How the other half lives, what and when you learned

[tomorrowalready]

Reflecting from another thread made me realise it was not until my 20s I found out some people expected to have a private bathroom. I went to university then and shared with another mature student who had been married, divorced and said she found having to share a bathroom with unrelated people unpleasant. I had always taken it for granted as had live in jobs and rented bedsits before. She was a lovely person and also the first person I knew who had a glass of wine every evening and she introduced me to many new things - cooking with garlic, sherry, owning and using a car for shopping for example.

So what did you take for granted that surprised other people you met?

[BananaMilkshakeWithCream]

I couldn’t believe that people had a range of squash or cereal that they could choose from at home. Eg orange/ribena and cornflakes/fruit and fibre (possibly more choices) For is it was strictly orange squash and plain old cornflakes. I also could t believe it that people could pay to go on school trips in one go rather that in instalments (I appreciate that I was lucky to even go on any school trips btw)

[FinallyHere]

I was able to help a fellow student in our first year, who had been unable to get a room in halls and was living in 'digs' with a landlady.

He was worried because he was paying for an evening meal, but his landlady never seemed to provide anything.

Each morning she would ask him whether he would be 'in for dinner'. He thought she was asking about the lunchtime meal and so said no.

[HebeMumsnet]

Afternoon, all. We're going to move this over to Classics now.

[ellyeth]

ellyeth I went round to my friend's house after school and she said we will make an omelette for our tea. There were three of us - her sister as well - and I was shocked when she proceeded to break six eggs into a bowl. I said wouldn't her Mum and Dad be cross that she had used six eggs (in my house it would have been only three eggs or possibly two between three). She said of course not. We were fairly middle class but my Mum didn't work and we had a mortgage. Money was very tight.

At the age of 18 I wanted to move away from home into a nearby town because village life was so limiting. At work, a bedsit was advertised and the woman who was leaving said it was a really nice bedsit, better than anything else she had viewed. I went to see it and thought it was a bit dire to be honest but my boyfriend thought it was lovely. I was an only child with a nice bedroom. He had seven brothers and sisters and shared a bedroom with two brothers.

[ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba]

logic

[Wheresmybiscuit3]

We didn’t have central heating. We had gas fires and hot water bottles.

We did however have sky tv which none of my friends had. They thought we were rich. We weren’t.

[mathanxiety]

...I wouldn't consider anybody with a regional accent to be MC...

What???

A few comments:

1. Every accent is a regional accent.
   
2. Every region has a variety of social classes.
   
3. Gobsmacked.

[mathanxiety]

Thank you tomorrowalready for a great thread.

[tomorrowalready]

Thank you mathanxiety, new thread here:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/4314394-What-you-never-knew-you-never-knew-and-how-you-learned-it

[mathanxiety]

To link a thread, C&P the thread title.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/a4304394-How-the-other-half-lives-what-and-when-you-learned?msgid=109662067#109662067

This ^^ is this thread's title.

[tomorrowalready]

Thanks EmmaGrundyForPM, I have made a new thread called What you never knew you never knew and how you learned it , trying not to limit it to one area of life. Can't figure out how to link it, is it //www.mumsnet.comwhat you never knew you never knew and how you learned it ?

[EmmaGrundyForPM]

[quote tomorrowalready]@Rainbowsew, I was the op of the thread, I don't know about the etiquette of carrying threads over or do they all end at 40 pages? I meant it to be quite lghthearted look at things we never knew about others' lives which the food discussion was all about and it has been mostly fun and fascinating.[/quote]
You need to create a new thread before this one fills up, then post a link to the new thread here. The thread stops at 1000 posts.
It's such an interesting topic. Please do create a new thread.

[dottypencilcase]

@LepusLepus

As a child in the 60's money was tight but we weren't poor in that we went without anything - though we had to look after what we had, and if we broke something, that was it, we went without it until enough money was saved for a new one.

My mums favourite saying was 'soap and water costs nothing' which of course isn't true. But every night, to prove her point we were scrubbed and inspected to ensure no specks of dirt, imagined or otherwise remained.

At school there was a boy in my class who was - as I now now - undersized and underfed for his age. He always had a runny nose, dirty clothes and he smelled quite strongly.

Whenever we had to line up in two's, no one wanted to hold his hand, sit next to him in class, or invite him to join a game. I was one of the 'no-ones' because to the 6 year old me, he should have got washed every night then he would have had friends.

This boy lived in my street and one day news, awful news swept up the road from the top of the hill where he lived. He had run out into the road and had been hit by one of the very few cars in the street at that time. By the time he arrived at hospital, he was dead.

Suddenly everyone cared. People went to sit in his house to keep his mum company - my mum included. They took food, sent buckets of coal for a fire, had a whip round, and said out loud to everyone within earshot 'what a grand lad he'd been'. These were the same people that had whispered to each other behind their hands and over the garden fences about the state of him, but had never done anything about him, far less allow him into their homes or even give him a jam sandwich. Hypocrites.

He'd been undersized through hunger, unwashed and smelly because his mum was ill, and couldn't work, and his dad couldn't be bothered to work and took what little money that did come into the house for beer..

I remember afterwards looking at his empty chair in class and feeling what I now know to be shame. I was ashamed. I wished I had held his hand, and shared my breaktime biscuit that my mum gave me threepence a week for. I wished I had been his friend.

Derek. His name was Derek and I have thought about him often throughout my life. He taught me never to judge ever again. He taught me to care, always. He taught me a hell of a lesson at 6 years of age.

As an adult I have worked with children in school, many of whom were in his situation and worse. But this time and every time I did something about it, ranging from sorting out a breakfast from the school kitchen for a 7 year old, to, after seeing a mothers boyfriend strike her child, calling the police on him there and then, with his consequent arrest and charge, and giving evidence in court.

What have I learned? Just this - that 'Evil triumphs when good men and women do nothing'.

Oh @LepusLepus, this has upset me greatly. What a distressing but incredibly insightful post. Thanks for sharing. RIP Derek 🙏

[Panickingpavlova]

Ie if one person has experience the theatre, enjoys literature, knows what good food is, they can in reduced circumstances pass this on.

Interestingly I know someone with a wealthy background and had barely any culture or anything passed on!!

[Panickingpavlova]

Diving in with possibly irrelevant comment, expresso interesting post.

I do feel however that within your list of choices, some people can lesson the effects of those for children as a parent and some won't be able too. I know it would be far easier for me to perhaps mitigate all those issues and still give my dc a leg up as it were than perhaps a teen mum without much education or family support or money, because I started with more.

[tomorrowalready]

@Rainbowsew, I was the op of the thread, I don't know about the etiquette of carrying threads over or do they all end at 40 pages? I meant it to be quite lghthearted look at things we never knew about others' lives which the food discussion was all about and it has been mostly fun and fascinating.

[Rainbowsew]

Only 5 pages in,this is fascinating can it be carried on before thread fills?

[Rainbowsew]

@whatkindofdaughter

You grew up in the 70s? Really?

Some of the things you mention seem to point to someone much older than you are.

I was working in the 70s, having finished uni.

Some of the things you talk about- drinking wine, using garlic - were around long before the 70s.

This is the thread in a nutshell!! Just because they were around doesn't mean someone experienced them

I wasn't born until 70s but due to my parents' conservative tastes and lack of disposable income, they never had alcohol in, garlic didn't appear until the 90s my first taste of pasta was the mid 80s...

[EspressoDoubleShot]

@ZednotZee

Income determines where one lives,what one eats, education choices as large income can afford private school and or tutors, or onward uni You really cannot dismiss the impact of income

I think you will find that they are all choices.
Your upbringing, politics, background and social class are larger determinants of those choices than the blunt instrument of income.

You are replying to my quote @ZednotZee⬇️

Income determines where one lives,what one eats, education choices as large income can afford private school and or tutors, or onward uni You really cannot dismiss the impact of income

Income determines choices as specific income is required depending on choices one makes
The income drives the choices (and opportunities) you need an adequate income threshold to have increased choices. The specific examples I listed are income driven
Accommodation, varies in price by area from high to low
Food, again cost driven,from high to low and often supplemented by food bank. Look at work of Marcus Rashford, he’s addressing food poverty and inadequate nutrition because of poverty eg lack of money
Private school cost tens of thousand a year. Require a disposable high income
Tutors @£45+ hour again require a disposable income to afford
Uni student background usually determines if they get financial help from parents with income to supplement the students at uni and in term time & holidays

I think you’ll find that Income is not a blunt instrument in the least, it is one of the most commonly used indices in measuring class and social mobility.Indices of Social deprivations have seven categories all inextricably linked to income
The seven different domains of deprivation
• Income Deprivation
• Employment Deprivation
• Education, Skills and Training Deprivation
• Health Deprivation and Disability
• Crime
• Barriers to Housing and Services
• Living Environment Deprivation

I am not saying income is sole and unitary factor in class but it is the most significant as it impacts on all 7 indices

Your analysis bears no scrutiny it’s simplistic and I think yiu are being a bit obtuse to be frank

[Ddot]

I agree being poor stops you doing most things but eating well isnt one of them. After my divorce I spent very little on food but I knew how to cook. Working with an array of people I found it such an eye opener that alot of people haven't got a clue on what's healthy and how to cook the basics

[BeenAsFarAsMercyAndGrand]

@ZednotZee

Income determines where one lives,what one eats, education choices as large income can afford private school and or tutors, or onward uni You really cannot dismiss the impact of income

I think you will find that they are all choices.
Your upbringing, politics, background and social class are larger determinants of those choices than the blunt instrument of income.

No, the income is what makes these things choices.

If you have low income, you don't have any choice. You live in the cheapest place because you can't afford anything else. You don't go to the theatre because you can't afford it. Educational opportunities that cost money will be out of your reach.
Likewise for everything else - if you have money, you have choices.

If you can't see that having enough money to choose your lifestyle is different to having no choice, I think you're being deliberately obtuse.

[queenmeadhbh]

[quote ZednotZee]@queenmeadhbh

I have no idea of Irish dialects.

Nor have I thus far entered in to a discussion regarding the MC in NI.[/quote]
Well yeah you haven’t that’s what I was asking, in response to you saying that the middle class don’t have regional accents. Do you mean the English middle class don’t have regional accents? (Which I still disagree with, but that’s besides the point). There’s no need to be obstructively vague when you won’t tell anyone what you mean by “regional accent”!

[NornIrn]

@ZednotZee Northern Irish is not necessarily an Irish dialect. It could be a British dialect depending on how the person speaking identifies.

[ZednotZee]

@queenmeadhbh

I have no idea of Irish dialects.

Nor have I thus far entered in to a discussion regarding the MC in NI.

[DeleteSystem32]

[quote ZednotZee]@Ifitquacks

As far as I am concerned it is fact.

And I wouldn't consider anybody with a regional accent to be MC, however as I explained earlier the MC are much smaller in number than many on MN seem to like to imagine.
They are a distinct minority.

I think its a great example of how class consciousness is alive and well in Britain just reading redtoothbrush's reaction to my strongly held opinions.
Its as if the world will end if I don't, one way or another concede that she is indeed MC...[/quote]
What is a regional accent? Is nobody in Scotlsnd, Wales, NI Middle class unless they have a certain English accent?