To think actually some of it is about choices?

[Shdk136]

I’ve always tended to stand by the fact that everyone’s circumstances are different and you never know the entire picture so you shouldn’t judge. Especially where parenting is concerned.

However, something I can’t shake is how people actively choose not to expose their children to cultural experiences in favour of, well, crap.

Perhaps I am being a judgemental wanker and I’m prepared to accept that if that’s the consensus. But recently someone I knew from
a baby class years ago, her DD now 5, was invited to the theatre by a mutual friend and her mum declined it. They were free tickets as some people couldn’t make it. I later had a play date with this mum and she was telling me it was between petrol to get there (an hour drive) or compromising on her DD’s essentials tracksuit for an upcoming holiday. I thought she was joking. She wasn’t.

The thing is her DD is slightly behind in school (our dds don’t go to the same school so this is just what she tells me). I can’t help thinking that ok, she may simply not be as bright as the next child but surely this has something to do with what you choose to expose your child to? Do you think it makes a difference?

I know this is judgemental. My friend is lovely (otherwise I wouldn’t be friends with her!) but AIBU to think these sorts of choices go some way to shaping your child?

Don't be daft. If the child needed holiday clothes and it was either buy them or pay for a theatre trip, it's entirely reasonable to buy the clothes.
A track suit is a practical item of clothing that would serve the child well in all sorts of activities. It would be ridiculous to not have the item for the sake of a theatre trip.
Theatre for 5 year olds is very hit and miss anyway. Some may get a lot from it, others not, and is an expensive experiment on a budget.

What was the play?

Theatre trips, gallery exhibitions and other cultural activities can be intimidating if people don't have any experience of them.

The National Gallery did a brilliant schools programme years ago where after the children had visited with the school, there was an event for them to bring their parents to. Not sure if they still do it, but that sort of thing is a good way to introduce children and parents to cultural experiences.

This is the divide between my brother and me. He'd rather stay home with a board game; I'd rather take them to a gallery, museum, theatre. The sets of cousins had very different upbringings.

All the adult children are fine, but his kids have almost no cultural capital beyond telly and mine win a lot of general knowledge quizzes. 😉

Yeah and also at age 6,7,8 and so on 🤷‍♀️

The rep theatre where I grew up was dirt cheap if you went last minute - half the price of the cinema.

What was the play? Still waiting to find this out.

Hoping to hear it was Beckett 🤣

I find it very had to believe your first paragraph when you are judging a parent and linking their child's development delay with them being taken on holiday but not to the theatre when they are 5 years old. This can't be real, surely not?

@Shdk136 by “cultural” you mean what YOU deem as important don’t you?
its core, culture is the shared "software" of a group of people. It is the collective blend of knowledge, beliefs, values, behaviors, symbols, and traditions that a group of people share and pass down from one generation to the next.
so to a group of die hard Tottenham fans, a day out at the Hotspur stadium plus meet and greet would be ‘cultural’ would you give up something you preferred for that cultural experience? 🤨

I don't think going to the theatre is important for a 5 year old.

I also think you’ve got a point.
but each to their own… I do my best to fill my kids life with as much knowledge etc as I can because I think it will serve him well in life and I’ll do whatever I can to make his life ‘easier’ and bring him opportunity in the long run.
I also appreciate not everyone sees life that way, or thinks it’s necessary to invest in those aspects of life. But I agree it is to their detriment long term.

Massively disagree. It’s a bit like reading. Young kids love live theatre and they also learn how to behave and feel comfortable in those kind of spaces. I took all of mine from toddler age onwards. I would never spend that kind of money on children’s clothes either so I’m totally with you on this one OP. These are the things that they remember as adults.

I'm a single mum on a much lower income than my private school mum friends. They all live in massive houses and drive huge cars, but I was the first to take their daughers on a train, to the local museums, to the city's central library, to the art galleries, to some pretty major parks. They take my DD to cool things like bowling and trampoline places. But yeah. It takes a village!

I think if money is tight then missing theatre trip is ok.
it’s cultural because you say it it. But for a 5 year old they may not want to go or not be able to sit still to enjoy it! Sounds like a faff for that age! Was it a kids theatre or standard west end type thing?

but regardless if they don’t want to go then that’s ok. Having experiences means different things to different people.

when I was younger we simply didn’t have the money for theatre trips etc but we walked a lot and my parents made sure I had access to education and lots of books. I’ve turned out ok with several degrees and a good job.

I will add though that I also wouldn’t pay that amount for a tracksuit!! But they may have promised it to her and is a plan for the holiday (which could be deemed a cultural experience or an experience at least!)

I don’t think that passing on the chance for a theatre trip is all that bad. Although it’s very dependent on what’s on at the theatre.

That particular tracksuit sounds hideously expensive for a 5 yr old though, especially if the parents are using the cost of petrol as a reason to turn down the theatre.

If your friend is spending hundreds on a tracksuit for a 5 year old then it sounds like the child has inherited her mother’s IQ. No one remotely sensible would spend hundreds on a tracksuit for a child unless they were a) rich or b) a bit lacking in the grey matter. The child will grow up not understanding the value of money and thinking that looking rich is more important than ‘being rich ‘.

Yeah i wouldn't drive an hour each way to take a 5 year old to the theatre either

I wouldn't take my 5yo to a theatre an hour's drive away either, not because of the money but because he gets car sick and would struggle to sit still in a theatre for the duration of a normal show (unless it was a short kids' show?), he'd be asking me questions the entire way through and bothering other audience members, and I'd be worried there might be content he wasn't emotionally mature enough to deal with unless it was a show I'd already seen. None of those reasons have anything to do with depriving him of cultural experiences, in fact we go to museums, art galleries and concerts, travel to different countries, and he speaks two languages. Why assume this parent doesn't know what's best for her child?

Not judging but judging. Ok

I think you dibt realise that you’re coming from a place where you don’t HAVE to make these choices. So you are in the fortunate position of calling it ‘choice’ without actually having to live it. And then hear pious twits tell you that you ‘made’ a choice

A pantomime is a trip to the theatre though , local theatres have loads of plays on aimed at children. Fir example my local theatre has The Gruffalo on in half term

Whonwpuld tale a 5 year old to watch a cultral experience when they will be bored or restless
We all learn differently so being "bright" is judged on what excatly?
If i had to put money towards a up coming holiday than a cultral experience I would be guessing the child is 'exposed' to rral life and more interesting experiences.
What a pathetic post.

If you dont start at 5 try introducing theatre at 14. It wont happen.

Would it? I was given all of this ‘exposure’ by a vile mother who made awful judgments about other people and had airs and graces. I firmly rejected this ‘culture’ as a result because I couldn’t stand her holier than thou attitude towards others.

wasnt it a tracksuit, rather than a holiday?