Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

Flip

1 2 3

Original poster

Is it likely the ds age 5 is being really difficult because all his school friends live in massive houses and we don't??

62 replies

Jazzicatz · 21/09/2008 19:47

This is basically what mil said today and I am fuming. Ds is at private school and we are just about managing to scrape together the fees - many of his friends are wealthy but he doesn't really visit their houses much anyway. Our house is shabby and needs work doing to it and eventually we will get round to it but at the moment our main focus is getting through the next 6-12 months finacially (when I will get a full-time job). Ds has been a little sod but I put it down to returning back to school he also has a stinking cold - mil however, is convinced its because we live in a smallish shabby house and ds is feeling it. FGS he is only 5 and more bothered about what toys the other boys have. Am I being stupid here, could it be bothering him, we have spoken about things and the size of others houses has never come up as a problem. What can I say to mil to shut her up??

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

BitOfFun · 21/09/2008 21:30

My dss loves coming to my small house because we all sit in the same living room and actually talk to each other and play games. I'm sure he loves his big house and garden with mum too, but I get the impression he spends a lot of time on his own there because there is space enough for everyone to be doing their own thing. Your MIL is talking out of her arse I'm afraid

Original poster

Jazzicatz · 22/09/2008 10:08

Thank you all for your replies - I am so angry with her today and I am thinking I may need to have a word with her and ask her not to spout her bollocks in front of my ds's! Spoke to dp and he doesn't even want to discuss it as its his mother so I will have to deal with it myself!

OP posts:

PoorOldEnid · 22/09/2008 10:09

What a mean thing to say. Of course that isnt the reason. More likely he is being an angel at school and 'venting' at home.

snorkle · 22/09/2008 10:21

Ignore mil - she's talking rubbish. My two went to private school & lived in smaller grottier house than everyone else. They never noticed until they were much older & even then it was a non-issue. As your ds gets older & moves up the school there will be more people with more normal houses in my experience (it's me that's noticed this trend, not my kids).

GooseyLoosey · 22/09/2008 10:28

Our house is fairly large and pretty immaculate (as I am a bit OCD about it).

Ds went to play at a friend's much smaller house and stood in the middle of their living space and announced "this is small". I was mortified and embarked on "the chat" but then ds said all wide eyed "but mummy, it is small, but I really really like the fact that they have stuff everywhere, its great. Could we do that at home?".

There was no value judgement at all. Young children may notice differences but make no judgements based on them. Ds does not care if his friends live in mansions or sheds so long as it is fun playing with them.

PoorOldEnid · 22/09/2008 10:33

dd1 has a good friend with a much smaller house than ours, and, I have to say, their house is pretty grubby with filthy carpets (not that ours is immaculate by any means)

dd1 always says how lucky her friend is and how much she loves going round there! she is adamant that this girl is the luckiest in the world - she is a very cheerful little girl and obv that is what dd1 notices.

snowleopard · 22/09/2008 10:33

I remember clearly that when I was a child, although I noticed the things that my friends had - TVs in their bedrooms, foreign holidays, new cars etc - I never felt hard-done-by; I just accepted that everyone had different things. It's only as an adult that I look back and think "wow, we must have not had much money" but it didn't affect me then.

DaphneMoon · 22/09/2008 10:39

I grew up on a farm in a huge but shabby house. Our bedroom carpets were literally threadbare and our bedroom furniture old victorian monstrosities. I was often envious of my friends modern homes with central heating! (we had ice on the inside of our windows in the winter). My friends had modern bedrooms with plush carpets. What they did not have was acres of land to play on and as I got older I realised how lucky I was and what a wonderful childhood I had. My friend recently remarked that the times she spent at our house were some of her happiest memories.

PoorOldEnid · 22/09/2008 10:41

lol at ice on windowas and shabby old houses

dd2 likes to go and play at her mates immaculate bungalow it is like a show home

she says ooh I love xs house it doesnt have mould roundthe window frames

NotQuiteCockney · 22/09/2008 10:43

I do remember being aware that my family had a lot less money than my classmates' families - but I think I was only aware of this from about the age of 9 or so. (And our house was tiny, and the sort of cluttered and filthy that can only be explained by referring to various scary TV shows - thank god they exist, because before them, nobody ever understood how bad my parents' house was! Despite all the warnings, they always looked like this for the first half hour.)

ditheringdora · 22/09/2008 10:43

Rubbish! We lived in a house that had no carpets for years, kitchen cupboards with broken doors, you name it. We were never ashamed of our house or envied anyone else theirs. It was more like the other kids envied us as a large family with loads of kids to play with, not having to mind carpets, furniture etc. MIL is wrong and bang out of order too! Grr

PoorOldEnid · 22/09/2008 10:44

my parents house was knackered and I was REALLY ashamed of it tbh

PrincessPeaHead · 22/09/2008 10:45

nonsense
we live in a vast house but DS's favourite house is his friend Xs, which is a teeny tiny barely 3 bed cottage. I am constantly getting told that "X is SO LUCKY because he has a PIRATE BOAT LIGHT SWITCH in his bedroom. PLEEEEASE can we move to a house with a pirate boat light switch?"

They haven't got a clue about anything financial.

DaphneMoon · 22/09/2008 10:46

My sister used to wear a bodywarmer and tracksuit in bed and I am not joking that's how bloody cold it was!

charmander · 22/09/2008 10:47

If she says it again ask her for the money to buy a bigger house. Or see if she is willing to do a swap.

Original poster

Jazzicatz · 22/09/2008 10:47

See this is part of it - my parents house was and is an absolute crap hole and I hated inviting people back because it was filthy and cramped. Our house is not like that and I keep it clean and tidy - well most of the time but its certainly not smart. Ds does not notice it at all and just likes to go somewhere where there are toys he can play with but MIL saying all of these feeds into my fear of ds having to go throught what I did!

OP posts:

PrincessPeaHead · 22/09/2008 10:49

This is ENTIRELY about your MILs opinion of your house, and NOT AT ALL about your DS. She is projecting her prejudices about they type of house you live in onto your DS, because otherwise she would have no reason to say all these ridiculous things.

If you can live with your MIL being such a snobbish old bat, then fine. But don't worry about your DS!

stealthsquiggle · 22/09/2008 10:51

OP's MIL is so wrong - we are at the 'scraping together the fees' end of the scale at DS's school and he neither knows nor cares. OP - your DS is being a nightmare because 5yo boys go through nightmare phases, not because of your house FGS.

One of DS's school friends lives in a castle too - DS likes her because she is good at judo and can run fast. 'nuff said.

DaphneMoon · 22/09/2008 10:51

Ah I see she is having an attack of guilt.

No-one can help the size of their house, but surely it costs nothing to keep a house clean. Tell her to sod off. A shabby house is not necessarily a dirty one.

PoorOldEnid · 22/09/2008 10:52

it costs a fortune to keep my house clean

Original poster

Jazzicatz · 22/09/2008 10:52

She says its because she felt like that when she was at school as many of the other children lived in mansions and she didn't - what can I say to that. It is her experience after all even if I don't agree that my ds feels the same way as her?

OP posts:

LadyMuck · 22/09/2008 10:53

Agree with pph, and would go further:- she is also judging how you spend your money. She would spend it on the house before education. You have different priorities.

Marina · 22/09/2008 10:54

LOL enid, my parents' house was so pristine and borderline sterile my favourite houses to visit were the tatty ones where you were not stalked by a woman wielding a dustbuster and a can of asphyxiating Pledge.
My best friend at primary lived in a house that resembled Old Smoky. You could vanish into their garage and the "spare room" over it for a week and not be missed. It was BLISS. I pride myself on replicating this joy for my own dcs and their friends.

PoorOldEnid · 22/09/2008 10:54

girls feel it more than boys IMO

NappiesGalore · 22/09/2008 10:55

5yos dont even see their surroundings in terms of value/standards imo. let alone give a toss. home is the best place on earth (one hopes!) coz its home.

Flip

1 2 3