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.

Otoh ikwym but I think it's a bit much to label North London media people as 'decadent & hedonistic'. What is that supposed to refer to? Drugs? Affairs?

I know Allen's parents were awful.

While I get your point, many neurodivergent people have very successful careers. While I struggle to keep my profession going, my DH's ability to hyper focus means he is an absolute expert in what he does. And we have many very successful neurodivergent friends. I appreciate that this is not true for every neurodivergent person, but many are very successful, and their children, neurodivergent or not, grow up in middle class homes.

It was always about whether you’d been prepped for the test.

100% of MIL’s primary school class got into grammar school in 1959. Questions were designed to catch you out if you hadn’t practised. OTOH barely anyone in my mum’s class made it (including my mum, 1961). MIL failed her O-levels and my mum wasn’t allowed to take them and had to do evening classes.

My mum is still fuming - she got her degree in the 90s (MIL never got a degree).

You’re oversimplifying but it’s not uncommon in this corner of London to find a free reception kids told to sit on the carpet sorting with backs to teachers, not knowing how to feed themselves either. Someone who have 0 toys or books at home. It’s truly awful.

There’s a strong and established link between poverty and SEN. Children on free school meals have around double the rate of SEN as the overall school population.

Reasons are thought to be more likely to have inherited SEN, poverty exacerbating the development of SEN in early childhood, or the financial burden of raising children with SEN.

Could also be poorer people maybe eat more processed food with EDCs & microplastics. Also stress in pregnancy can be a factor.

Off topic, but I had to reply in chorus with other 11+ veterans. The grammar school system was intentionally geared towards 'elevating' academically able children from less-privileged families - and it worked.

People like to make snide comments about their being a civil servant factory: that was one of the drivers, and there's nothing bad about it. A kid from a generational manufacturing or mining background could become a teacher or work in local government - clean, safe, secure jobs with paid holidays and proper pensions. If we didn't fancy that, a whole set of new horizons were open to us, thanks to an education designed to reveal our potentials.

My school was selective. About a third of us were working class; most of the others were middle: parents were managers and teachers. The other local grammar had roughly inverse proportions. Both schools sent a high proportion of pupils on to higher education.

There was a class difference, if you like, in that more of the middle-class parents seemed to have children scoring above 95% on the 11+. I don't pretend to know why that may be, though obvious guesses are available. The more important factor, I think, is that NONE of our parents were wealthy. I'm not sure there were any rich people in my part of the Black Country in the 1970s 😂 but, if there were, their kids didn't go to state schools. My middle-class friends lived in 3-bed semis.

None of our parents were wealthy, yet we were all educated as well as a rich kid.

Despite the demonstrated problems with streaming, one other thing I think our governments did well back then was the range of further education options: art schools, technical colleges and polytechnics were available according to a young person's aptitudes.

There aren’t any problems with streaming in a comprehensive system, especially in subjects like maths.

There are massive problems with streaming by separating children into different types of schools at 11.

There is a theory that the increased ‘social mobility’ of the 1960s/early 1970s was actually the demographic timebomb of WWI coming home to roost. A generation lost (45 years earlier) meant that there was a shortage of people to fill roles for the next few generations, so school leavers were straight into fairly good jobs out of school.

Yeah, that's why they were so keen to educate us to an adequate standard. Also why the technical colleges were so good: the majority of men killed were not paper-pushers but mechanics, metalworkers, builders, etc.

Now grammar school kids are barely from working class background. The 11+ is sooo selective they are middle class kids heavily tutored to enter. My boss who makes over £300k a year sends his kids to a grammar as he can’t afford £100k a year of private tuition (3 kids), he confirms the other kids parents are professionals with jobs at least paying £80-100k a year.

I’d say I’m working class but idealistic. My children all raised with books and wooden toys, limited screens, wholesome food, in the countryside lots of fresh air and exercise blah de blah.

Eldest struggled massively in primary. Dyslexic but undiagnosed for years. Excellent vocabulary, a real mismatch between abilities and performance. He found it fustrating and developed work avoidance strategies. Basically the more you misbehave the more school will pander to you. Pandemic was excellent for him as we were able to go back to basics and 1-1 teaching and essentially hot house him through it. Most importantly had to retrain him out of work avoidance. I think he had a lazy teacher for a few years from reception who just shunted off kids who weren’t fitting into the box instead of trying to find a way of learning thst worked for them. Top sets in high school.

Contrast that with his sisters who are excellent and easy pupils. Not always the best listeners to be fair but engaged and enthusiastic. The teachers is really happy with where they are but if had a complaint its that they are always reading even when should be doing something else.

I think school naturally suits some people a lot better, they are round pegs fitting neatly into a space designed for them, regardless of class. School often fails the square pegs, I do think modern life is creating more of these square pegs which is why school is more of a struggle. I know as a parent there’s definitely a tipping point where you spend all your time firefighting rather than be out ahead organised and achieving. I think a lot of teachers are locked into constant firefighting due to the volume of square pegs.

IMO schools and parents really need to work at finding out how to get the best out of their young learners. That takes time and effort and early intervention. This is coloured by my own experience but I think kids are allowed to fly under the radar until difficult behaviour becomes entrenched . Hugely difficult to unpick.

Possibly unreasonable here too but I think there’s a value in teaching a bit of conformity/ responsibility. Yes you have the right (as a child) to be heard but not when the teacher is talking as you also have the responsibility to respect others right to learn. A lot of the time there is massive focus on the individual and their needs but society and the classroom needs people who are happy to work together for the general good.

Just going a little further back too, I notice that when it comes it infant feeding, it seems to be mostly middle class mums that breastfeed and working class formula feed.

I can put this down to a few things: better maternity leave for MC mums, allowing for longer term breastfeeding plans. Better access to information/ support for breastfeeding. There seems to be a more “one and done” (or two and done) culture among middle class parents and so they are able to devote more time to bfing, where as WC mothers often have larger families or are caring for other family children/elderly relatives so have less time to devote to bfing.

I’m obviously not saying this is everyone, just a trend I’ve observed. And interestingly historically it has been the other way around: bfing was seen as something that the WC did, whereas MC women formula fed because they could afford it. My grandmother used to formula feed because she had been told and believed that it was better for baby than bfing! That was the messaging at the time.

Selective school veteran in my 50s myself.

Yes, it has always been a great tool for social mobility for those that passed the 11+. The issue was with what happened to those that didn't.

Rather than produce a splendid system for the few, we need to concentrate on delivering a fabulous system for the many - comprehensively.

I agree that further education has become a little muddled with the move to labelling institutions across the board as universities when more focused technical and vocational colleges were more effective and in fact prestigious within their fields.

It's sad how far social mobility has been rolled back in this country - and I am afraid I don't see a reversal of that trend on the horizon.

I see a class divide but nothing as extreme as the OP. I don't know any middle class toddlers who can read or working class school aged kids that aren't toilet trained.
When DC were young I used to go to two toddler groups in very different areas.

MC area- the Mums were running about the hall with their kids. Playing with them, showing them things, refereeing their little disputes with other kids.

WC area- the Mums were in seats at the edge of the hall, drinking tea and chatting or scrolling on their phones. Kids were in the middle, playing with each other. I got a compliment from another mum at that group about how well DS "plays away".
Independence was seen as a good thing.

Im sure the MC kids started school a little ahead because of all that intense slightly anxious input from adults. But the WC kids were more socially adept around other kids. And the WC mums got to finish their tea while it was still warm.

I think the amount of lazy parenting is increasing - as reported by early years teacher friends. They noticed changes going back over 20 years and sadly all in schools that are in working class areas. Still in nappies, can’t use cutlery, etc.
I also believe we make too many excuses for feckless parents these days. I grew up on a council estate and there was a lot of poverty but there was only one family who didn’t care for their kids properly ….but they were still out of nappies by school age.

It’s not that simple.
im having a nightmare with overindulged middle class children whose parents would never dream of telling them no. Some of my families from poorer backgrounds have children who behave well and have manners. Not in all cases but some.

Wealthier parents these days seem to be raising very nervous, anxious children who cannot bear conflict or even disagreement, and are extremely self involved and unable to take no for an answer.

And everyone's children have excessive amounts of screen time, even Jasper and Penelope are online far, far, far too much - particularly once they get to school.

Wealthier parents these days seem to be raising very nervous, anxious children who cannot bear conflict or even disagreement, and are extremely self involved and unable to take no for an answer.

And everyone's children have excessive amounts of screen time, even Jasper and Penelope are online far, far, far too much - particularly once they get to school.

A heathy developmentally normal child wouldl have potty trained themselves by schoolage 30,40 50 years ago.
Thr issue i believe is caused by increased constipation and impaction maybe caused by change in diet snd activity levels in children, masking the sensation of 'needing to go'.
The main probkem is emotional immaturity. Parents dont instill self-belief , delayed gratification, resourcefulness, resilience, risk management and yes obedience.Children are given too much control, too many decisions, no firm boundaries, no accountability - when their kids mess up, they put the blame on someone else.
Screen time especially social media use is a massive problem. 'Too busy' is no excuse. Parents in the oast managed without screens to babysit their kids

Yes the current MC trend is to limit screen time. Anecdotic but at both my DC’s private secondaries most children have dumb phones. Smartphones are discouraged and if really your child needs one it has to be left at the school reception. And the phones are only used for the school commute anyway.
Also, you would never see a MC child in a buggy with a tablet.

Oh wow this is so true.

I think the question op was posing is the known gap getting bigger?

Due to university fees being so high, yes. Many students from deprived backgrounds are so afraid of the debt associated with higher education that they simply can not attend university no matter how bright. In my view this is the single most detrimental development to very low income families having access to social mobility and improving their chances.

The other issues are the sheer cost of living, insecure housing or moving from bedsit to bedsit in different areas.

I can’t bring myself to use the term underclass - it’s repulsive but there is a section of society that are really struggling in a way most of us can not even imagine. They need the most support and investment in our society by far.

Anxiety is an interesting one. There is basically an epidemic of anxious children (at my secondary, anyway). Children need to spend unstructured time independently of their parents, with other children, in order to build resilience and experience mildly tricky situations. This isn’t happening.

The anxiety epidemic is partly down to parents snowploughing issues out of their children’s path, before they’ve had a chance to get into a pickle and solve it themselves.

As soon as the work gets hard, or a child bumps into them in the corridor, or a teacher awards negative points for missed homework, or there’s a friendship fallout, a large minority of children cannot cope, and some parents really lean into this.

Plenty of screen time and nappies in our private school.

I think money does buy some privileges that help to keep kids off screens. For me it's that we have several nice parks with green spaces that we can walk to from our house. Very useful during the holidays.