widely popular here :)

The last school I worked in had a very bright, sporty, musical popular boy who was super-organised. Wow - he was so mature and generally sorted/

His piano teacher, exasperated at excuses from other children about not having time to practise, asked him how he organised himself. She said 'Do you play computer games?' and he said 'Only socially. I play when I'm with my friends but I don't do it alone'.

He really knew the secret of life, the universe and everything. Of course children need to play these games but the most 'sorted' ones discipline themselves to a very limited time.

Sorry but that’s nonsense. I was a working lone parent. I took a week of A/L to potty train. It’s that parents don’t want to, that’s all.
My parents both worked too- Dad during the day, Mum in the evenings. They managed to potty train us!

I can only second all your points @RedToothBrush I'm at the older end of your age group and that is definitely my lived experience.

I agree.

It's a brave person who dares to talk about class because it's incredibly complex, ever-changing and of course acceptable terms change too over time. I'm very aware that my use of the word 'underclass', once a perfectly accepted academic term for the group Marx identified as the 'lumpen proletariat', is now outmoded. I wonder what sociologists now label this group, though? I'd like to know, but I do hope no-one is trying to pretend they don't exist.

But it bugs me no end when people do what I think OP has done - to label anyone with social problems as working class. The working class is a specific and respectable category of people who are engaged usually in skilled manual ur perhaps office-based jobs which are not professions (like teaching, medicine, law, accountancy, etc). The working class is not noted for being anti-social, chaotic in its child-raising (far from it), unsupportive of their children's education or unamibitious for their children.

But the chaotic, anti-social, dysfunctional underclass is. They have been a feature of society since at least the industrial revolution and governments of all kinds have tried to address the issues they raise. It's very hard though to help these people and one of the characteristics is inter-generational poverty, abuse, lack of education and employment. You can offer all the help you like, but getting some people/parents to take it up is usually the sticking point.

Yeah

They keep mentioning use of knife and fork.

But some part of population don't use those. Chopsticks/ hands to eat.

When I was younger we didn't have Crtoon Network but it wasn't cos my parents thought it was a bad idea- they just couldn't afford it.

Depending in the background of the person it's different.

We didn't go to museums. Maybe a theme park once a year. No holidays.

But all as that because we couldn't afford it, also too many siblings to fit in the car.

We all have professional jobs though.

Days out were spent playing in the backstreet.

My job would be a middle class job but I would t be treated like I was middle class by anyone I meet in street.

I think there's a lot of privilege to be able to say- if you have this job you are middle class.

For me Middle Class would be more like the Middleton family.

That is proper middle class. A d anyone else who needs to work to afford to pay their bills would be working class regardless of their jobs.

I don't the gap is between the working class and middle class. It more the - as described on this thread- the underclass.

It's the kids who don't have stable home lives. No one in the family works at all. Work isn't valued. People take drugs in the house/ criminal parents etc.

The gap is huge. And the use of screens as a babysitter is also huge in this cohort of people.
The kids don't really stand a chance.

It's the kids who don't have stable home lives. No one in the family works at all. Work isn't valued. People take drugs in the house/ criminal parents etc.

Sounds like fintech nomads to me 😂

Do we have some evidence that working class parents are failing to meet their children's needs or are we just using working class as a proxy to refer to workless parents?

There is definitely some mixed-up thinking going on!

Wc is being used as though it’s a very negative and unfortunate category, which it’s not.

Tbf I'm fine with bans on smartphones in schools. Kids should do their bullying f2f like in the good ol' days ;)

But I think your post highlights something important which is that "screens" are not the thing people want to ban, it's just a shortcut. TV is different from productivity software is different from Ms Rachel is different from social media is different from FaceTime/WhatsApp with the grandparents; 18mo is different from 8yo is different from 18yo.

To be honest, I'm actually more convinced by arguments along the lines of "how will children make friends if they haven't watched Disney movies / played Fortnite" etc rather than that they need it for digital literacy. Computers are piss easy to use these days. The hard part of filling in forms is reading the words on them.

It will be interesting to see if this facilitates the class divide. One way to help make sure your child isn't socially isolated by not having a tablet is to surround yourself with other kids who don't have tablets (including choosing schools like the one you mention). My child is still toddler aged but I know I feel drawn to parents who are similar to me in this respect.

My DD was a grammar school girl from a WC background who didn't have tutors

I find it interesting that responses so far have been unanimous that toddlers are not learning to read. I know several people who are teaching/have taught young children to read - by this I mean from around let's say 3? perhaps introducing phonics concepts verbally a little earlier?
I knew nothing about phonics so it wouldn’t have occurred to me, and I didn’t try to reach my kids to read before school.
However, we had loads of books ( most from charity shops) I read to my kids from babyhood, all sort, not just kids books but poetry, stories- mainly for my own sanity- and we had no tablets or anything, so they looked at books a lot on their own.
My oldest just suddenly started reading, by his 4th birthday. I remember being in a cafe with him and he was reading the menu out loud, and people were staring as he was so tiny!
The problem was that when my oldest started school and they started teaching phonics, he found it confusing and started speaking phonetically, which, given the English language, was often very strange!
Anyway, I guess my point is, a lot of the time children just have different aptitudes, but the key is to provide the opportunity for them to explore these, if they want to, and this is not driven by class or money.
I hate the idea that middle class people care more, it’s not true. I got a real kick out of introducing my children to books and art and I was broke, renting and single.

Working class doesn’t bloody mean from a chaotic neglectful drug addled background. It doesn’t mean you’re in poverty, unintelligent and don’t value education or have poor social/cultural capital. This thread is Mumsnet snobbery at its worst.

I don't know why working class people have to be lumbered with the underclass, as though it's the same thing.

There is far more difference between the day to day lives of the working class and those who are unemployable than there is between the middle class and the working class.

100% this!

There is a certain amount of privilege required to be able to choose a school or move to where the parents are more on your wavelength re screens though. In the vast majority of schools here the children do have access to screens and a lot of socialising after school is them playing games in groups together. The kids with no Xbox/ PS/Switch/ipad lose out socially in the after school and weekend group gaming and then also chatting about the games etc at break time. It's hard to choose that for your child when there isn't the option of a different kind of peer group.

Doing lots of team sports may be the answer. They can't be on PS whilst playing football and they have something other than PS to chat about.

It might be different where you are, I’m in SW London and regularly see DC with a screen when in a buggy (either on the street or on the bus). I highly doubt they all have SN that justifies needing a screen.
Some might, don’t get me wrong, but let’s be honest, they one watching paw patrol with sound on, whilst the adult is on the phone ignoring them and the older sibling is eating crisps with feet on the bus seat… very likely that it is not a need but more lazy parenting.
I say that as a mum who managed to handle twins, one of them having autism - the screen can help but is not necessarily a need.

My daughter says the same. Council funded activities in neighbouring deprived areas mainly attended by middle class mums and not the very people the sure start type activities are aimed at

Where did you live? I live in Scotland and was raised in council housing (though ours were police houses which used to be in most council areas) and I can remember every single parent in every street I lived in.

That was the same 25 years ago. The peopleit was aimed at were more likely to be hanging around the shopping centre

I'm a teacher and I've seen children from middle class families with shockingly poor academic/life skills, so have other teachers I know. I knew children of a diplomat, one was excluded for really persistent awful behaviour, two younger ones were in the "nurture" stream and could barely read and write - in secondary. A friend saw similar with the children of two doctors, all in bottom sets and really struggling.

There's a lot of demands on modern parents and the cost of living is very high but my mum managed to read to all three of us individually, 20 minutes each every night. My husband's parents are migrants, both worked multiple jobs when him and his brother were going and still read to them, supervised homework and so on.

I think there is an issue of parents assuming all education will take place at school and that they won't have to check on their child's progress at all.

That said - these are unusual examples. Much more common and sad to see pushy middle class parents (of which I assume I will be one!) and some students from deprived backgrounds with no books at home, parents totally checked out, think the child being disengaged at school is funny. Again, not all families. You can also see wonderful parents who are very engaged and ambitious for their children; not in a "tiger mum" sense but saying eg I never went to university, I've never been abroad, I want that for (child).