To think this doesn’t sound “super posh”

[Stayinganontoday]

For context I’m not British born nor raised. I was taking to a good friend of mine, and it came in conversation that I had “paid help” when growing up. I told her that yes, we had a cleaner, a nanny, and a handyman that came with the house (he helped built it!)

She told me that she didn’t realise I came from such a posh background, and although I know I was privileged, that in itself doesn’t make it sound so posh. My husband thinks it doesn’t sound posh per se, and it’s more of a cultural
difference. So what do you all think?

A house with staff quarters is posh/privileged/weathly/way out of reach of most people over here. However you label it here in the UK it’s not something most of us have any experience of.

If you had grown up in the UK or Western Europe yes it would be quite posh, but I think most people I know who grew up in ME/Asia/Africa came from this kind of background and it would be fairly normal there

So when I moved to the UK and went back home (and my nanny was still alive) she would come and stay with me for my length of stay, no payment.

I haven’t seen my gardener since he retired, but I’d assume it would be the same. In fact, whenever I’ve visited with my DD he’d always give her presents that’s were quite expensive for his purchasing power.

So my honest answer is that once the bond is created, it does become as strong as family, especially when you know them for 25+ years.

Paid help will never be family, that’s quite patronising of you to say that.

How is it patronising??

Yes I was going to say similar. When I was little we lived abroad and we had a “maid” and a driver. My dad had a good job but nothing particularly special salary-wise in the UK (we didn’t have a cleaner when we came back to the UK, and definitely not a driver!) . As you say, it showed how cheap the domestic staff were, and so for the company it was a fairly cheap part of the package as an inducement to go abroad to somewhere you probably wouldn’t otherwise choose to emigrate to. Not that there was anything wrong with it, just not a popular destination.

If you had grown up in the UK, it would indicate that you were from a wealthy background. I hesitate to use the word "posh" because, as they say, money can't buy class... and that is very true in some cases!

If you grew up abroad, where it is/was considered normal to have paid help, perhaps it is considered to be more of a cultural norm in some countries.

Either way, being considered to be "posh" isn't always a bad thing. I find it quite useful when at times, as people tend to treat me much better once they hear my accent! Less so if they find out what I work as, but never mind!

Honestly these arrangements aren't as simple as employer/employee. You can't view it through a British lens. It's more complex than that. It is inevitable that if you live with someone for years, a bond will form.

If you grew up in Africa/ me then yes quite usual and not posh. My BF grew up with similar staff in SA and still pays his old Nanny’s rent. His family were not “posh”

posh is def an insult most people don’t like “posh” people. Most people are also not posh.

Posh seems to have a very particular meaning in the UK - especially england. It is a class thing so you have the bizarre situation where an oxford educated couple doing professional jobs living in a 4 bedroom house with a cleaner and a gardening service will say they are working class because their fathers had working class jobs. It seems to make sense in the UK but makes no sense to anyone else.

There are probably people who think the royal family of the UK are not as posh as some aristocrats because they are johnny-come-lately germans :)

You were well-off.

Your house had a servant's quarters! That's definitely posh!

I’d say having staff does make you quite posh in the UK, not so much in some other places.

Well it's either posh or exploitative depending which country you're talking about and the choices and opportunities available to those who ended up as your help

It's still the same. My DH is half Asian and we have full staff at our house in his home country. We have a live in housekeeper in the UK.

In lots of places, having staff is just the preserve of the middle classes, In the UK the most the middle classes have is usually a cleaner. Unless wealthy, then maybe also a nanny. Or a mother help which combines nannying with cleaning.

But yes, when living overseas, I had staff in the home. Not comparable in the UK.

It implies wealth but in the UK that is most certainly NOT the same as "posh".

They were actually “nicer” in some ways, it is a fully functioning 3 bedroom annex and had more light (as it is the side that looks towards the main road) whereas the main house was more “secluded” in a forestry area, beautiful, albeit a bit dark.

We have intercoms so we could call them when needed, although they were inside the main house (or its grounds) most of the time.

But are you "posh" 😁

It sounds like you grew up in a family with money. That’s really not the same as being posh. Not in the UK anyway.

It was all fully legal (so they paid taxes and we paid the NI equivalent). Their salary would have been similar to a supermarket employee here (so to speak) for the cleaner, slightly higher for the nanny, and gardener got paid the same as a low paid teacher. So I wouldn’t have considered it exploitative, they were part of my family’s company payroll.

Cultural context is everything here.

I was stunned when my friends moved to Asia and they employed a cleaner, a cook and a handyman.

They weren't posh in the UK. They never hired that help living here. When i went to stay with them, i saw how life whilst working full time only became doable with those people in their life.

Everything like shopping, washing, chores etc took that much longer due to the prep needed to make those things happen.

Simple example, but baking a cake at home was really hard for my friend. Finding specific ingredients needed visits to different market stands on certain days. There are no ovens in homes, only hobs. No electric mixers...any shipped in from abroad blew the house wattage.

Only bakeries had ovens and mixers.

So no, i don't consider you posh growing up abroad and having those people working for your family.

What country was this, @Stayinganontoday?

Are they the same ethnicity/religious/caste group as your family?

Very normal for middle class (not rich) families in lots of developing countries.

In the Uk you would have to be wealthy to afford that kind of help, due to wage and employment laws. In many parts of the world it is affordable for average earners as there is a huge disparity between wages and minimum wages are extremely low or non existent.
so I agree it’s cultural, if you don’t want to sound posh to British people, then explain more about how it works in your home country and that wages for home helps are so much less.

for example full time live in many in the uk would cost around 40k a year, in Thailand about 3 grand a year. So if you are working for an international company being paid international wages but living in Thailand say, you can afford home help.