Anyone raising English kids/kids in England and finding some bits a bit odd?

[HolyShmoly]

Long time, no mumsnet but I'm hoping I'll find some sympathisers. DH and I are both Irish, from Donegal and are living in England for a number of years. We have kids born in England who are now school age and much more aware of their Englishness. Its really weird.
We were home recently and driving through the North she was excited because she saw her flags. The same areas that we'd be praying not to have to stop in, she thought looked welcoming. The women's world cup I was encouraging her to celebrate England. She'll be starting history this year and the burden to ensure she doesn't see just one side of the story feels large.

I dont want them to feel like they can't celebrate where they come from, but celebrating England feels like I'm breaking a lifetime of conditioning.

Same situation here — DH and I are Irish, DS was born in London and grew up in a village in the Midlands. We’d lived in England for over 20 years before he was born, but you’re right, it felt strange!

I don’t think DS ever conceived of himself as ‘English’, though. Certainly other people didn’t. Despite sounding terribly RP (mystifyingly), he was often referred to in my hearing as ‘the little Irish boy’ at school (maybe because he has an Irish language first and surname), and when, in reception, his class were going to a ceremony for the installation of a new village flagpole, his teacher phoned to check I was ok with him helping run up the new flag. He and I certainly had conversations about the meaning of wearing poppies, and why DH and I didn’t.

Ultimately, though, we moved back home when he was seven. It wasn’t a longterm plan, but post-Brexit, mild anti-Irishness in the vicinity ramped up, and I simply stopped liking where the country was going (having moved there just after New Labour came into power). Moving home hasn’t been without difficulties, but has definitely been the right decision.

Our kids go to Catholic school which helps, most kids are of Irish heritage. However they consider themselves English, support England etc; I don’t have a problem with this, I wouldn’t want them to feel like outsiders in the community we have chosen to call home.

DD loves the royals, but she is 8, she is allowed to like princesses!

DS(10) is interested in politics, prefers democracy to monarchy, understands about colonialism etc. I am careful for him to come to his own conclusions however rather than push my own views on him.

We all like the song “Irish blood, English heart”… 🙂

I had this from my mother. She is Scottish and chose to make her life in London and then was perplexed that her children weren't loyal to Scotland. To me it was where she was from and my home was England.

It's a bizarre feeling on the opposite side of the fence. Being expected to show love and loyalty to a land mother chose to leave and I had little connection to.

Don't worry, once they get older they'll be proud of Irish heritage, both of mine proudly claim their 33% Irish ancestry and are seriously annoyed at their grandad for never getting an Irish passport (he was born in England) because they can't get passports now (if he was a passport holder before they were born they would have been eligible).

I agree with ShelleySarah,
Why raise your children in one country and expect them to identify with another?

Have to say also that my mother actually alienated us from her country of origin by constantly comparing it to where she was raising us.....we were either amused or bored by her banging on about Ireland.
Be it better or worse kids want to belong to where they are being raised.

I'm half Scandinavian and the rest Greek and Italian but I was born and raised in England so therefore I feel very much British and it's the same for my friends who are African and Asian. There's obviously a good reason why you live in England and not in Ireland.

Are we allowed to be racist against the English but not the other way around? I don't get why you would want to live with people you dislike

An astonishingly awful thing to say.

OP I think you're just discovering your own prejudice. We all are prejudiced in many ways.

I'm English, have always lived on Welsh borders and went to a Welsh secondary school. Married to a Welshman and raising Welsh children while currently living on the Welsh side of the border. My siblings find it slightly confusing that my kids wear Welsh football and rugby T-shirts. They have to have something red for saint David's day and the school eisteddfod and they choose to wear them whenever they find them clean in their drawers.

DH can't stand the royal family and refuses to sing the English/British national anthem. Our 7 year old just loves to sing so will sing along to anything and has been fascinated with the royal family since Prince Philip died.

romdowa would you care to expand on that comment please.

I think that my husband might be your mirror twin. Parents are (very) Welsh but lived near the borders. Dh born in England as scandal in the Welsh hospital just before his birth. Welsh schools. Went to university in England and promptly married an English woman and lives in England with her (me!) and their children. As a family we strongly define ourselves as “British”.

Ironically my MIL’s decision to drive 6 miles to Chester rather than 5 miles to Wrexham whilst in labour is likely to have consequences. My dd is very very talented at a sport. (Comfortably top 5 in the UK for her age.) We are vaguely thinking ahead for things like the Commonwealth games and I’m not convinced that dd is Welsh eligible….

Well you overcame a lifetime of conditioning ?
😀

Both parents Irish here, never identified as English and kids know they have Irish heritage.

I think you need to leave your own 'conditioning' behind. If you have chosen to make England your home, then the old prejudices need to go. I don't know how they haven't if you've been living in England for years! A spell in London certainly knocked any edges off me, when I could see how ridiculous all the historical 'hurts' were - and I didn't have any time for that bolloxology in the first place!

Flags which you consider 'offensive' in NI are a matter of national pride for a section of the community there, and where you currently live. So I think you need to drop that old chestnut. (I have no beef over flags, I think they're all tacky unless on a government building!)

Also, I'm at a loss to know where you would be driving in NI that you would be praying not to have to stop in? 'No go' areas aren't a 'thing' any more. Yes, there might be areas where a southern reg would be noticed, but that's all.

Plus the Royal Family. Why can't your child be interested? What has the RF ever done to you? Monarchy and democracy aren't rivals - they go hand-in-hand in the UK.

You may be Irish, but you have to accept that your children are English. If you don't want that for them, then I guess you need to move back to Ireland.

Why live here if this is how you really feel? I’m sure this will come over to your DC, even if you think you hide it

I dont want them to feel like they can't celebrate where they come from, but celebrating England feels like I'm breaking a lifetime of conditioning

I understand where you are coming from as I am not English and also from a country that isn't favoured by the English.
However I did teach my children their heritage, it's important. They have a connection to the Town I was born in.
Yes, they also have experienced racism, especially in secondary school.

But I have always pointed out all the fantastic places & people that are part of their heritage.

I tried very hard to leave my own conditioning out and tried to present them with facts rather than opinions - not easy but at least I tried!

So yes, on the surface your children will be English, but deep down they will be unique with a mixed heritage.

They will experience some good and bad aspects of their mixed heritage, but with the right guidance they will grow into open minded adults!

Flags which you consider 'offensive' in NI are a matter of national pride for a section of the community there, and where you currently live. So I think you need to drop that old chestnut. (I have no beef over flags, I think they're all tacky unless on a government building!)

Also, I'm at a loss to know where you would be driving in NI that you would be praying not to have to stop in? 'No go' areas aren't a 'thing' any more. Yes, there might be areas where a southern reg would be noticed, but that's all.

Not my experience at all. There are definitely areas I wouldn't relish stopping in or using my DD's Irish name. Not many these days, but certainly a load of union jacks and blue, white and red kerbstones don't scream happy welcoming place to me. And of course others would feel the same about an area covered in tricolours.

I think some posters might not have realised this is Craicnet 🙂

It’s very specific to Northern Ireland isn’t it? I’m Scottish, live in England, raising English children who are also proud of their Scottish heritage. And it’s fine, but not what the thread is about. The relative recency of the NI troubles must make things harder when you’re trying to reconcile Irish heritage with an English life now. I hope it’ll feel like less of a leap for future generations.

I would say an equally big factor for those from ROI @Howdoesitworkagain . To insist it shouldn't matter does rather ignore a rather long history.

I have never understood why people are proud of where they're from.
We are all from somewhere, but the Irish national pride takes the biscuit.
It's a lovely country, full of beautiful landmarks and scenery but I've never wanted to identify as Irish...(I am half Irish, born in the UK), in spite of my mother's best efforts.
The bigotry I've witnessed (especially towards my English father) disguised as humour was actually very upsetting and the scorn and judgement thrown at my mother because we were not practicing catholics was very nasty.
Land of a thousand welcomes as long as you're white and catholic and rememeber, ''it's only relevant if it happened in Ireland''😜

If you are going to live in England then you need to gain a more positive outlook and mindset, otherwise you will simply alienate yourself. The people you meet today are not the same people you were conditioned to hate. So perhaps reminding yourself that no country has a perfect history or heritage, and what matters now is your children being comfortable and enjoying their childhood with contaminating them with misery from the past.

Celebrate both countries.

*Without contaminating

'I think you need to leave your own 'conditioning' behind. If you have chosen to make England your home, then the old prejudices need to go. I don't know how they haven't if you've been living in England for years!'

Well said. I grew up in Ireland, moved to the UK when I was 20 and it's been home ever since (23 years). I feel limited connection to Ireland, I have dual citizenship and definitely feel more British than Irish these days. I don't have kids, but can't imagine having any issue whatsoever with them being English if I did

However, I do have family who have been here for more than double that time, but Ireland is always 'home' to them. Their whole lives are in England, but they hold on to a romanticised view of Ireland and still feel the pull to move back. I don't get it, but it's none of my business

I read an interview with Annie Mac a few months ago - she said it's still a shock for her that her two sons speak with English accents (they're growing up in London!), and wave England flags when the football is on. I found it bizarre. I really hope she can find a way to deal with that and not make it her boys' problem in any way

I live in N.Ireland and we have definitely been afflicted by a backward outlook for centuries. The whole island has been backward, but the north even more so than the south. This backwardness stems from religion. Up until relatively recently the south was basically run by the catholic church, while the north, also religious, has the added tribalism thrown in (Catholics vs Protestants...since the Ulster plantation).

This devotion to religion is regressive. It stunts growth (see the Arab world and the contrast between its vast contribution to human development before Islam and negligible contribution after Islam). The most backward part of the the US? The Bible belt (the same region slavery (owning human beings, like pets) thrived until a war was required to end it, where racial segregation was de jure (with a judge in 1965 declaring interracial marriage illegal in Virginia as, quote; "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay, and red, and placed them on separate continents and but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend the races to mix"), where today tens of millions of gullible folk hang on every word of a shyster (and an atheist, shush don't tell them) in Trump. The growns up on either coast keep that country functioning.

Thankfully, the island of Ireland as a whole has gone some way to shaking off the shackles of religion (the main exception being the free presbyterians in the north, the nutty folk who vote DUP and ensure we don't have a functioning government). It will take time, but we are slowly but surely getting there..I hope.

England (who declared theocratic Puritan legislation null and void in 1660) has long since ditched religious devotion, which is why the English tend to be the grown ups in the room. Free thinking thrived in England during the Enlightenment, and the critical analysis that comes with this form of thinking enabled it to question things, and with that comes invention and development (notably the Industrial Revolution).