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.

Our kids didn't have Communion or Confirmation. The eldest didn't have to do Irish either. I think if you are 10 or older? But she could still sing songs in Irish - just from hearing other kids.

I think it's difficult, bordering impossible, to bring teenagers home. Especially girls. My lot didn't get on with team sports either. They did Tae Kwon Do and gymnastics instead. Some UK based posters seem to have their 1950s goggles on! One of my daughters class mates had a child by a lad in her year. She returned to school and did her Leaving Cert. The end.

I'm not surprised your mum stayed in England @Lydiana . She'd be going back to a different country, friends dead or moved on with their lives. And she'd miss her family. Besides it's not like the old days - dragging kids and suitcases around trains and ferries. It's only an hour away really. She can pop home easily enough. Whereas I knew ould lads who hadn't been back in 40 years , back in the 80s.

Isn't in time you left all of this baggage behind, OP? You've made a home in England yet you seem to resent it.

FWIW I'm half English and half Welsh and have lived in Ireland.

I've never forgotten the way an Irish friend behaved when he discovered that my name isn't a diminutive of an English name but of a Welsh one.

He was gobsmacked that I wouldn't wear my full Welsh name like a badge of honour so that people would know I was Welsh and therefore presumably acceptable.

Ridiculous.

It's more than time to move past this nonsense.

At least she didn't do what both my MIL and FIL's parents did, which is move back after they retired, realised it wasn't the Ireland they knew, moved back to London, then regretted that - moved back to a different part of Ireland, then decided they didn't like that, back to London - and on and on and on until one of them died. Very tiresome for their families too.

Oh dear god! What an ignorant post…..google Islamic contribution to human development and have a read! You’ll be surprised to learn about all the ways islam/islamic scholars have contributed to science, maths, astronomy etc etc! The oldest university in the world was set up by a Muslim woman……can you believe that?! How was she ever allowed out of her home in 859, Fez Morocco. Africa! Gosh……

Shockingly ignorant to sneak in an incorrect islamaphobic statement into this thread……..Wow!

It’s hardly any surprise the op feels the way she does - anti British sentiment is ingrained in Ireland. Quite an odd thing as British culture is inhaled and (things like premier league soccer) celebrated in Ireland. Shedloads emigrate to the uk but it’s quite common for relatives ‘back home’ to be horrified at the British accents of the cousins born there. I know. Currently witnessing it.

It’ll probably lessen over generations but ain’t going anywhere yet.

We’re a funny species that gets so worked up about what strip of land you grew up on but I guess the tribal thing is what is at our core. Unfortunately.

the English tend to be the grown ups in the room

Good grief.

(Brexit, anyone?)

The colonialism-soaked education you might have caught the tail end of if the number in your username is your birth year (I'm that age) has really done a number on you.

'the English tend to be the grown ups in the room'

England is my adopted homeland and I'm very glad I have British citizenship, but that's just an outrageous thing to say. Honestly no idea where you are coming from with that

'anti British sentiment is ingrained in Ireland'

Very much agree with this

The English people in my little town seem to get on ok to be fair. As does the lone Scotsman. Haven't met any Welsh ppl , oddly enough as they are closer geographically.

But wasn't this thread about Irish ppl bringing up kids in a different cultural milieu? Seems to have degenerated into some 1970s Bernard Manning paddy bashing. Different for Craicnet I suppose.

I guess though, when the op feels her experience of having English kids means she needs to break a lifetime of conditioning to feel comfortable with that, that it’s going to raise people’s hackles. Maybe she felt that she was just going to gets nods of agreement?

The bit about communion etc... it isn't compulsory. I appreciate people still think it is but my daughter didn't do it because we're not religious. Loads of people don't. Ireland has way more to offer than just language and sport though. We have a lot going on here.

I think you have mistagged me. I did not mention those ceremonies. We're atheists.

Agree with this except for a few bits. Also some additions.

1.I don't agree that it's 'odd' that Ireland's like this given the history. It will lessen over generations as you say. It's already lessened a huge amount in the south of the country over the past century. My grandparents (who had their houses raided several times by Black and Tans) viewed England very much more harshly than I or my children do. Not so sure of the situation in Donegal as it's so close to NI and the much more recent Troubles.

1. Individual people are generally made very welcome and most live very happily here. It's the establishment that most people have issues with. The recent disregard around Brexit. The general lack of understanding of what happened here.

1. I agree British culture is inhaled. Man U and Arsenal jerseys on the kids Christmas lists every year. The Royal family have been viewed with interest by many Irish for many years, like a celebrity thing really. My granny loved Princess Margaret.

4.The accent thing is true, but then I know Kerry people who are horrified that their kids now have Dub accents...it's not that strange to expect your children to be like you and that's a big part of it. But maybe not quite all of it.

@DeeCee77 your post comes across like you haven't been in the Republic of Ireland for the last 40 years. Things are very different to what you're describing. Ireland is extremely diverse and multicultural. I have to say, I sometimes see people from the North making comments about the Republic that are really coming from a place of ignorance. They haven't been here lately and haven't the first idea. 'The grown ups in the room' comment is hilarious and beneath contempt, clearly showing a bigoted agenda. Statistics show time and again that Irish people tend to be some of the best educated in Europe.

I do think, though, that anyone who feels their hackles rising might stop to reflect on why the conditioning happened, just as the OP is reflecting on the conditioning itself. Taking offence - which does seem aimed at shutting down the OP - seems to me to have a bit of 'attack is the best form of defence' about it. I'm English and I have no problem whatsoever understanding the OP's feelings, and I think that's only partly because I'm in an analogous position of raising my children in a cultural environment that's not the one I was raised in.

I wouldn't be so quick to blame the English for the family heraldry - way back in the mists of time I worked for a company that churned out 'family coats of arms' along with a certificate explaining surname origins with waffle along the lines of 'the original bearer of the surname Baker was most likely a baker'.

Coats of arms were presented and described ('lions rampant', etc.) . They might have been granted to someone of that surname hundreds of years ago, but unless granted to a direct ancestor, the Baker family from Clacton does not have a coat of arms.

Yes, it's all decorative fluff, but it had a certain amount of meaning back in the day.

On the question of accents, some members of my London family, who, like me, speak with what I'm going to call a "common" London accent, technically called an Estuary Accent these days I believe, were horrified that I was happy for my children to grow up with a Northern English accent, after I made my life there after university

IIRC (it was decades ago but it stuck in my mind) they asked "Don't you mind that they're going to grow up with a Northern accent?"

I love different accents. But I think the OP is making a wider point about culture and history etc. She and their father have tried to integrate the kids as best as possible. The holiday home has thrown the cultural differences into sharp relief. The children are excited to see a union jack whereas to the parents it's a danger signal in that part of Ireland. Let's hope we don't break down here etc etc.

I had that experience hitchhiking in the North of Ireland years ago so I can well relate. Now it may transpire that the kids grow up complaining they don't know enough about Donegal, the language or the wider family. Or not. You can't predict these things . Damned if you do....

I'd only be worried if they started voting Tory mind 😂

Hi OP.
On the upbringing just muddle through. Some of us have been doing this for generations. We are Ferry Irish, only truly at home on the voyage.

Tribalism runs deep in Ireland. This is intended as a light hearted contribution but my df struggled with raising us in Dublin, and brought us “home” to the west of Ireland for every holiday where we were regarded as Jackeens. My mother, who was from a place 20 miles away from him had fled from the parochial suffocating culture where any family living less than a century in the area were only “blow ins” and she refused to visit.

I think it’s really important to assimilate into the local culture; heritage is a different matter. I’ve travelled widely precisely because I don’t feel I belong anywhere. Now I’m married to a man rooted by his business (and going nowhere) on the “wrong” side of the city and my dc are growing up with accents and attitudes that mystify me.

I’m always a bit bemused by the Catholic Church comments. My dc have attended catholic schools and the genuinely catholic parents were a minority. Most families go along with the rituals of Communion and Confirmation, but it’s only lip service. In school they’re taught about the 5 major religions (Hindu, Buddhist, Islam, Christianity Humanism). My dd went through 5th class without a single religion lesson. Those are schools sitting on church land, with religious orders on the BOM. I can never understand why it’s never staunch catholics on the radio demanding a proper religious education. The only time the word catholic ever comes up is in the history book.

On the school yard, kids switch from soccer to GAA and back midway through a game. The divisions between English and Irish sports have vanished - the harder path to navigate is when you’re not sporty at all.

It’s a different country to the one I grew up in, and I think sometimes people living abroad don’t see that and attribute all the changes to place/ culture rather than allowing that we’ve all moved on a bit too.

@Nonplusultra I agree 100% with you that it's important to assimilate into the local culture. Children need to feel rooted where they are, to know that they truly belong in the place where they're living and among the people they live with. It's not fair for parents to live as if they really belong elsewhere, to make children carry around their parents' discomfort or inability to engage with the culture of the society they've chosen to live in.

Great Post @Nonplusultra . Likewise I can't relate to all the weird agonising about the Catholic Church. Or Protestant for that matter. It's like people have watched Angela's Ashes and this makes them experts on contemporary Ireland. Like Cathy Come Home or Kes would be a good snapshot of life in England.

You can sometimes square the circle @mathanxiety . Where we lived the 2nd generation kids followed Arsenal and Ireland. We used to go to the Fleadh in Finsbury Park. Where I live now a lot of ppl support Man United. They're in a Roy Keane time warp !

There is a lot if anti English sentiment in ireland. The saddest thing about it is that there is a lot of mixed Irish and English families in Ireland. An Irish person will go to England to work, and have a child over there. The Irish person will then move back to Ireland.

And that English child will be hated for being English. I've seen it happen

It is really sad

I suppose it happens. My kids got the odd cheap dig - but usually the argument was about something else and someone threw that in. On the other hand they were a novelty and my daughter was always being invited to tea by classmates. They liked her accent. Which I can assure you was not my experience at school in England.

I know it's all changed and we're flavour of the month - at least before Brexit. But back then being Irish was like halitosis.

Yes. This in spades.

I had a similar experience living in Ireland, I was so naive (and uneducated) about the anti-English sentiment that I didn’t realise how much it would be out in the open. I chose to not have children there in case they experienced it. I’m sorry to hear it happens here too.