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Original poster

The parents at dd's state school all live in £600k houses - how can I invite them to my lowly abode?

64 replies

mousiemousie · 07/02/2006 18:30

My dd goes to a state school in an area where property prices are high.

Nearly all the other kids (at least 25 out of 30) live in £600k houses and I feel really embarrassed to invite their kids to my shabby little flat. It's not even very clean as I hate housework. Any advice or anyone else giving themselves grief over this?

OP posts:
fisil · 07/02/2006 21:30

Read Goodbye Jimmy Choos. That should help!

scienceteacher · 07/02/2006 22:28

We don't invite anyone around and this seems to be well accepted by classmates. We honestly haven't felt any pressure to reciprocate on sleep-overs. I think most parents are reasonably sensitive.

frogs · 07/02/2006 22:41

We live in a big house, but until recently swathes of it were practically derelict. I used to dread people visiting because it was so vile. But no one ever minded. Visiting children actually loved it, because they could do painting/sticking/building dens without having to worry about the mess.

Conversely, my children never noticed that other people's houses/flats were smaller. Dd1 in fact went through a phase where she kept nagging me to sell up and move into a local tower block where one of her classmates lived.

expatinscotland · 07/02/2006 22:54

Mousie
People are coming to see YOU and your child, not your house. And if that's what they base their feelings for you and your family on - something as insignificant as a residence - you don't need them, anyway.

I have friends who live in mansions, friends who are asylum seekers who live in some of the worst estates in town, and just about everywhere in between.

The size of their hearts and minds, however, is the same.

Invite 'em! If they don't want to come, don't take it personally. Move on and stick w/the ones who do! You won't know till you try, and the payoff is well worth it.

expatinscotland · 07/02/2006 22:56

I should add that we live in a smallish flat. But it's very clean and full of good things!

expatinscotland · 07/02/2006 22:57

Also, why do people who live in big, nice houses feel they need to apologise? For what? 'A friend's good fortune is a blessing', as the old Tibetan saying goes.

soapbox · 07/02/2006 23:00

Don't be daft! I live in a big house and couldn't care less whether anyone lived in an empty shoe box in the middle of the motorway, as long as I like them!

Don't let rubbish like the size of a house get in the way of real friendships!

Tortington · 07/02/2006 23:21

people either like you or they dont. i'm wit the fuck em school of thought.

quite frankly i rarely put myself in that situation. as i dont have kids friends over, well i never used to and i rarely do now but when i do - the kids are old enough to be embarrased about the house and therefore tidy up themselves.

Tortington · 07/02/2006 23:21

i live in a shit hole and i dont just soapbox

DominiConnor · 08/02/2006 03:00

We're not wildly houseproud. Fact is that being able to invite kids round enhances your kids status. A good (bad) % of parents won't let anyone else's kids round in case they damage things, or put mud on the carpet. We've simply decided to write off everything below the 1 metre line.
We have a relatively expensive house, but a rather irritating plumbing issue means that a couple of walls are bare plaster, and one of the toilets has a strange and slightly scary hole in the wall.

We get on well with other parents, but ultimately as several people here have said "fuck'em".
You can't actually win this game.
When we moved into the house it was very nicely decorated, but of course to whose taste ?
If you get into the impressing other parents game, it's not enough merely to spend money. You have to have the "right" gear. We have flowery wallpaper in parts, apparently that's naff (or was that last week). Our TV is quite large but I suspect we still have the smallest of any parent in the class. My mobile is some piece of 3g garbage, that doesn't impress people either.
You can always find some way to sneer at others if you want, so if people do this you know things about them that might have taken longer to spot.

swedishmum · 08/02/2006 03:14

We live in a fairly big 5 bed house but dd has friends with mansions and friends with small 2 bed places. At 10 she judges more on how friendly the mum is. I've heard so many times that "We can't have x back" from other parents. Think of poor old x. I do, but I must admit to tidying up first!

Jennypog · 08/02/2006 11:29

My eldest's friend really thinks she is something because she lives in a big house and thinks her parents are rich (they are not, but both work full time in order to service their massive mortgage). It makes me laugh to be honest that people feel that they are something special because their living room has a couple of extra feet on the end and they have a downstairs loo. I always say that our house may be a bit smaller, but our mortgage is a whole lot smaller too. This is precisely the reason for so much stress - we feel the need to have huge mortgages, car loans, etc, just so that we can invite our children's friends round without embarrassment. What are we coming to. My advice - if they don't like your flat - f**k them.

Jennypog · 08/02/2006 11:31

Sorry, I know that not everyone who lives in a larger than average house is not like this - but I have come across an awful lot who are.

Jennypog · 08/02/2006 11:32

Take out the second "not" from the first sentence!!

GDG · 08/02/2006 11:39

OMG, it would not matter to me at all and I'm sure ds doesn't even notice! We live in a fairly big house and some of ds1's friends live in much smaller houses and a couple in bigger ones. I've never heard any of the children say anything about it. It's just not an issue to them and it's certainly not an issue to me!!

If they are bothered by it they are not worth worrying about.

Tortington · 08/02/2006 16:31

my son has a friend witha swimming pool, i invited him round to play - and to also assess whether he would be good son in law material in about 8 years - unfortunatley not. my daughter is mortified as she has her heart set on another boy whose mummy is some secretary for the priminister - so i told her he would do.

GDG · 08/02/2006 16:33

Ha ha!! Actually, when I was at school we lived in a normal 3 bed semi and my friend lived in an enormous house with a swimming pool (her mother was a script writer for a well known soap and her father a director for another one!) - it was never an issue for me or her IIRC

gscrym · 08/02/2006 16:46

Pile as many of the 600k house kids in as you can then make sure your kiddie gets invited round the other houses. Invite yourself in and whip something small and extremely valuable. Flog said items and voila, soon you'll be on your way to a big posh house.

I'm kidding, obviously.

The kids will all be fine together and the parents will be too busy worrying about their huge mortgages and the interest rates. If they do judge you, just ignore them.

katyp · 08/02/2006 16:49

Ds had a friend around a few months ago who commented that our house was small - it's a 4 bed semi fgs! Ok they do live in a large detached... Kids may notice differences and comment but when they are young they are just making observations. I remember whan I was a kid a family near us always welcomed all their kids friends to play in their house - they were thought to be really cool - other mothers wouldn't let you past the back door in case you made a mess!

robin3 · 08/02/2006 16:53

Won't be an issue for the kids....even if they ask innocently offensive questions it's born out of ignorance not malice. I'm afraid some of the parents may judge you but not if they're decent people.

I grew up in big houses and had friends who had much smaller houses. I envied all the wrong things like the fact that they had a sodastream or inappropriate shoes or were allowed out whenever, got to eat chips every night....not the size of the house.

Original poster
mousiemousie · 08/02/2006 20:24

gscrym

I am totally unworried about the kids, its the parents who phase me!

I think I probably need to join the f'em school of thought. It is a ludicrous situation in that I am not what I think of as poor - both me and dp work so we are really not on the breadline, its just that everyone else somehow seems to have immense (by my standards) material wealth, and at such young ages! How can so many folk afford £600k houses AND kids when they are not even 40?!!

Maybe this is quite an opportunity in disguise...the parents who are genuinely nice folk will become easy to distinguish from the judgemental and materialistic ones! And it's true that I shouldn't care about the judgemental ones. I think the porblem is that as a parent you feel protective of your kids, and I don't want anyone, parents included, to judge my dd according to my failings, real or perceived

OP posts:
Angeliz · 08/02/2006 20:28

If they DO judge your daughter by your house then they are even more shallow than judging your house. (Does that make any sense? )

If anyone does off your dd because of it, i really wouldn't want her to socialise with such people. The ck=hildren she'll still see at School anyway.

Original poster
mousiemousie · 08/02/2006 20:35

Angeliz thanks for your post - it does make sense. It's an issue I need to get to grips with and mumsnet is really helping

OP posts:
chickaboo · 08/02/2006 20:53

You never know the other parents may be up to their eyes in debt and thats how they afford the big house and kids!

We have a 3 bed flat, we had lived in rented for years because we live in an expensive area, we rented a big house but when we finally bought we live in a flat as big as the upstairs of our old house, I was so worried everyone would think we'd gone bankrupt or something! I have spoken to some of the mums at my little girls school about house prices etc... and they all bought in the mid nineties for a 3rd of what their houses are now worth and actually have much smaller mortages than us, my point is a lot of people end up in expensive houses because the equity they have made. I agree with Mercy, having a good time is all the kids will be interested in!

Original poster
mousiemousie · 10/02/2006 10:09

Will invite a couple of dd's friends back after half term and brave the parents. One set moved here from London and can't understand why everyone doesn't have "an au pair couple from eastern europe, it's the answer to childcare AND DIY worries" and raves about her new en-suite "wet rooms" to all bedrooms...The other mother is quite aloof and cold, seemingly pretty snooty...AAARGHHH!!

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