I’m probably being completely unreasonable but I’m worried about my son fitting in at Eton
My eldest got his GCSE results yesterday and got all 9s apart from a 7 in French, which he was absolutely gutted about. His dad and I are incredibly proud of him.
Last year he applied for the Orwell Award at Eton and was offered a place conditionally, which is obviously a huge opportunity for him. Neither DH nor I went to university. We went straight into the civil service after school, and we’re very much ordinary people from London. We have a house fully paid off in sw London because we both grew up here bought the house a long time ago, we couldn’t afford a house here now. We’re not privately educated, we’re not from some wealthy family and we couldn’t have afforded private school for our boys.
The reason I’m posting is because I’m suddenly feeling quite anxious about him actually fitting in there.DH thinks I’m overthinking it, but I’m mixed race. My dad is Barbadian and my mum is English, and I’m quite light-skinned essentially as light as Meghan Markle. When I was younger in my late teens a man once approached my dad while we were eating in a pub and asked him where he’d “found” me and congratulated him, because he thought my dad was my boyfriend. Things like that have happened more than once.
Our boys are mixed race too, although you wouldn’t necessarily know it by looking at them. Our youngest is very fair with light brown hair and green eyes, and our eldest has brown hair and brown eyes. They’ve both generally been perceived as white, and when they were younger I was even mistaken for their nanny many many times.
My eldest currently attends a very diverse state school in southwest London. He has friends from all sorts of backgrounds and has never really had to think about whether he “looks” like he belongs somewhere.
But Eton is obviously a completely different environment. I know there will be boys there from all sorts of backgrounds and that he’s been accepted because he’s academically exceptional and clearly deserves his place. I also know that I’m probably projecting some of my own experiences onto him.But I can’t help wondering whether being mixed race, coming from a normal state-school family and not having the same background as many of the other boys will make it harder for him socially.
Am I being ridiculous worrying about this? Would you be concerned about your child going somewhere so different from their current environment or would you just let them get on with it?
And for anyone whose child has gone to Eton or somewhere similar on a scholarship/award from a state school, how did they actually get on ? Would be great to hear from mixed race parents with children who “pass”as white.
He has fulfilled his offer conditions and is very excited but a little nervous. It’s not just a school it’s a boarding school which he’s never done before. I’m nervous we will miss him it’ll be tough going from seeing him everyday. He is academic already knows what he’d like to study at university, all research he’s done himself so he’s looking forward to having all the resources Eton has to offer. Even with applying for Eton he researched this himself and spoke to us then we spoke to his school for support. I didn’t even know this award existed that’s how clued up he is.