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.

You really really do need to try harder

I have not said thaf asylum seekers shouldn't be supported or that our own people should be elevated above them. I have said (or rather meant) that it it is totally unfair to compare two sets of people, who aren't even coming from the exact same backgrounds, and use the praise of one to denigrate the other 'asylum seekers are aspirational and engaged whilst white WC are lazy and unmotivated". That's not remotely true or fair, especially as I've explained you're not comparing two sets people from the exact same background and beleive me, telling Reform voters this (as another poster suggested) would do AS no favours. ⁴

It's true that white working class boys do badly but the reasons are multiple and people are sk busy running down certain social groups, calling them the underclass and so forth that they don't even bother to look into the real underlying reasons and barriers which stop people taking advantage of opportunities which might be open to them.

There are multiple reasons why AS might be more engaged than white WC. I've tried to explain or at least outline some of them. There is no reason to compare one group to another. You aren't even comparing the same group of people. It's apples and oranges as I've said. .

How about you actually read what I'm saying in my posts and consider it?

Also I'm seriously curious where you get the idea that I personally somehow feel "attacked". That's just something you've pulled out of your ass I think ....

Why do you think white working class are in a worse position, or that they are "apples and pears"? Genuine question. These are women in a hub where they meet the criteria for services. All in receipt of benefits, DC entitled to FSM, living in an area with lowest POLAR score. I would argue that the locals are far more privileged - they speak the language, know how to access services, mostly live in permanent housing. This doesn't mean they are inferior or even superior, but statistically it should be that between these two groups, the local ones DC should have better educational outcomes, but they don't on a general level and we need to explore why this is.

I told you why. I said it several times in my posts, repeated it over and over and I really can't be bothered to repeat again if you lack basic reading comprehension.

The information is all there for you to "explore"

sighs and attempts to explain the very basics of Economics

To move half way around the world and start a business you usually need "capital".

At the very least you need a passport and money for a plane ticket. Which can be prohibitively expensive for the poorest in a third world country who struggle to.put food on their children's plates.

Very poor people do not have "capital" neither are they often able to accrue it due to poverty level wages and lack of marketable skills.

So those moving to other countries setting up businesses etc tend to be from at the very least the upper working class of that country which obviously won't equate to upper working class of the country they've moved to (by our standards they're still very poor) but they have still, comparatively, had a relatively decent education and life and have access to some funds. They won't be at the very bottom of the social strata in their home country.

This comes with all sorts of side benefits such as confidence, positivity, business skills, ambition, thinking big, beleif in yourself which makes if easier to succeed in life. These are very often not shared by those who have been brought up at the very bottom of society. In any country.

That's why the immigrant is setting up a business and the unemployed chav who was kicked out of school at 16 for being "disruptive" due to poor mental health and undiagnosed SEN and struggles to get through the month on UC plus can't get a loan as has no credit rating isn't.

There are people in third world countries just as poor and hopeless as the Unemployed Chav. Worse in fact. They aren't setting up businesses attending baby classes or improving their lives either. They're struggling to survive. But you don't see them as they're not here.

You do realize that a lot of people are trafficked in? They don't even own a passport, let alone money for the plane ticket.

I totally understand that people come here through trafficking. Even then they usually need to pay the people smugglers which again requires a form of capital.

It's by far not the most common way to come here however.

To those discussing white working class v underclass, I recommend this book:

Ugh photo under review. It’s Underdogs by Joel Budd.

That book looks interesting, thanks

As long as it’s not equating the uc simply with the white working class- which the cover does seem to imply.

As I’ve been banging on about upthread, they are not the same. If there’s one thing the uc AREN’T, it’s’working’, almost by definition.

Interestingly this is the class which has frightened politicians of all parties at least since the industrial revolution. They are seen as being scarily unreachable, unreachable and resistant to initiatives. They are the group which Charles Dickens refers to in A Christmas Carol when he shows Scrooge the vision of the 2 ragged, thin children. The spirit says to Scrooge ‘This boy is Want, this girl is Ignorance’. He tells Scrooge to fear them and accuses him of creating them.

They definitely don’t represent the working class - but something else completely.

That should say unreachable and unteachable. Autocorrect…

That's not quite right. He actually says that the girl is want and the boy is ignorance. And that both should be feared, "but especially the boy:

“This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased"

Ignorance is, indeed very dangerous. Whether its ignorance due to poor education leaving someone unable to drag themselves out of poverty or ignorance that says "these are the underclass. They're lazy and stupid and chaotic and mostly addicted. Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?"

Its also worth pointing out that Dickens himself had lived alongside The Underclass. His father has spent time in a debtors' prison amongst the wretched and lost who had "failed" in society. He paints sympathetic pictures of those at the bottom of society, contrasted with the selfish ignorant Scrooge who just beleived they were a bunch of scumbags and he didn't want to spend money making idle people merry at Christmas.

Dickens' works were a great driver of social reform. I would urge anyone on the right who parrots "are there no prisons? No workhouses?" Why should the failures get a free pass to do nothing?" to read them.

Agree with this - thanks for the correction - my memory isn’t what it was, but gosh, that scene from ACC is hard- hitting and still applies today.

And every time I read it I’m amazed at Dickens’s perceptiveness and foresight.

(A flawed human but a great artist, as they so often are!)

Want was to be feared as desperate people could prove dangerous , as had been proven by the revolutions which had been springing up across Europe during Dickens' time.

Ignorance was and still is however the more dangerous child.

Want also caused significant social problems such as crime and disease like Cholera which decimated entire areas and could affect the rich as well as the poor. Indeed it was usually when things started to affect the rich that something was done about it.

But Want is exacerbated by ignorance.

Yes, I think this is a huge issue. I also think that the class divide persists throughout childhood; in 20 years there is going to be a huge difference between kids who have grown up with lots of screens/roblox/chatgpt/Alexa/TikTok etc and middle class kids who are given basically the same kind of childhood middle class children have been having for years - little/no screentime, books, outdoor play etc.

I agree there will be a huge difference between kids raised those different ways but disagree that it’s necessarily anything to do with class. I was born in the 2000s so screens were around when I was growing up and my mum gave me what you call a middle class childhood even though technically she wasn’t even working class but what’s described as underclass on here.

Quite a few of the boys from better off families my age grew up playing call of duty and gta in all their spare time. (Around age 10 even though those games are 18+)

Two lawyer parents are not necessarily working crazy hours. They have likely delayed parenting to their mid 30s so are already well up the career ladder. They are senior enough that even if they started out working at a top firm with crazy hours, they are now in a position to move in house, move to a less prestigious firm with more civilised hours or work reduced hours at a top firm. Not everyone who starts out at a city firm becomes a partner at a city firm (although yes if you are a partner at a city law firm you will be working crazy hours... but earning more than enough for your spouse to be a sahp). Also, even if lawyers work long hours, post covid it is perfectly possible to work at home most of the time, clock off at the kids dinner time and start work again after they go to bed - ie work long hours and spend a couple of hours a day with family every evening.

Of course there are exceptions to every rule, so I am not suggesting that every middle class person parents one way and every working class person parents another. However, I do think that social differences do make an enormous difference. It's well established that poverty/deprivattion is associated with poor school readiness.

Agreed my DS (born 2006) waa one of the few boys in his class, (some of whom were quite well off) who wasn't allowed to play COD and GTA at 10. The better off ones were the ones with the most expensive gaming equipment also ie they had VR headsets as soon as they came out. DS has never had one.

Granted at 18 he loves gaming and is studying game design at uni. But he also spent his childhood playing football, Karate, swimming, taekwondo, piano, stage coach, cubs etc. He didn't spent his entire childhood in front of a screen.

My DD 15 has tiktok and plays the odd game but she's mostly into horses and spends most of her time at the yard mucking out or practising her guitar.

I have a friend whose children are screen free and she's quite middle class. But she's also a massive hippy.

I work in legal and most of my team work mostly long hours from home.

Yes - Dickens was very perceptive in understanding that it's the combination of those two deficiencies which leads to misery all round and is dangerous to society.

And - that's what you see with the underclass. Poverty and lack of the means to improve things.

When I was doing my PGCE, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, we had a book recommended to us called something like 'Fifteen Hundred Hours'. The title refers to the amount of time a child will spend in school over their childhood, and it argued that, however deprived the child, that time was theoretically enough to turn things around for them.

For some severely deprived and abused children it's not just a matter of all the positives they could get from school - it's also to do with getting them out of the harmful environment of their homes for as long as possible. We all know that some children's circumstances do not meet the threshold for removal from their parents, but my God, they have a grim time. In an ideal world the next best thing for these children is to provide as much wrap-around care as possible so that as long as their parents get them to school (or they're picked up) they can experience a more healthy environment for as much of their waking hours as possible.

Again - this doesn't need to be be a universal offer. The argument about stigmatisation and making everything universal is what makes so many things unaffordable. I'm not suggesting teachers should look after them either - play leaders or similar would be the right kind of staff for this.

Just an idea - not very thought-out, I admit.

Fifteen Thousand Hours.....sorry.