Letting status anxiety stop me from making friends at DC school

[Namechanger67]

Will try to summarise this as much as possible. Have NC for this.

We live in a super wealthy area near London but we are not super wealthy. We have a good income and we have recently managed to buy our first 2 bed property (a garden flat) after a decade of saving. We are in our 40s.

DD is 5 and she goes to a local school. Because the area is mainly populated by very wealthy families, a lot of her school friends live in beautiful, expensive houses. We are talking 1 mil + price point. Ours was half of that.
Now, a decent human being doesn’t judge and shouldn’t care but I cannot help a sense of shame and embarrassment when it comes to playdates. I never want to be the one inviting people over first but of course then I do feel I have to reciprocate if they invite us and this gives me a lot of anxiety. How do I overcome that and is anyone ever in the same situation?

i am not from the UK and grew up low income (although we had everything we needed and my parents paid for my uni til the end so I was lucky in that sense). Our house was always the smallest and we couldn’t afford many things. I think this has never fully left me fully and even though we now have a decent income that is way above national average, I cannot ever shake this feeling (doesn’t help that we live where we live I guess).

I really hate myself for this and wish I didnnt care :(

Most people in London who have kids in a state primary mix with a range of people with all sorts of different levels of income/accommodation etc. If people judge you for your flat then they aren’t worth knowing. However I’ve never come across that attitude from a parent. My kids had some friends who were really wealthy and some who lived in small rented flats. None of it mattered at all. I would care if the kids were being supervised properly. I would want to be happy that the parents or carers were nice people who would feed the kids, keep them safe, use seatbelts, not get drunk or smoke in front of the kids etc.

You’re in danger of making your kids think that the size of your flat matters more than whether someone is kind, friendly, responsible etc.

I would be very offended and annoyed if someone didn't want to invite me because their house is smaller. It would make me think they see me as the problem, and that I must be shallow and materialistic.

Dh and I have a nice house in a nice area nothing extremely wealthy but a good address and a 4 bedroom house. I consider us very lucky. Dh works with extremely wealthy people, all his immediate colleagues have summer homes and most come from old money. Dh sometimes gets embarrassed about our home and it makes me mad. He knows its irrational. On the flip side I work in a low income role and some of my colleagues have passed comments about my house, one person told another that I live in a mansion and I was embarrassed, I felt like they were trying to judge me and make assumptions about me. I've been to colleagues houses and would never ever care or note that their house is smaller. It seems the issue comes from the person who feels inadequate and not the wealthier person.

I grew up in a pretty nice house, my dad had a good job, we weren't rich but we were comfortable. My best friend lived in a council house in a rough area with threadbare carpets and no luxuries. I LOVED being at her house, stayed there a lot as a kid - her family had little but they were warm and kind and welcoming and I honestly didn't think at the time that they were worse off then we were. They took me camping and they were some of the best holidays I had.

What I'm trying to say is please don't think that decent people will look down on you and your daughter. Well off people can be kind and non-judgemental too.

It sounds absolutely lovely. And I bet when you have friends round they really like what you've created.

I'm sorry that you are feeling ashamed of it...it feels like a throwback to your upbringing. Maybe you can work on that? I promise you that your friends are not judging your home negatively because it isn't as big as theirs...

Is it Wanstead by any chance ? House prices are mental but it is nice