To find middle class parents insufferable?

[Gwst]

Sorry rant incoming! I'm so sick of how since becoming a parent half the people I speak to seem to be insufferable snobs about the area we live in (in a big city). Schools are "terrible" despite good ratings, couldn't possibly be good enough for their children, and are upset they don't live in a posher area, too many undesirables round where we live, complaining about drugs etc when this is an issue that 100% doesn't affect their demographic. I've recently had someone say they had to move to the suburbs because at their local school all the parents had "a can of coke in one hand, a fag in the other and 10 kids" and another saying a nursery wasn't good enough as they didn't want their child looked after by someone with a speech impediment. Both of these left me with my jaw on the floor shocked someone would think it's OK to say that but they seem to have no embarrassment about saying it to me, a casual acquaintance. And the area we live in is full of creative types, ostensibly left wing etc but also seem to hold these reactionary views when it comes to their kids.

The thing about schools drives me mad as I guarantee most of these people have zero experience of attending or their kids attending a challenging city comprehensive. It's just this perceived bias that their kids will get bullied or become drug dealers or other crap that they heard from their parents as to why they went to private school and are now parroting but can't afford private school or a posh area themselves. I went to a pretty crap school but I came out with good grades and went to a prestigious uni. It wasn't all great but it was a realistic cross section of society and arguably gives you good expectations of the real world and that fact that not everyone in your community is privileged etc. But no one seems to care about that and just wants to look out for themselves and everyone else be damned.

I am middle class myself lol. And my kid is going to have plenty of (unfair) social advantages anyway without us having to get them into "the best" school or only socialise with other middle class people. I just really don't get it. Am I alone in thinking like this??

That did start to fall apart a bit with the geek revolution. It didn't matter who your daddy knew if you couldn't code a bank's computer system effectively you were just a decoration no one could now afford because the geeks wanted paying!

The best thing we did for our two was to give them both a brother, which is available to all social classes and income groups. The love, friendship and just general joy they get from each other is worth much more than the 5 years at secondary school. (Mixed sex/social/economic for both the middle class pony owning local school was a cesspit of entitled bullying).

We have no idea if what they decide to study at uni will be of any use (I guess in mumsnet terms that means HIGH EARNER) but we know that they will always have the other at the other end of their messaging systems to cheerlead or catch them when they fall.

Chatting one day, one says "I won't be wealthy I want to be a scientist" the other "I want to be mansion rich". "Excellent you can pay for your brother's research then, glad we have that sorted". Both shrugged and said "fine"

So there we are nothing to worry about!

I also find it very interesting that people who claim to be open minded are at the same time so obviously obsessed with class and able to list the names of schools and unis of their friends 😂

I am working class went to an absolutely crappy school .but I can honestly say most of my friends all have degrees good jobs stable life's. People underestimate these days the benefits of real life education.

YANBU at all. I find it incomprehensible how people will dismiss perfectly lovely white working class people in the most horrible terms while they would die rather than say anything negative about a non-white person that might make them
appear racist. That’s not very helpful and it’s why we’ve ended up with the Pakistani rape gang situation.

I also went to state school, and while not sure if my uni counts as prestigious, it was Russell Group.

We moved away from a very middle class area because we disliked the way everyone was competing with each other and no one was any fun. No one would help you either. Now we live somewhere more normal with a really nice community. The one thing I do miss is more intelligent conversation, but I have some friends from uni for that!

This reminded me of being a child and actually finding heroin needles in our local park!

Do lice know what class the parents are?

I’m from Ireland too and I’m glad it’s not like this here., outside of Dublin at least. There is very little difference what school you sent your child to and in fact there is very little talk about what “class “ anyone is at all over here.

Probably because Ireland has 5 million people, and is far more spread out and therefore less crowded/pocketed? Plus more homogenous. Although you mustn’t miss an opportunity to say how much better it is!

What makes u think youre middle class and not working class like the rest of us?
Do you not work?
Are you titled? Family wealth, that's what I interpret as middle class.
I think youre slightly above your station!

It isn’t actually better in fact in my opinion it’s worse in a lot of ways but one good thing about it I’ve realised is that people don’t give a shit about “class” here as much at all.

Why do the Irish send their DC to private schools here? I know quite a few from various private schools in London. Why don't they just go to local schools (state schools are ok where we lived in London)?

Schools are so different, now, to back in our day. The social issues they have to deal with are extreme and numerous (far beyond what we would have experienced). My husband is a Deputy Head in a state comprehensive (always has been, went to a state comprehensive himself etc) but he's desperate for our child to get into a grammar school or go private because he doesn't want their education or well-being to suffer. He sees how much time, energy and resource is "spent" on all those children with issues, at the expense of the middle of the road kids, along with the disruption they cause and the negative impact it has on the good kids. Unsurprisingly, he wants better for our own.

They get a nasty shock when they realise ‘rough’ in Ireland is nothing like ‘rough’ in England/Scotland/Wales

I don’t know anything about Irish people who have moved to the uk i am not their spokesperson and I don’t live in the uk. There are very few people who bother sending their kids to private schools here .

Untreated lice. The parents of the family I know like this are alcoholics. Others will be drug addicts. I hope you appreciate having a substance misuse issue is time consuming (doesn’t leave time for treating lice) and finance consuming (leaving you poor).

If you want I can draw one of them graphs with two big circles and a bit where they cross over in the middle

I kinda forgot whatever I said earlier but did I mention being poor? Because my kids don’t go to private school they just go to the best school in my town with the best cohort of people. A school you don’t have to pay to attend

Same for us. After 2 decades teaching, there is no way in hell I'd have sent my DC to a normal comp. Even in our leafy, just-out-of-London borough.

These threads always go the same way.
Private v public schools and how the posters from the roughest comps ended up running the country.
England v Ireland and how Ireland's has a class system despite numerous Irish posters saying the opposite.
Middle class v working class.

Its so dull.

I don’t think people in Ireland are uniquely different from people in the uk in terms of “roughness”

And now I want a can of Pepsi Max 😔

It is.....

Ireland doesn't have a knife culture.

But not all ( in fact a small minority) of WC people are alcoholic or drug abusers. In fact these problems also affect the middle class

My kids picked up lice, I did go through their heads constantly to sort it and I'm working class. And it's hardly finance consuming. And what makes you think working class people are " poor" anyway?

Hmmm, I am middle class, left wing and anti private schools so I sent my DD to a comprehensive. But unfortunately the environment traumatised her and she had a mental breakdown and became too ill to go to school. It was a horrific time and changed my views a bit. Some kids can still do well in challenging environments but not all of them. And my poor ASD daughter was definitely not in the right place. Luckily I managed to move her to a nurturing, creative school instead and they helped her get some education. I used to feel like you and was a bit of an inverted snob but I have more understanding now of why some parents might know instinctively their children won’t cope with a massive noisy shouty inner city comp.

Did I say all working class were drug addicts? I cant be bothered to scroll back and see what I said, did I tell you I had my first kid when I was 16 and lived in a homeless shelter? Been far broker than the average person who likes going on about how working class they are (not you, but people I know who do this) would never let my kids go around with untreated lice.

Anyway I said being a drug addict is time consuming hence leaving no time for treating lice, it’s also finance consuming making families with untreated lice more likely to be poor. Seeing as you asked

As a reply to my comment on whether lice know what class people are.

You edited your comment but I don’t think they’re necessarily poor, almost everyone I know who lives mentioning they’re working class is richer than me