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?

@StockingsByTheFire

from google:
There is no exact global percentage of households that employ domestic workers, but the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates there are about 75.6 million domestic workers worldwide. 1]
Because many households employ more than one worker and multiple people live in a single household, this number represents a small fraction of the global population—roughly 1% to 2% of total global employment depending on the region.

I think the poster above you put it well with this though :
In any country, it's a minority of people who have cleaners, nannies etc; it's mathematically impossible for it to be otherwise. The people who have the staff are privileged.

Having well off parents while you were young is nothing to be ashamed of so there’s no need to try and find reasons it’s not posh.

Doesn't sound posh to me. I know lots of people whi have cleaners and handyman.

I think the issue is in how posh is being defined.

Being middle class is not the same as being posh. That the middle class is better off than the working class and below, does not put the middle on par with the upper, posh, classes.

Having cleaners, gardeners and nannies is not exclusive to the upper classes in many countries. Therefore, it isn’t posh. It’s got nothing to do with being ashamed of being posh. If it was posh I’d have no problem acknowledging it at such, but it isn’t posh.

And that leads to how we define middle class? Because in the states middle class literally means the average person (ie neither rich nor poor) in the uk I’ve heard it used to describe someone who is very much what’s considered “posh” (expensive car, expensive house, kids in private school, ponies etc)

Well if your question is "I am a millionaire" sound rich to someone in the UK, then yes it does. Just as "I have a nanny" sounds posh to someone in the UK. My point was that for the OP's question, the background person who is deciding whether it "sounds posh" is relevant, because "sounds posh" is subjective.

There is a difference here though, so I don't think your parallel is great. If you say "millionaire" the UK person is obviously going to assume pounds or maybe dollars. As soon as you told them you meant a million rupiah, which can be objectively exchanged for £60, they are obviously going to change their mind. Whereas a nanny is a nanny. And telling someone it is actually an Indonesian nanny changes things a bit but not enough to make everyone change their mind. An Indonesian nanny can't be objectively exchanged for .00006 of a UK nanny.

Yes I think lots of people in the UK would pretty much equate middle class and posh.

OP wants to call herself posh by describing a situation that without one huge context clue, would lead you to think so.

It's exactly the same thing as calling yourself a millionaire without mentioning the country that that totally devalues that statement.

Exactly the same.

My friend knows where I’m from so at least from her POV she has the full context

There's a difference between being wealthy and being posh. Wealth is just about money, posh is about class. The living arrangement you describe would - in the UK - make you wealthy, but it wouldn't necessarily make you posh.

Haven't RTFT but yes that sounds posh. Most people don't have live-in gardeners. Have you said where you grew up OP? Presumably this isn't a state secret

Apologies, I didn't express myself clearly. It is almost unheard of for overseas executive type people (like my friends who would be middle income in the UK and not able to afford domestic staff) to work in those countries without the staff I referred to.

Well yes, it isn’t the most solidly defined term, and there’s significant cultural variation. In the UK it isn’t just tied to economic status, but overall social status. Look at the impoverished aristocrat stereotype - flat broke, but still aristocratic and ‘posh’. Conversely, someone of the working class who’s made millions will still be considered new money working class.

I’m from a formerly socialist country, and we still had class hierarchies. If something is easily accessible to the middle class of a country, then it isn’t posh.

I'm so sorry you're not the "posh" you want to be.

But you're not. It's really that simple.

Very well off, rather than rich or posh, in the UK.

Sure, but it in no way makes them 'posh', by the standards of their home country or the one they're living in.

When I lived in Dubai, the type of Brits who really went to town on their behaviour around their domestic staff were aspirational lower-middle-class women. Bluntly, the affordability of cheap labour went to their heads, and the relative powerlessness of their staff, from the Phillipines, Sri Lanka, Somalia etc compounded their behaviour. There seemed to be endless tug of love situations over the attention of their DH (who looked at them, or preferred their cooking), or the children, or the dog, or whatever, or them spreading gossip about what went on in the household to other nearby maids while they all walked their family dogs, and which then got passed on to the other maids' employers, so your neighbours knew your DH was screwing his secretary etc. Of course Dubai is a kind of heaven to someone who left school with no qualifications. Of course they say they couldn't imagine moving home to somewhere they'd have to take out their own bins.

Employing cheap, immigrant domestic staff does not make anyone 'posh'. Behaving badly to your poorly-paid, immigrant domestic staff doesn't either.

@ShopCake agree entirely. That was my original point 😀

OP isn’t claiming to be posh. That’s the point. The friend is the one that considers her background to be posh, whereas to OP it was a middle class one.

Another thing, if OP called it posh in her home country, she’d be laughed at for being pretentious. Not calling it a posh in the UK though is seen as faux humility and/or being ashamed of her class.

Actually my fellow country people laugh at me for not considering myself “fresa” our word for posh. They thought that in itself was pretentious, but our posh is different to UK posh.

It’s not posh per se (many non posh people are very rich). All it really says is your family were very financially comfortable.

Ah cmon read the thread. Her friend made a stupid remark and now OP has spent an entire thread trying to argue that her friend must be right.

I think OP would perhaps be better placed with a thread to help her understand why she's so desperate to identify as something she isn't.

See what I mean @InterIgnis

She's desperate to prove she is.

It’s similar how I say I’m brown but my husband thinks it’s silly as nobody in their right mind would consider me that… but I ain’t white so….

It’s ‘posh’ in a Northern European context, but for example in Spain it’s quite normal to have a maid who lives in, usually from Latin America or Asia and paid low wages.

Ok...... Not the same at all.

Whatever colour you choose, I'm pleased for you.

You're still not posh.