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?

God only knows based on MN standards. I live in the North if that helps. 😂

It was the handyman that came with the house that tipped the balance for me. What sort of houses need to come with a handyman?

The only people I’ve known with staff like this are indeed super posh. Same with housekeeper or butler or cook.

I agree cleaners are more accessible, as are nanny’s to a lesser extent.

It is patronising because it doesnt recognise that the relationship between paid staff and employer is unequal. Warmth might develop, but it is not the same as family because there is a power imbalance and money is exchanged. They are looking after children or cleaning up because they are paid to do so not just because they want to. Not understanding the difference between paid staff and employer and between family is not understanding what an advantaged position is.

In the UK nowadays, it would be fairly posh. In some other countries, I think it would be middle class but not really posh.

You can’t see that in addition to supporting your own family, that housing and supporting three other full time employees might also be considered posh?

Many people can’t afford to support three children, much less the decent wages of three employees.

Yes, just not the same class background, but we were two generations ahead. My maternal grandmother was born in 1917 (to yes for all terms and purposes to a “rich” family) so she went to university.

My nanny was born in 1933, into a rural setting. Her children, even though they didn’t go to university, many went to work into government positions, and her grandchildren did go to university.

Similar story for the gardener.

Having a Nanny seems very posh to me. People often call me posh, cos I went to private school and some of the terminology I use. Because I said co-ed rather than mixed when referring to a school that takes both boys and girls and my Dad gave me an allowance some of my uni friends thought I was posh. I never thoight of myself as posh.

Are you saying the Beckhams are posh? Well one is supposedly. 😆

The thing is even though people are saying domestic help is cheap in whichever country they're from, the fact is you still have to be part of the privileged in that country to be able to afford to pay for the help, rather than BE the help. And people saying it was normal there, means they lived in a privileged community and went to school with other privileged people. Much like the people who go to private school here in the UK and only mix with private school students, and don't realise how small a percentage of people in the UK that actually is and how abnormal their experience growing up was. Even if, when you bring that level of wealth to another, richer, country, you're not especially wealthy you still grew up as part of the elite in your country of birth.

If you were growing up in middle class India - nowhere remotely posh - this is entirely usual for example

I think if you grew up and had this in the uk you’d need to be pretty well off (not necessarily the same as paid!). In some countries it may be more the norm.

IMO - having money doesn’t make someone posh or not

That’s not true. My kids had a live-in nanny from when they were babies. She definitely became part of the family and we made her DS’s godmother even.

She has long since moved on to bigger and better things but we still see her regularly. She comes to stay with us and we go and stay with her and her family.

Well In the UK those things would make you very wealthy considering each person would earn around £40,000 each full time. To spent £120,000 just on staff members before any other bills is of course rather expensive and far above the norm.

Of course if what you mean is paying poverty wages to people who had no other choice than to keep your house because you lived in a country where this was possible thats less upper class.

If you were from a British background then yes it would be considered posh. Especially if you were raised in the UK.

In countries with less advanced economies and lower average wages then it's standard or very common for anyone middle class to have a few domestic staff.

It also depends if they live in or not. And how many hours work they do.

It's only really posh if you have a big enough house that they all live with you but in a different wing or building on your land. And are on call 24/7.

Lots of regular MC/working people have cleaners, gardeners and handypeople they just call upon ad hoc. Or have them a couple hours a week. In fact even some people on benefits have live in staff to help with their disabilities and I wouldn't call that remotely 'posh.'

But ultimately you must know that having multiple domestic staff costs a lot of money and the majority of people simply can't afford all the help they might wish for.

Whether someone thinks it posh or not doesn't really make much odds. It means you paid people to do tasks for you.

Well I would say that was normal for where you grew up.
My mother grew up in the south west of England, where her family had a cook, a housemaid and someone, who came in once a week to do the laundry. Not at all unusual for the professional classes in the 1930s and onwards.

It sounds rich and privileged. I am working class and British and know more people who are cleaners, rather than have them. I don’t know anyone who uses a a nanny or live in handyman.

No sure how it's any different to someone having a cleaner, using childcare and having a garden maintenance carried out. I wouldn't say posh, and many people in the UK do all three things you had growing up

Its not really that simple. MIL has a live in housekeeper, SIL is a live in housekeeper for example. Not unusual where they are from.

We had a nanny, cleaner and gardener when I was growing up in the UK. Only the nanny was full-time. We had all of this because my mother worked full-time, which, looking at my friends, was unusual (I'm sure it wouldn't have been in some communities). We were privileged, but not posh. No ponies, tweed, slightly grubby houses that smelled of spaniels, nicknames like Bunty and definitely no tracing our family back centuries to the same county. Posh is quite a distinctive thing in the UK, as others have said.

Depends on the context. My Mum’s dad was an illiterate farm labourer, Dad’s dad was a milkman (eloped with his very middle class mum). In the very early days of development in the Gulf we lived there for several years, so I grew up with staff - a houseboy, an ayah, a gardener and a driver - and it was absolutely normal for Europeans living there. I was educated at a good boarding school, paid for by my Dad’s company. We certainly were not ‘posh’ at all - when we came to the UK on furlough, my Dad did a temp job as a petrol pump attendant, and we lived in cheap rented accommodation for a few years till they bought a static caravan to live in when we were on leave. I was far and away the poorest kid in my school, never went on school trips or had extra curricular activities because my parents couldn’t afford them.

We would never have considered - or afforded - domestic help in the UK, and when my Dad did an unaccompanied tour, my Mum worked full time as a secretary, so my brothers and I were latch-key kids.

Like others have said, it's normal in certain parts of the world - large parts of Asia for example. The type of 'help' would have differed. Where I was born, most people I knew had a housekeeper and cook at the least; and that was 'normal'. We didn't have that after we moved.

Not sure if I've missed it (couldn't see it), but if you're happy to say, where did you grow up?

Cultural

And did you go and stay with them for lengths of time and give them expensive presents? Did you look after their children or walk their dogs? Maybe you helped out in the garden? Did you help clean their houses if they needed a bit of a hand?

I agree with you.
Privileged but not necessarily posh.
Well off.

No I would not assume you were ‘posh’ based off that information alone and considering you’re not British (I’m not either). Your friend sounds uncultured, that’s not meant in an offensive way, but it’s very common in a lot of countries for middle class families to have hired help. She’s obviously just not aware of this.