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??

On the class thing, it's interesting having an Irish accent because people struggle to 'place' me. Of course when they find out where I live, the snobs show themselves very clearly.

Oh, it was a shit state school so he was really unlucky. His parents were new to the area and hadn't thought about catchment at all- they just thought all state schools were fine having lived in another country for a long time. It was bad luck because there were other, better state schools in the area.

I completely agree with op, we’ve sent our kids to our local secondary which is one of the ‘roughest’ in the city, we both work in the city in a well paid industry where some people look at us like we are mad lol. But the teachers are to the same standard, the school has lovely facilities and there’s nothing wrong with being around people from different backgrounds. There’s a distraction factor sure but as they get older that gets less.

the first time I saw hard drugs was when I worked at Bristol University

How nice for you. The first time I saw heroin smoked was when I was 11 at the delightfully down to earth comprehensive I was sent to. The day we moved to the leafy suburbs and I got to go to a "naice" middle class school was one of the happiest of my life.

I'm not sure where the 'how nice for you' comment came from. I was sharing an experience, just like you were.

The arseholery is a result of competitiveness and insecurity. I grew up in a grammar school area - all fine and dandy in primary school until the last year and a bit, when awareness of who was expected to pass the 11 plus and who wasn’t became apparent to the children (in those days, everyone in the primary state sector in the locality was entered to take the 11 plus, regardless, you didn’t opt in and were only opted out if you had an obvious learning disability). At the point this separation became apparent (teachers started selecting what tables you sat on, etc, etc), the bullying started, but very much in terms of the minority who were expected to get into the grammar schools being told they were posh and stuck up, not the minority telling the majority that they were common and stupid. If you are obsessed enough with class that you have chosen to classify a group of people whose behaviour irritates you as middle class, as though their behaviour is the defining feature of their social class, then you really are part of the problem, not the solution.

There are so many good reasons why (some) people don't want their kids to go to (some) state schools that have nothing to do with academic privilege. They the state school system isn't great in lots of ways. And the people who can afford to opt out are people with more money.

The irony of WC people saying "been there, hated it, don't care what MC say, no way I'm sending my kids to those shitholes" whilst champagne socialists are parading their bleeding hearts and telling about their first MC encounters with drugs and violence at their MC jobs in their 20s or 30s is certainly lost on many people here.

I think people conflate the umc with the mc, there’s a big gulf of money between them!

Yes, MC cannot afford private schools nowadays and are increasingly anxious.

But that's similar to putting disruptive kids withSEN in mainstream and letting the disrupt the whole class all the time. But people don't say " oh I want my. kids to go where's there isn't SEN kids"

I am very much WC, though I would not have called myself that before moving to the UK as Ireland isn't obsessed with class.

My point was lost on you so I'll explain it again. I grew up in an area that was so 'rough' there is a whole tv show on the BBC making fun of how rough it is, called Young Offenders. It's the type of place MC MNers would definitely sneer at. I went to state schools, which were fine because the Irish education system isn't a heap of shit like the British one - everyone gets a good education no matter where they live. Despite growing up in a 'rough' area the place I encountered drugs was Bristol Uni - a uni that is filled with MC wannabies with huge chips on their shoulder about not being at Oxford. The idea that being in 'naice' areas shields you from drugs is just stupid.

To add I did have MC job, largely because of my good Irish education which meant, like everyone else, it didn't matter where I came from, I had the same opportunities as everyone else. Applications to uni in Ireland are anonymous so the situation with Oxbridge where a lot more of a certain class were getting in wasn't actually possible.

Having been a teacher I can tell you they absolutely do say that, loudly and proudly.

I’m not sure the people you are describing are ‘middle-class’. They sound more like the sort of people who are mortgaged and loaned up to the eyeballs and only two months’ salary away from becoming the precariat that they despise.

They don’t really hate the lower classes, they are just terrified that it would only take a redundancy and a missed lease payment on the Discovery and they would be joining them.

many cultures will sacrifice everything to send their dc to the best school they can. Yet somehow in the UK some people think that’s a problem

So no drug use around you growing up and an excellent education. Sounds like you had a pretty sheltered upbringing @Whyarepeople That's the difference between a 'rough' area and a rough area.

I went to state schools, which were fine because the Irish education system isn't a heap of shit like the British one - everyone gets a good education no matter where they live.

'nuff said but somehow you now want Brits to sacrifice their kids to places you call heaps of shit?.. 🤔 OK then... The irony is definitely lost for good 😁

Yes, OP has displayed her subscription to a very stupid idea that drugs are "visible" and if you can only see homeless addicts in her area then it means her MC demographic is not affected, and she would then feel free to judge people aroubd her for trying to avoid that for their DC... so what? People tend to entertain lots of stupid ideas 🤷‍♀️

Wanting the best for your children isn't a problem.

Having a system which creates divisions of 'deprived' and 'good' schools is a problem.

It is actually possible, and preferable, to have a system where every single school hits a baseline level of 'good.' Inevitably some will be better than others but having a setup where some are genuinely terrible is a disaster for society as a whole. MC parents can just fuck off and pretend the whole thing isn't happening (bully for them!) but others are stuck in that system. It really isn't surprising when that results in social problems down the line.

Maybe it's a more modern thing then When DD2 was in primary there was one kid there for a couple of terms but bothe the school and his parents were doing their best to move him to a more suitable special school. M

Didn't hear parents complaining non stop. Mind you that was one child out of16 not 20% of them

The British system is shit because of these attitudes - MC parents segregating (and I use that word deliberately) their children from those they consider 'lesser.' That practice inevitably creates an uneven system which creates more problems and the whole thing rolls on and on.

Most people are scared of being the odd one out - you are, after all, more at risk of being bullied if you don’t fit in with the general norm around you. The truly socially confident and adept, and those who refuse to, or are unable to, hide who they really are, are the exception, not the norm. Everyone else tends to stereotype others and stick with what makes them feel safest (what they think is most like them), and fears having their safety blanket taken off them by the unknown or by something that reminds them of a negative experience of their own, even if the reality is that it is not actually the same after all .

Oh don't be ridiculous, the class system has been designed and maintained like this by the elites, it really is stupid to blame common people for its existence.
The education system serves the purpose of segregation by its very design. It was deliberately made very fragmented, with lots of barriers between the sectors, to prevent commoners to enter the elite - and by commoners they mean MC, of course.

Agree, are you allowed to say the stuff about schools if you are working class op and have some lived experience? It's an absolute lottery when you go to secondary school who you will mix with and how that will shape your future for good or for bad. Mine goes to a grammar school and I find it's my friends and their kids at non grammar who make the comments about drugs and knives at their schools and laugh about how my child won't know about those things.

My parents were from working class backgrounds but were the first in their families to go onto higher education and qualify as teachers. We were comfortably off. Not loaded, lower middle class probably. My parents had an ideological objection to private education and so that was off the table.

The school I went to was enormous. 12 class intake into secondary. Very mixed, there were all areas in the catchment from leafy suburb to very deprived estate. There were a large number of children from homes where education was not valued, and who were only at school because they had to be. Those of us who wanted to learn were bullied for that, and also bullied for living in a "bought house" as opposed to a council house, having a school tie, and various other failings.

So when it came to my own kids, we purposely chose to live in an area with some of the best state schools in Scotland. Parents round here value education and aspire to the best for their kids. Yes there are disruptive children in the school but they are 1 or 2 out of 30, not 23 or 24 out of 30. Everyone wants the best for their kids. I was not about to enrol my kids into a not as good school as some sort of social experiment or to give them experience of "real life".

This. Do you actually have a child OP? Because the only people I know determined to be ‘groovy, funky’ parents who will ‘deliberately send their child to failing comp cos REAL LIFE and DIVERSITY’ etc, don’t actually have children.

And the ones who previously thought that then actually went on to have children, did a complete 180 and in many cases sent their children to private school, moved to rural areas etc

My aunt is a very vocal socialist - lifelong Labour-turned-Green voter, very outspoken about inequality and how demonised the working classes are, how only racists and petty bourgeois people live in middle class towns. She had a baby and guess what? She sheepishly moved to a very middle class area and sent her daughter to a prep school followed by a grammar.

I make zero apologies about wanting the best for my children. We live in a safe and beautiful area, I will scrimp and save to send them private if they don’t pass their 11+ and I couldn’t care less who judges me for that.