Posh hobbies for children - Skiing/ Sailing/ horse riding

[MamaLlama123]

wondering how common these posh hobbies are?? do your children do any?!

how much would it cost for children to learn

Oh, forgot to answer the since part, how much it costs.

Skiing - depends on where you live, in Canada it cost as much as a pair of skis and boots, there were free crosscountry trails in the National Parks locally. Downhill skiing, again depended on where you were, a family season ticket was generally around $500 in the hills close to Toronto, obviously more in places like Lake Louise or Tremblant but still no more than a premiership season ticket. Obviously if you live nowhere near any snow and have to go on holiday to ski, it will cost more. Kit - again if you live in Toronto you and your kids will already have snow pants and jackets, so it’s just the skis themselves, which you can get secondhand.

Rugby - £22 per month, for an hour a week of coaching plus matches. Kit was £10 secondhand, £5 for secondhand boots.

Tennis - lessons are quite expensive locally, £180 per term (10-11 weeks) for an hour a week. Or if you can teach your child yourself, a court in the park costs £5 per hour. Racquets cost about £20.

In my experience that’s not much of a ‘thing’ anymore, at least not around here. You might get some older teenagers who work at the yard in exchange for lessons, but they have to know what they’re doing in order to be useful and work- so will generally have had several years of lessons first. I wouldn’t say it’s a ‘posh’ hobby, but it’s one that you do need a decent amount of disposable income for.

Horse riding is expensive but not necessarily posh, unless you want your child to hunt or play polo. I have a lot of friends who ride and none of them are particularly posh. They all work hard (many in “normal” jobs such as nursing, admin work etc) and go without holidays or flash cars in order to afford their horses, with some loaning or sharing other people’s horses to keep the costs down to an extent.

👀😏

This is turning into another private school type discussion where, rather than admit something is posh, people are saying things like "oh, sailing while on the back of a thoroughbred unicorn isn't for the privileged, you just have to work two jobs, drive an old car and not watch Sky."

Posh is not the same as expensive. One of the GB showjumping gold medal winning team is the son of a builder. A member of the GB Olympic dressage team fulfilled his early desire to ride by riding donkeys bareback after being born to a school-aged single mum.

Eton or rugby fives ? 😁

squash played with a cricket ball without the benefit of a racquet. Most people have never heard of it

We ski with the DC every year but I doubt either of them would call it a hobby. Think hobbies have to be done at least monthly.

Over the years my eldest son has tried his hand at rugby, skiing, cricket, hockey, lacrosse, golf, horse riding, track, cycling, chess, tennis, badminton, squash and most recently trying out Padel. Whilst I never really thought of any of the activities as posh aside from skiing and golf, they definitely attracted a lot of the private school kids or kids whose parents invested in tutors etc outside of school so likely had disposable income. On reflection almost all sports are expensive these days as gone are the times where you could join the local football club by turning up at the local park at 9am on a Saturday. You've now got to pay membership, buy kit, travel across the district to play matches etc. Thinking about it makes me feel quite sad as it will likely restrict a lot of children from this type of activity.

Polo is pretty posh imo
Fencing
shooting

No idea how much any of them cost

DC primary school (state) played lacrosse but they don't have it at their secondary school.

My kids ski at the local dry slope. £70 for a block of six lessons.

DH and I both skied from when we were children. We ski as much as we can in Scotland and at least a week abroad every year.

It is an expensive hobby and only going to get more so with global warming.

MY 2 children done all the posh stuff if your posh hobbies are as followed.
Mud pies.
Digging holes.
Worm hunting.
Climbing trees.
Building dens.
Riding bikes.
Playing tag playing ball.
Swimming in lakes.
Building rafts with mates to play on the pond with.
snakes and ladders monopoly
Collecting conkers.
Wrestling each other.
Baking.
Cooking on a fire in the back yard.
Building their own bird homes with what they found in the woods.
Lava floor.
action man battles.
And lots more didnt cost a thing only a bath every night.
Rain or shine they were out.

Another non posh horsewoman here.
Worked at a stables for lessons, eventually had my own ponies many years later.
Most of my friends are horsey and only one is rich. The rest are just spending all the cash others spend on nice cars, houses, holidays, fags and booze on their horse.

My children all owned a unicorn each and a lion.
Go to private boarding schools as i dont them around me all term.
We all live on daddys money but he cant do anything right anyway.

Just let kids choose what THEY want to do has a hobbie.
And let them be their selfs .

DD rides, group lesson prices went from £12/hour to now £38/hour over the last 10 years.
No own horse or loaner, no time, no horsey parents and no facilities nearby for this.

She did some sailing with the Scouts and also during a holiday but is not keen on it, she inherited sea sickness from her dad. She loves paddleboarding or kajak though.

Ski - none of us is keen on being cold and I find it far too expensive to spend a week annual leave for it. DD had the chance to go with the school but declined.

Why do you think they need a posh hobby? A hobby should be something they love and you can afford.
Maybe look at golf or learning Mandarin.

Both of my DC's learnt to sail as kids. We live on the coast and it's certainly not viewed as posh! Kit is handed down through the club and its cost £60 per child per year for 2 evenings of dingy lessons and races a week.
We have kayaks and paddle boards so thats free.

One Dc rides, thats more pricey - £35 for an hours private lesson. Hacks are cheaper at £25. Wouldn't call it posh though - the stables are old but horses cared for with a lot of elbow grease required!

Traditional instruments. Seems to be very rarevto learn clarinet or even violin outside private school in my area. I know people will say their council estate offers free oboe lessons but the stats nationwide dont stack up.

Shooting seems a very private school thing too. Several schools round here have their own ranges

OMG sailing isn't posh - brilliant.
The way to tells what is posh is dead easy, do you need expensive equipment? The UK does well at posho sports competitively because Jamaica etc cannot afford the equipment.

I learned to ride at age six. I'm far from posh being from a well known 'rough' area in Glasgow.

I have had horses throughout my adult life and all of my horsey friends are not posh. We're all working class and skint 😂 because we have horses.

So, my point is, DO NOT encourage riding lessons unless you want to be asked for a pony every birthday, Christmas, weekend or every day ending in a Y.

There’s a trad Scot’s music group near me that does free lessons/ instruments for kids ( they get funding from council plus other bits to fund it) One’s learning the fiddle the other chanter/ bagpipes.

I do wonder if smaller places have more of these free/ cheap/ volunteer led stuff as people more community minded.

Tennis, polo, horse riding, rowing, definitely skiing, cricket

it’s easier for posh kids to do these “cheaper” and more regularly as parents have ski lodges, tennis courts, horses etc and very posh private schools encourage all those hobbies/sports.

Are we not talking about musicians? We’re not posh, far from it. My son’s music costs more than our mortgage and utilities put together though. Hopefully when he’s famous he’ll be kind enough to buy me a boathouse in salcombe and some new boobs 🤣

We go skiing most years as I learnt as a teenager as used to live near the Alps. We do NOT have a ski lodge as do none of the people I know who go skiing. It's not cheap but lots of normal, fairlt well off, non posh people ski.

School trips are a good way to learn, also not cheap but within reach of anyone considering sailing or horse-riding.

Dare I say it but hasn’t skiing become less fashionable for Brits? It’s popular in Feb half term but otherwise adults with cash seem to do other things eg cycling, triathlon, far flung travel destinations. When I go it doesn’t seem very posh just middle aged

I think there are way less young Brits doing ski seasons because of Brexit and changes to local employment rules, but there aren't that many middle aged snow boarders yet and plenty of young people in the Alps when we go (we don't got Feb HT). If you pop into the Follie Douces' or any of the apres hot spots in the Alps you will feel seriously old at 45 😁