The disadvantages of an elite education

[camaleon]

A bit old but still interesting (my view).
here

Hmm

My Norland tried to keep wearing her uniform for different things and I had to sit her down and say that my friends wouldn't take me seriously ever again if I minced around Cambridge with a uniformed nanny in tow. So the nanny wore scruffy combats the whole time she was here and looked so young Tesco would refuse to leave grocery deliveries. It's a tough one.

Perhaps I should move to Paris.

God I sound like the tosser in the article.

Seriously, I am perfectly capable of talking to people and can do my own DIY.

people are always saying this in the UK though - look at the David Cameron thing. The 'oh he went to Eton so can't know how real people live' went on for months and months!

I think you are displaying typically British ambivalence to having domestic servants, Boffinmum. Which is fine, really, as that is what enables the British to maintain their domestic skills where other nations have lost theirs.

A Lebanese friend (who, I must say, is not overly fond of doing her own domestic chores) rants and raves every time she returns to Paris after her summer in Lebanon. She says that modern upper/middle-class women in Lebanon have become totally deskilled in everything - they don't either WOHM or do anything in the way of household tasks or childcare themselves - it's all done by Filipinas and Sri Lankans.

The Eton thing is such a non-starter. Lots of Old Etonians do perfectly normal jobs with normal people.

well I agree with you

but it ran and ran here and did untold damage to Cameron's reputation

seems a part of society actually believe it

There is so much inverted snobbery in the UK these days. Cameron doesn't seem out of touch to me. Sure, he has had a privileged life, but he seems quite down to earth really, in a busy politician sort of way.

The servant thing is interesting. In all developing countries, wealthy people can find very poor relations to delegate everything to. You often find that wealthy africans here can't do anything for themselves.

We used to have lots of overseas students staying with us and they were always shocked that not only did my mother work but she also had to look after three children. Unfortunately, we could never find a poor cousin to do everything for us for just a shilling.

I was at Cambridge and though academically elite, it was much more socially mixed than universities such as Bristol and Exeter. (Which I think took all the posh people who weren't bright enough for Oxbridge!)

My chest is swelling at the thought that I still have some skills that women in other countries may have lost. This will make me feel better as I go to tackle the bathroom and laundry.

INteresting what Bonsoir said about compatibility with creative life... I write books and often when I'm stuck ironing a few shirts or pottering the garden or brushing the dog is helpful. I feel as if that's a shameful admission but it's true. Baking a cake is also soothing and helps get me back to the page.

I have had some of my best Aha research moments in Tescos.

There, I've admitted it now.

Currently in the UAE and similar countries there is a lot of criticism of handing over childcare to people who don't speak the language properly, and basically abdicating responsibility for bringing up your own kids.

I think there's something in that. I went to boarding school and we were all taught how to look after the younger pupils, cook, make our beds, lay tables, do a bit of gardening, wire plugs and that kind of thing, and the expectation was that we should be independent when we needed to be and show a bit of British wartime spirit as necessary (we were also toughened up by hardly having any heating which forced us to wear our ski jackets in bed).

I think pre-1980s independent education was very good at building a bit of backbone amongst its pupils, but now I see pampered Russians and Chinese pupils who can barely open their own curtains, and UK pupils who think it's ridiculous to go a mile up the road in their £80 Uggs unless their poor downtrodden mother drives them up there in a 4x4. Which is one reason my kids go to State schools. Mine can bloody well get wellies and get the bus.

Must try Tesco's...

Is there a particular aisle you recommend?

Abride - I completely agree that domestic chores can fire creative inspiration for other, more intellectual, pursuits. I wish I knew how it worked. My best guess is that it is to do with other neurones being fired by the colour/feel/texture/movement associated with the more manual tasks...

My Lebanese friend says that Lebanese children don't speak French properly anymore - French used to be passed down within families and nowadays the children learn bad English from Filipinas and Sri Lankans instead.

Oddly enough, it's usually when the brain is in neutral browsing over cheap wrapping paper or something like that. When I am in stocking up but not particularly thinking very hard mode.

Whizzing around Cambridge in a bicycle is also a good strategy. Helps if you live there.

www.womens.cusu.cam.ac.uk/genderagenda/0102/2/gown.html

Just realised they cut the bit about whizzing around Cambridge on a bicycle naked underneath a gown, getting inspiration. That was prudish of them.

Back to the OP-

I found the whole article very thought provoking- and quite well written!

Whilst it could be seen as an American phenomenon, I do find myself increasingly both on here and in RL when you read (or talk!) of parents who spout that whole 'Wider opportunities' thing about sending the DC 'private' (coz private is ALWAYS going to be better than narrow, restrictive, taught-to-the-test state, innit?). I would have far more respect for them if they told it like it is: I am buying my DC advantage that will allow them to get into the better universities and jobs despite their possible academic failings so they'll never have to get their hands dirty and (- I quote someone I know personally here!) 'Will move in the upper echelons of society'. This mum would swell with pride if she felt her DSs couldn't make small talk to a plumber. It'd mean she'd educated them out of having any truck or identification whatsoever with the great unwashed...

So I particularly identified with that 'smug entitlement' thing!

Buying an 'elite' education is no guarantee of a happy or contented life, and it is certainly no guarantee that you will be any better at forming relationships, choosing a good partner or being a better parent. I also think it can be a distinct dis advantage if you honestly believe that an elite education is the reason you've got where you are in life. What are you going to do if your children in turn can't afford to buy an elite education for their own children?!

Let's keep things in perspective. If you are bright and resourceful, you have every chance of making a success of your life without needing a privately bought education.

I don't think people realise how muddy and down to earth the really, really top echelons of society tend to be.

If you can't boast about how you personally crawled inside an overgrown ice house in your best dress to rescue a lab puppy, or scaled the roof in a nightie to get a dead pigeon out of a gutter in a thunderstorm, you haven't made it IMO.

Bonsoir, thats really interesting about domestic activities and an intellectual life seen as being compatible in the UK, whereas that may not be the case in other countries.

I disagree with that analysis, ampere. I have a degree, professional qualification, blah, blah blah but it doesn't mean that I never speak to plumbers etc. Who do you think that my clients are!?

"So alien was his experience to me, so unguessable his values, so mysterious his very language, that I couldn't succeed in engaging him in a few minutes of small talk before he got down to work."

Last I heard, a conversation was a two-way thing. Despite failing in his nobless oblige role of starting the small talk, I don't notice the author of the piece commenting on the plumber starting the chitchat either. Did anyone else imagine the scenario where the plumber had no desire to talk to the eejit of an author but just wanted to get on his tools and do the job, so that he could crack on to the next call-out?

Oops, I've just read that back and it sounds all wrong. It sounds as if I only talk to plumbers when I have to and only in a professional capacity.. It's not true: my plumber is lovely and makes me larf.

Actually, my plumber had an elite education......

Sorry, I think this is a lot of rubbish! As someone who was educated at a private school, then went to vet school I confess I did meet several tossers like this guy, but even at 17 I didn't buy into this "you are the top 5%, the creme de la creme" crap! You are so much more than your education! I had a really wide circle of friends at school and at uni, many of whom were at different schools and not at university- why would I not? I think you'd have to actively restrict yourself to that narrow social group to avoid meeting other (more interesting!) people.

Truth be told, I would actually prefer to gab away to a plumber than to some so-called intellectual. I find I get on better with those who didn't have an "elite" education-they have more to say that interests me, dofferent viewpoints etc. They are also less full of their own importance!

It's why I don't spend a lot of time talking to bankers.