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??

Nothing wrong with having standards and there's no prize for putting up with a shitty school in a bad area if you can actually afford to live in a better area.

However I do laugh in the face of try hard snobs who clearly have ideas above their station and don't actually have the means or wherewithal to move to the better areas.

It depends entirely on what life stage you meet at and what you do for a living and other variables. I’m in my 50s, so school is a distant memory, plus I’ve spent most of my adult life living outside my home country, so hardly any of my friends would have reason to know. I Lots of my closest friends date from my undergraduate and postgrad days, so obviously we all know where we studied, and I’m an academic so my colleagues could know where my degrees are from via my departmental research page, or at least my doctorate and post-doc work. Outside of that, only if it comes up in talk, they went to a terrible reunion, or they keep stacks of their alumnus magazine in the downstairs loo.

How things have changed! Burgeoning middle classes are very different now from the 70s and 80s. I know middle class kids from that time who were perpetually lice ridden as their parents disagreed with using chemicals - probably smoked the odd homegrown spliff.

Exactly this.

You know when most people don't pay taxes which reflect the services the receive from government - and in fact most people's children won't pay for the services they receive - I don't feel bad about middle class people subsidising lower earners, I'm pleased they do.

Some day we in the UK will end up with police being bribed private gated estates etc but that's the way of the world. The people who believe in law and order will be on the private gated estates and the people who don't will not, judge where you want to be.

Sounds revolting. Not sure we knew anyone like that. Why on earth would anyone do that?

Most benefit claimants don’t work. So they’re not ‘low earners’, they’re not earning at all.

As would most parents and quite right too.

We do the best for our children, snobbery doesn't enter into it.

The area you bring your kids up in and what school they go to, will have a huge influence on them
Maybe just as much influence as you will have on them

I cantdisagree with that Hence why I live in a 2bed flat where I do rather than 3/4 bed house in the next town. But I'm not rich, or have a fancy job. Just was a working single parent.

Sorry are you saying you aren’t allowed to chat about your holiday to other people? How are you ever going to decide if you want to visit somewhere unless you hear about it from others. It isn’t showing off, it’s just general small talk chit chat. We had less children so we could spend the money on holidays for the family so I’m not going to apologise in chatting about it to other people and I’m happy to listen to other people as well about theirs. We booked one trip based on the experience of another mum.

YANBU

I’m in Scotland and although I’m a highly qualified professional we don’t live in a particularly posh area though it’s nice enough. A lot of people of my acquaintance drone on endlessly about house prices and
schools. Bores the arse off me, so dull. Anyway we’re about to become mortgage free and my children have done amazingly at school so I guess I’ve had the last laugh ;)

Almost everyone in the UK is on some hierarchical middle class projectory these days and anyone who isn’t is either an asylum seeker who soon will be or implicitly a ‘benefit scrounger’ working their arses off to be and might soon be too. Then the middle lowers who have struggled up from the lower middles ( in danger of getting muddled) can look down upon someone.

Do you think parents who pick better areas so their kids achieve more are bad parents but people like you ok to give the kids their bare minimum are bad people ? Okkkkk
I moved nation and I thin the uk to give my kid a better area and opportunity to start school later with smaller classes and not near council estates with a ton of social issues . I must be awful in your eyes

We hopefully all do what’s best for our children. Some don’t have those choices and are just glad to be living in a safe place so we should all strive to make wherever we live safe and maybe remember that some have to try harder than others.

I definitely judge parents who smoke in the presence of their children or at the school gates 😂 doesn’t everyone really? It’s a very poor choice to make isn’t it. There is no positive to it whatsoever, literally none. I’m not sure you can say that about many other things to be honest, so I feel it’s something ok to judge someone on! Re the schools being crap, if they’re not then I’d just not and smile and let them crack on with their lives.
Maybe they will move soon and you will have more of a community that you get along with 🩷

No, as the tide has already turned, everyone who is MC is on the downward trajectory now, hence the angst :)

My kids have been at normal school for 10 years now (and 3 years of nursery before that) and never got headlice; judging by these comments, I think they must just be immune as obviously the place is crawling with them 😂
Better warn your snobby friends that most private schools offer scholarships to poor kids, so they'd better give their kids a good scrub before they enter the house - wouldn't want them to catch anything!

Germs can actually be quite beneficial. Middle classes are very adverse.

The fear of the louse in the house depends on how many kids you have too.

@Gwstits not just the demographic. It’s the opportunities. Art, drama, orchestra, so many schools don’t offer this at all or at a low level. Modern language A levels are such a rarity.

@StrictlyCoffee I don’t see the glee in paying off a mortgage! Everyone dies it at some stage. For us: 48. Not that wonderful. Ed got another one and moved to somewhere wonderful. Much happier to have done this.

It's a bit chicken and egg but I don't blame you for moving your child. If my child was beaten up just once and the school didn't deal with it well I'd have zero qualms taking them out. And consider putting them in private school if that was a possibility. I'm amazed you put up with it for so long!

The "old money, posh" people I know swear like troopers and as casually as they'd open a third bottle of Chateau Margaux on a Tuesday evening.

I think it’s starting to go the other way. My experience is that many middle class parents exercise permissive parenting (they are unable to say no) and are obsessed with getting diagnoses for their children as it’s become fashionable, rather than actually parent their children. My child’s experience at a ‘middle class’ school is actually poorer than a friend’s at a less middle class school, as the behaviour is better in the classrooms as the kids aren’t entitled and think they can do whatever they want…

Swearing like troopers casually and for no reason makes you down-market; I don't care how old their stupid money is. What you said just goes to show that true class is a matter of character, nothing else.