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.

Your son's situation as an adult is hardly relevant! One may not get 10 year olds in nappies, yet, but no teacher or classroom assistant should have to waste any time covering for lazy parents, thus neglecting the rest of the class. How are children now different from the children of 30 years ago when it was almost unknown for a 4 or 5 year old to still be in nappies? By the way, most of their mothers worked too.

Things are different now.
I live in a area where shock horror some people who would be described as underclass live. Horrible word.
These people usually suffer from generational trauma, childhood abuse, learning difficulties, the working class are definitely more aware of worm holes into further education than when I was a teenager.
If you wanted trainers you got a job and saved for them.
Most people around here have jobs, most of the DC want more from life, it is drilled in, if you want a good lifestyle, you must work hard, in a shop or at college.
Work experience as an example, not having the contacts or family friends.
It's not always a case of not having the knowledge but the access.

Well I'm from a MC family, post grad degrees but I'm on long term benefits living in a very deprived area, so no idea what category I'm in 😁 By definition I'm probably underclass. And yes addiction is a massive factor in neglect, but there are also neglectful parents who aren't adficts

I’ve banged on upthread about how infuriating it is when people conflate the wc with what sociologists used to call the underclass - a clearly-defined social group, and absolutely NOT the same as the wc.

I don’t know what current political and sociological thinking is - are we pretending they don’t exist? Their issues need to be addressed but I don’t think there’s a society anywhere which has successfully dealt with this intractable and very difficult to help sector. A defining characteristic is that its members are very hard to help for all kinds of complex reasons.

It could be that they are less bound by the British class system and "knowing their place" as a white British born WC person who has been brought up believing "You're only fit to do manual work"

It could be also be the fact that these people had enough gumption to get up, move themselves and their entire family to the UK learn a new language etc shows a confidence that goes hand in hand with success.

However I would challenge the idea that these people are all part of the underclass. The very poorest people in third world countries don't end to emigrate to the UK. They don't have the money for the air fare. They don't have passports. They may not even be literate. Those who do come here tend to be slightly better off. I have friends of Indian, Pakistani, Chinese and Nigerian background. None of them are from rich families but none of their families were, in their country of origin, the "Underclass" ie the Dalits in India. They were mostly upper working class or lower middle. So even if they came here with very little or seem to be disadvantaged against established British families, it's not quite the same thing.

Same for asylum seekers. My friend's husband and his family came here as asylum seekers from Libya. His father was a doctor and his mother a respected musician and music teacher. They were consdered very middle class at home and had a lovely big house and servants. My friend's husband was in his teens when he came here. He went to University to study medicine and is now a chest surgeon. They are quite middle class.

So it's not quite the same to compare to a white British family who come from multiple generations of poor uneducated people and have never dared to think they can rise above it, nor have ever had the resources to do so.

Yes I definitely think things have changed. I know people on benefits who still access music lessons and other activities for their children (via school) and buy them books and do the best for them they can within their means. I think the comprehensive system has helped a lot. Further education is more accessible, there's more financial help, more options and different courses etc.

Thank you, I'm glad you read it that way. It isn't anti-feminist at all. My point is that families (not women) need more of themselves to thrive, society and capitalism don't consider the work that goes in to maintaining family and self as real or valuable.

I know I was just being facetious.

He wasn't "in nappies" at 4.

He was a late potty trainer, was in big boy pants and out of pullups at 3-sh but that had absolutely nothing to do with "laziness" on my part I can assure you!

My health visitor explained some children just take longer even if you do everything right. I was possibly a bit too hands-on as before nursery I waa mostly at home with him (only wored weekend) and we spent all day together. I would be the one to make sure he regularly went to the toilet, asked if he needed to go always checking and fussing and suddenly he was in a class of multiple children and he had to sort it out for himself with noone asking or taking him. And he usually didn't want to put down his toy car and stop playing until the situation was critical. Hence lots of wet pants for a few weeks. Then it started to click and he was fine, poasibly as a result of watching the other children. His sister who I potty trained exactly the same way was fine.

Sometimes being more hands on makes things worse. Someone else mentioned how a working class baby group they attended had the mums all sat around with their cuppas whilst the children played independently and how independence was seen as a good thing, in contrast to the more anxious middle class mums who ran around wiping noses and bottoms and tying shoelaces etc. Once nursery started the working class more independent children tended to cope better with being away from mum than the ones who had been helicoptered and to be honest my son was one of the latter.

I had to put my DD in daycare for a few days a week from a baby and I found that seemed to make a difference to her independence and how she coped with nursery. She was a lot more independent. I was much less anxious as a second time mum however.

I had considered putting something similar before but getting the phrasing right is difficult.

I think one of my points is there was more flexibility and options available to support the family a decade ago. Now women are just not having the choice to stay at home if they want. Some might have greater flexibility to WFH but actually that's being eroded now too. And there was more economic room for manoeuvre.

I think the pressure on women to 'do it all' is actually increasing and there's a limit to this without social changes to mens attitudes that STILL haven't happened and from government to recognise.

@KHMP1971

I agree. The uc is defined quite specifically and these characteristics don’t apply to the immigrants you describe:

• chaotic lives/neglected children/no family planning (frequent juvenile pregnancies)
• extremely low educational achievement
• longterm, sometimes permanent and sometimes inter-generational unemployment
• involvement in crime, particularly drug dealing, theft and petty fraud
• anti-social behaviour such as vandalism, littering and causing problems for their neighbours
• poor nutrition and health
• addiction problems
• no aspirations and hostility to peers with aspirations

What do you mean "help"?

I grew up around (not in) the underclass. I can assure you these are human beings like you. They're not freaks or monsters. They - shock horror- love their children and want to best for them. They don't enjoy struggling.

I never saw a great deal of "help" being offered. Solutions such as social housing which at least offered secure affordable housing and took the stress and fear of homelessness away were quickly taken away when Thatcher decided to sell it all off. Social Services have never offered many solutions other than placing children in a care system which largely traumatises and leaves them disadvantaged. Mental health services have been cut back to the bone.

Many suffer from crippling lack of confidence and the opportunity to rise above their situation because so many ladders have been pulled up. Grammar Schools did not help these people. Benefit cuts and aggressive Conservative policies have just made things worse and worse.

What "help" would you recommend?

@KHMP1971

Your points about immigration are spot on. I think there's another important distinction which is that if you come to the country as an immigrant you know you can't afford to fuck up. Being tolerated, never mind having any social mobility, depends on your ability to support yourself and demonstrate that you can assimilate. What little safety net does exist for immigrants is now at risk of being stripped away. So you know from the get-go you have to work harder and be ten times more successful than an "equivalent" English person to get a tenth of the way. And immigrant parents very often hammer this into their kids.

The "underclass" (and I agree that its a horrible word but its the most useful shorthand for now) knows through generational memory that it will ultimately be looked after by the state. It may be an impoverished or unfulfilling life but there's always a safety net.

I don't mean for this to come across as "benefits bashing" by the way: I know there are all sorts of reasons why it's incredibly hard to break out of this environment. But people who are in the third generation of chronic unemployment, while they may have all sorts of trauma and difficulty, don't have the fear of God in them that they are going to get deported or have employment rights taken away from them.

My old stomping ground has had four children die falling through the ice on a frozen what can only be called waste ground that they pass off as a lake.
Another child was in a coma for nearly 7 months when I was little crossing the road to get to that lake
I personally had a gravestone fall on my foot smashing it requiring surgery and a year of physiotherapy
Another child was killed on the rail track playing chicken
Very recently a local little boy was patting around in a car park pulling wheelies came over the handlebar and knocked both front teeth out and broke his nose
Life changing injuries
That’s what happens to kids that nobody gives a shit about
Freeroaming my 🍑

Heartbreaking isn't it? I can't beleive we were allowed to do what we did or that anyone thought it was OK. And parents telling us to "go out to play and get out from under my feet" its not free range parenting. It was neglect and laziness.

I'm not even going to think about the newspaper stories of children who went missing. There were many. When people complain about the lack of children "playing out" they need to consider this.

My middle class friend whose childhood and that of her sister were spent in ballet classes and music lessons and such idealised it as well. "Oh but you had simple pleasures!!" She envisaged us building dens and frolicking in the woods and meadows.

When I told her about the derelict wartime workshops with the used condoms and needles and the dirty jumping mattresses and trash she looked confused because that's not how it was in Stand By Me. "Yeah that doesn't sound great. Ugh shudder".

The point is we have procgressed and much as some people love to look back and claim things were better in the past it mostly wasn't.

Yes but the post referred specifically to 'toddlers!'

I live near a council estate that has big stretches of grass but no private gardens. The DC play out all hours until sunset. It is so cute to watch. All the age groups interact. They share toys, chalk the pavements, play with each others' pets. It has really brought home to me they they are having a bit of a golden childhood in comparison with middle class DC nearby who get home from school and play online, only ever interact with their own age group and play alone in their private gardens.

@Cinaferna

I live near a council estate that has big stretches of grass but no private gardens. The DC play out all hours until sunset. It is so cute to watch. All the age groups interact. They share toys, chalk the pavements, play with each others' pets. It has really brought home to me they they are having a bit of a golden childhood in comparison with middle class DC nearby who get home from school and play online, only ever interact with their own age group and play alone in their private gardens.

Nice to know that simplistic class stereotyping works both ways around!

Great post, I agree totally.

Tbf Stand By Me is pretty dark, the boys get threatened by older teens with knives & cigarettes and use a gun (since this is rural US) to defend themselves,Teddy has an abusive father, Chris is treated cruelly by teacher & peers due to his background.

Arguably the way we remember it is ironic since it's a film about nostalgia vs reality & then we remember the film itself nostalgically.

Arguably Dalits are a bit different from underclass though since they were traditionally made to do tanning, toilet cleaning etc by the whole social system.. Whereas, underclass here is technically able to do different jobs but held back by abuse, mental illness etc

The families I'm referring to that I volunteer with are all asylum seekers and refugees, not MC doctors and engineers. The mothers to my knowledge have no secondary education and many of them live in b&b/hostels and have been moved around quite a bit, so the DC have had interrupted school placements, so definitely not coming from any place of privilege.

😂

@CleopatraSelene

Arguably Dalits are a bit different from underclass though since they were traditionally made to do tanning, toilet cleaning etc by the whole social system.. Whereas, underclass here is technically able to do different jobs but held back by abuse, mental illness etc

True, but also by the decline of traditional manual industries. A lot of what's now called the "underclass" here are the third or fourth generation of people whose families were working class but worked in industries which are now obsolete and who couldn't educate or adjust their way out of it. Large parts of South Wales, for example, which were relatively prosperous when the mines were open, have been reduced to mass unemployment. And with very little thought by successive governments about how to re-skill those people or how to rebuild communities.

Yes, it's disgraceful. I've read (need to check tho) that Germany managed the mine decline slower so the impact was not so devastating.

I think humanity is splitting into two, as described in this article.

Exactly. I'm from South Wales. The run down estate I grew up on was relatively OK in the 50s and 60s due to lots of jobs and almost full employment in the steelworks and mines. It had become a sink estate by the 80s as everyone was on the dole.