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.

I would argue that it’s the middle class parents with less time, more like to work and have careers , it’s the parents on benefits who stay home that have all the time.
but essentially I don’t agree it’s about class at all, rather parenting vs lazy. Simple as that.

It is possible to build resilience though. It’s never too late. Start trusting your child can fix their own problems. Ask questions rather than give answers. Don’t pander and get them outside as much as possible is a good start. Get cold. Get wet. Get muddy. Feel uncomfortable. Stop sanitising life. Death happens. Illness happens. Shit happens and it’s okay. The world keeps turning.

I know this, I’ve done it with my own two 🤣 they are very much of the ‘shit happens’ variety 🤣🤣 I work with teenagers and, unfortunately, the die is often cast fairly early in life, although we help children to build resilience.

Affluent parents read to their children, have books in the house, and read themselves. Children learn from habit and example.

There are also many working class parents who have a deep interest in their child succeeding academically who read to their children too.

The kicker is that schools in predominantly working calls areas have predominantly smaller libraries than schools in affluent areas - which is desperately unfair and to the detriment of the children who are deprived of easy access to books in the educational setting. You also see this discrepancy in the local libraries too, so there is a structural element to it.

The arrogance of youth is strong in you, isn’t it. By your own admission, you’re a childless 20-something, so maybe come back to a debate about children’s development when you’ve actually had some. @DeliciouslyBakedmade some very reasoned and evidenced based statements, contributing to the conversation with a helpful take on the issue, and you responded by simply being rude. It doesn’t reflect well on you

@sundaychairtree, A heathy developmentally normal child would have potty trained themselves by school age 30,40 50 years ago.

I actually burst out laughing. You think we didn't potty train children 50 years ago??!

For heaven's sake, they've found 4,000 year old potties made of clay 🤣 I've no idea if humans do train themselves naturally at any point, but we've certainly been teaching toddlers what to do for a very long time!

I work with older kids and see a lot of "middle-class neglect". Kids have expensive devices or are given cash for going out with friends rather than given attention. There's a big drug problem because they have money, and they are crap at talking to adults because they don't interact with their parents. In the grand scheme of things they will be better off that their really deprived peers, as they'll be cushioned by their parents' money, as long as their bladders aren't shot from too much ketamine.

A friend of mine uses the term “middle class neglect” - kids starved of parental time and attention. So I don’t think it’s a class thing.

Apologies I wasn’t aiming my post at you personally - simply acknowledging your point that the anxiety epidemic is real, and we can address the problem robustly as parents. It can be fixed - even if it feels daunting.

Over scheduling, a lack of true relaxation and decompression, too much screen time, exposure to adult material, snow plough parenting, not enough time outside or unstructured play creates a sub optimal state and anxiety in children. It festers for years, and usually surfaces in pre teen/teen years.

Many children have no idea how to even use their own free time as they are way too over scheduled and time tabled. Activities are only enriching if a child has time to think, ponder and develop their own ideas.

This is a particular middle class affliction that is damaging. Then they put their children into counselling wondering why the child is so miserable and well on their way to very poor mental health. Pushy parents are damaging in a different way. It’s not just the ‘underclass’ that are suffering -

I haven't witnessed that class divide amongst my circles. If I'm making sweeping generalisations, the more skint families (myself included) have more time to spend with their little ones as we're working part time (or some not at all) to be home for those early years so logically have more time for potty training, one on one reading etc. I don't mean to besmirch parents working full time hours- there are benefits to that too like providing holidays and other educational experiences we can't afford!

Completely agree.

I basically had a nervous breakdown when I was 7/8. I was a people pleaser and just got further and further into my ‘hobbies’ with no respite. This worsened at 11 with a music scholarship: I stopped eating for 12 months.

What I needed was loads of downtime hanging out with friends; this was where I was happiest and least anxious. What I got were more and more engagements and pressures.

My kids have way more downtime than I ever had and attend a fab comp/primary with just the right balance of activities and relaxation.

Kids will do well if they can gradually grow their confidence with plenty of time to decompress and socialise.

There definitely is an underclass in Scotland - people who aren't just living in poverty in an area where the parks are covered in used needles, but have close family with drug or alcohol addiction, kids are exposed to these in the womb then neglected in childhood and probably have a relative die of an OD in childhood/young adulthood. High risk of developing major mental health problems & drug addiction themselves.

The Scottish government don't acknowledge it but this is the flip side of horrifically high street drug use - whole families get trashed and it keeps going down the generations.

Yep: screen time is the new smoking when pushing a buggy. The taboo is what will eventually change behaviour here.

My DC's nursery helped potty train them. They were quite clear it was part of their job as they knew working parents couldn't juggle potty training and work.

There is a cohort of kids at the bottom who are disadvantaged in every way - a kind of an “underclass”

But I don’t think middle class parents are “better” than working class parents. It is just that educational attainments are, on average, predictable based on parented educational attainment.

There are so many factors at play and I think it’s lazy to assume wealth is the driver. It will always have an impact but isn’t the only thing. Some of the crunchiest gentle parents are very middle class (with poorly behaved kids) and some poorer families put everything into education.

But once there is a gap it is only going to grow through the primary years. No-one ever sits down and says ‘basically you’re in a class of 30, so a lot is down to you as parents to support reading, homework etc’. I don’t think that is ever said explicitly. As they get older, homework gets more demanding.

Having for a year 5 child now in a prep, I find it laughable that people say no tutoring or additional support is required for 11 plus exams. Even with support, the format is not a level playing field due to some of the inbaked general knowledge required beyond the actual basic skills themselves. Eg my daughter had a verbal reasoning homework. One of the answers was tenor. She plays two instruments but still didn’t have the knowledge to pick out that term from scrambled letters. What chance has a kid got who hasn’t been exposed to classical music at all.

The definition of a middle class childhood in the 70/80s was having reading books in the house. It was never about the money

My main concern about parenting is money and the ability to pay for extra curriculars and other enriching things like family days out. We’re a family of six (I have multiples before anyone tells me I should live within my means!) and days out are eye wateringly expensive. I wanted to take them to a local attraction last week and it was over £100. It used to be that you could do a couple of these activities in a month but prices have shot up so much it’s no longer feasible. My kids are missing out on so much and it’s not even necessarily because we’re “poor” - it tends to be greedy businesses.

I saw this post OP. As a teacher I totally agree. I worry greatly for children coming into the schooling system. Lots of them have been handed a screen for every single moment of potential boredom. I see it all the time while shopping for example. Ships are language rich environments that provide countless opportunity for viocabulary development and imagination. It makes me so sad to see small children with a phone watching high stimulation tv shows when they could just be simply talking to their parent/carer. The proliferation of screens at all times is really going to be problematic when these children have to sit and wait their turn in schools. They are used to instant gratification. There are numerous studies that illustrate the link between delayed gratification and later outcomes in terms of academic attainment and future success. It is very worrying fumes

Its been that way for hundreds of years?? Look up the term ‘cultural capital’

Are business owners “coining it in” though? I know this is a popular opinion and perhaps some are, but stats suggest it’s not the majority. Average Net profit for companies in the UK is 8.8%. This obviously varies widely by sector but it’s not indicative of massive margins.
And the median profit for SMEs in the UK in 2024 was £13,000, not exactly a fortune. With 99.8% of businesses in the UK being SMEs, they definitely aren’t “coining it in”?

I think it’s always been the case.

Screens are a massive massive issue and I think in years to come we will look back with horror at young children’s’ media content today. Even TV with quick fire imagery and over saturation; I think it will come to be known that even this is very damaging to development, concentration and focus.
I think there is almost a pushback in modern parenting of trying to keep children babies for longer; maybe as we get such little time with them if working; hence things like late weaning and nappy changing. Yet we force them to grow up earlier in other ways - screens, children being sexualised in the consumer sector.

Parents’ not being ‘available’ for their kids because of modern working demands is a big fire pit of problems imo. Perhaps before there were other family / ‘village’ around to cover the gaps; but now I think there’s so much less of that support and there’s very little actual social cohesion and children are increasingly in institutions for lots of hours per day at a very young age.

I don’t know what the answers are - parents are stretched - there’s not enough support for families because we don’t value having children in our society. I think the roles of men and women in our quest for ‘equality’ have gone awry really and left everyone a bit lost

How so? My very poor grandfather took the 11 plus and became a GP. Various other family members passed the 11 plus and have gone on to professional careers - all from a very working class northern mining community.

being working class doesn’t mean stupid or parents don’t care. My family took education very seriously despite not having the resources.

The class divide has been well known for a long time, but it seems to be rapidly expanding. Working class people could still accumulate some cultural capital, listen to classical music, read widely. Plenty of old boomers I knew growing up were brought up in levels of poverty that would we would deem utterly unacceptable now but were nonetheless highly literate. Education was valued. Now we are moving into an era where these kids won't even be able to read at all...

Screens have everything to do with this

The ‘answer’ appears to be that people and women in particular are simply choosing not to have children. You can see the way this is going to go. You are right the conditions in society are simply not conducive. The capitalist culture ensures nurturing and raising children is given no value whatsoever, and women are forced into work too early. The exhaustion and health problems mount up with no external support/the village. Perfect storm.

Hence the birth rates are plummeting in most demographics. Who would sign up to this knowingly?