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.

@Lastchancechica
You're misunderstanding what's being said I'm afraid.
OP is not calling England/ the English weird. She's saying it's strange to have her DD grow up identifying with a different nationality to her own, especially one that has a complicated history with her own country. She encourages it, but it feels a bit weird.

@Topofthemornintoya I am NI born and bred, and lived through the Troubles so feel pretty well qualified to comment.

I was sitting in a tutorial in Queen's when a law lecturer was shot dead in the street outside. My tutor, a close relative of a former Irish Taoiseach, was devastated by the death of her friend, from a unionist background. I had a flatmate intimidated out by the 'RA. My sister shared a flat with an IRA member who went on to be convicted for their activities.

A work colleague, who had been in a mixed relationship for years, got married. Shortly afterwards they were both shot in their bed. She died.

Fortunately I was never injured in any way though my office was bombed in the late 80s but it was at night. I had the chilling experience of seeing a massive shard of glass embedded in the back of my chair.

I know people went through much more trauma than I did. It's weird though looking back at the daily fear we all lived with, and somehow we existed.

I hate the bitterness that still exists on both sides. I've genuinely never felt that way - I wasn't raised like that. I think the only reason to look back into the past is to inform the future.

You can have as many enquiries, truth commissions etc as you want but nothing is going to heal the hurt and very many of the perpetrators are dead.

I am Northern Irish, I am British, and I am Irish.

We chose to move out of London as we didn't want to bring up a family there.

English people are people born here / have English family / heritage etc. We’re not an homogenous evil entity or complicit and laden with all past wrongs. We’re just made up of individuals who by chance of birth happen to be English. Like your children.

If it’s a lifetime of conditioning and you feel so strongly, wouldn’t you have been happier living and bringing your kids up back home? I was married to someone from another country for many years, brought the kids up here in UK and they love and support both countries, no issues. But if it is an issue for you, why go through all the angst? Choose the easier path is my motto!

Why has the word racism been bandied about so much on this thread? The UK v Ireland, Britain v NI and Ireland. All white folks to me. There is no racism. Xenophobia perhaps.

Just think about this for a moment: I'm British, and I'm English, but to look at me you'd place me as being from a different continent. To many people I am accepted as British, but not English because I'm not white. But then my best friend at school whose white parents emigrated from Germany to London in the 70s is accepted as both British and English.

To the person who has definitively been clumsy about country of birth, nationality and identity, you have invalidated billions of people's lives, identities and upbringing stating those views (even the clumsily way you tried to back-pedal from those statements).

I'm still very much connected to my parents' culture relating to their country of birth. I am fluent in their mother tongue and would and do also say I am of that nationality as well as identifying as English and British.

My children who hold both British and Irish passports through their NI father (who moved to London in the 90s) would feel very alienated by some of the statements made and opinions held in this thread. My children are proudly English/British/Northern Irish, Irish and my parents' nationality (not disclosing as I don't want anyone who might know me to recognise me), and nothing and no-one can take that away from them.

@RoadLess you really experienced anti-Irishness after the morons won the Brexit vote?

By calling another culture ‘weird’ and having negative conditioning around that country IS racist. You can dress up however you please but it doesn’t make it any more acceptable. It seems too many people from Ireland feel they have a right to behave this way, you really don’t.

You are not exceptional or have a god given right to be offensive simply because of past ‘hurts’. This kind of exceptionalism will hold you back, and continue the legacy for your children.

Can you imagine what kind of world we would live in if we were all so vocal and quite frankly spiteful about our past grievances and historical pain?

You have just highlighted your total ignorance by assuming white people can not be the victims of racism, and moreover that the U.K. and Ireland have only white people so it doesn’t count!!! Wtaf!

Are you really and truly so ignorant and seemingly blind to the diversity in both countries??

Racism is about more than just colour:

In the Equality Act, race can mean your colour, or your nationality (including your citizenship). It can also mean your ethnic or national origins, which may not be the same as your current nationality. For example, you may have Chinese national origins and be living in Britain with a British passport.

Race also covers ethnic and racial groups. This means a group of people who all share the same protected characteristic of ethnicity or race.

So yes, white British and Irish people can be racist to each other.

In nearly 40 years of living in London I have never heard anyone use the term "London Irish".

By calling another culture ‘weird’ and having negative conditioning around that country IS racist. You can dress up however you please but it doesn’t make it any more acceptable. It seems too many people from Ireland feel they have a right to behave this way, you really don’t.

Again though she isn't calling the culture itself weird. It's the fact that her children are growing up with a different identity and culture to her that is weird, not the culture itself.

Exactly! It is a weird situation. I love the country I live in and the citizens here are so amazing that i am proud to call it my home now.

I still find it weird that my kids are growing up here with this national identity that neither me nor their father share. I also find it cool and unique and very special and amazing and a million other superlatives. But still a bit odd.

I can't help feeling that the (nonsensical) accusations of racism levelled at the OP are being raised in anger/attempted deflection at the fact that the OP is reflecting on an outworking of a very troubling and very very recent episode of shameful British actions in another country. Her unease makes perfect sense to me (and she is troubled by it and reflecting on it, not just succumbing to it).

I've no horse in this race apart from being an immigrant to the country I am raising my children in, a country with a loaded history itself, although it has worked very hard to come to terms with it. It is strange seeing your children with a totally different set of cultural ties and associations. We go on holiday to England and although they're bilingual speakers who speak perfect English, they sound nothing like the locals. Not even a matter of accent as such - the intonation, how the language flows. It does inflict a small sense of loss. If I had grown up seeing the symbols of this country used to oppress and intimidate people like me, or people like me demonised in the name of those symbols - well, yes, it would give me a visceral reaction to see my children happily embracing them. To construct 'racism' from that can only be born of deflection/projection.

@RoadLess

Good grief. As an English person I can only apologise that anti-Irishness still, and ever has existed. :(

@Lastchancechica
OP has NOT called another culture weird.
Exactly how many times do you need this pointed out to you?
Your lack of comprehension is getting quite wearing at this stage.

It's wilful and best ignored at this point I think.

Poor OP, doubt she'll be back.

Yup. I wonder is lastchance in that position? Like I said earlier I'm not Irish but my children are and it's not a bad thing but it can feel odd at times(and not odd in a bad way). It's not because I'm super proud of my nationality or anything like that it's just different and sometimes different can feel strange.

@DeeCee77

I agree with you. My gran was Irish and she raised me in London - I have never considered myself Irish (I'm English) simply because I didn't have the experience of growing up in Ireland. It's a foreign (beautiful) country, but just because I grew up drinking club soda and visiting Ireland often, doesn't make me Irish.

I find it weird that people identify with a country that in reality they don't know a lot about.

'in nearly 40 years of living in London I have never heard anyone use the term "London Irish"

I have, but only twice in over 20 years

It's quite obvious you're 're trolling at this stage @Lastchancechica 🤣
So no, I'm not goìng to bother giving you the fight you're so clearly spoiling for. What a pity, eh?

I genuinely feel sorry for you, and I am glad I don’t live in such a place where the people can’t even distinguish racism and xenophobia tbh. Not impressed.

I'm assuming your degree wasn't in history or you wouldn't have made the asinine comment that the colonies and England differed wrt

What do you understand of colonial administration?

Do you realise that slavery in the colonies was abolished by the British Parliament, sitting in Westminster, where there were no representatives of any colony?

FYI, the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland fully supported, financed, encouraged, and enabled the development of the triangular trade and the enslavement of millions, and reaped enormous financial and global political benefits from the institution. The industrialists of the North of England spun cheap cotton picked by enslaved people in the American South and thus directly supported slavery in the US. They undercut local cloth industries wherever they existed in the colonies in Africa and India, profiting at the expense of all others.

...differed wrt slavery