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?

@HaveringWavering

The family lived in a wealthy enclave of religious families - primarily doctors and lawyers - outside of London. It seemed to be the norm for them. For wealthy families with lots of children, living in close proximity the economic viability of otherwise extinct practices is probably very different.

Sorry @blameless, so you are confirming that this woman and her social circle definitely employed another woman who had recently given birth to breastfeed her child?

There are milk banks all over the UK which accept donations from nursing mothers and those producing un-needed milk. Altruistic donors can donate long after weaning their own children and (excuse my male ignorance) while milk is being expressed, it will continue to be produced. I imagine that for some women, leaving children with parents or partner to 'work nights' in another woman's mansion may well be more attractive than trying to find daytime work and struggling with childcare.

Maybe not as rare as it appears:

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-480407/The-return-wet-nurse.html

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/breast_and_bottle_feeding/1929816-Hire-a-wet-nurse

@BlackLambAndGreyFalcon

Possibly outing, but I didn't realise until my mid-20s that most people have Yorkshire pudding as a side with their Sunday Roasts rather than served on its own as a starter as it was in my house!

DW's grandfather ate it that way every Sunday until he died in his 90s. Serving Yorkshire with the main meal was a southern affectation.

My family weren’t particularly well off. My parents were the first generation to own their own house, a 3 bed semi. My school was quite rough though, in the middle of a big council estate. I was bussed in from our village just outside the urban sprawl but with mixed private and council housing. At school I felt quite posh compared to many.

When I went to uni I had two great friends from the opposite ends of the country who seemed very much like me. We were on the same corridor and got on really well. All state schools, though one friend had gone to a girls’ grammar school.

Well, when we all visited each other in the summer I was astonished. Northern friend lived in a massive detached house with 6 bedrooms. The room I stayed in had its own sink and guest soap! They had a jug of water on the table with their meal with ice in it. We didn’t even have a freezer at home!

Southern friend was even posher. Their house was almost as big as northern friend’s, so probably 2 or 3 times the price. They had a garage that was 2 storey that had a bedroom above it. They had a grand piano in the massive hallway. My friend insisted they were quite poor really. Turns out her parents were divorced, this was her mum’s house. Her dad lived in an even bigger house and was a 3rd generation doctor who had gone to a public boarding school. So in comparison her lifestyle seemed downmarket.

Luckily they had come to stay with me first, so sharing my bedroom with me on a sunlounger hadn’t made me embarrassed in front of my lovely parents.

@lalafafa

we moved to a large house when I was in secondary school. When I invited my new friends to my house they couldn't believe I had my own bedroom and had dinner around a table.I never had to ask my mum if thy could stay to eat, she just served them some food. When I went to my new friends I had to sit in another room while they ate, not enough food to feed me.

I was your friend on one occasion. I can't tell you how awful and embarrassed I was at the time.

I simply hoped at the time she wouldn't take it as a slight. She never mentioned it and if she found it odd she never said.

The shame still eats me up now. I snuck my pal food from my plate as I was so worried that she wouldn't have any food at home (completely naive to the fact that she probably did have food at home and not in same situation as me I didn't want her to go hungry)
Gahh

newomums absolutley not! My mum and dad were brought up in abject poverty and explained my friends circumstances. I never took it as a slight x

@EspressoDoubleShot

It’s a popular misconception that grammar schools are route out for wc kids Grammar school are populate by, and serve the middle classes.they tutor and grift their kids in to grammar school Majority of kids in grammar are tutored with a cm and their parents know how to play the game, they know the rules inc the unsaid ones Sutton trust has written widely about grammar schools

These days maybe, because there are so few of them, so then yes you get this issue or tutoring of moving to catchmenr areas and the cost of that etc. Back when they existed everywhere, they were the main route out of poverty for bright kids.

I have three relatives who grew up in poverty as severe as any described on this thread: rented house, no heating, often no money for food, no new clothes etc. All three from that background went to local grammar schools then to Oxbridge.

I am in that area sometimes these days. The kids who live there now - although in better physical conditions (inside toilets, central heating, washing machines, basic food guaranteed as it wasn't then) have absolutely NO hope of doing what my relatives did 60 years ago because that route to properity was destroyed as apparently "elitist". What a cruel trick.

@EspressoDoubleShot

Grammar schools are free public school education for the mc Grammar schools never addressed social mobility for the wc, they’ve always been skewed to the mc. Yes a minority of wc kids broke through and out but they were the minority. It’s a popular myth that’s gained traction, that grammar schools promote mobility for the wc. Sadly not

Rubbish.

Per my post above.

Now children from areas of high deprivation really don’t stand a chance at all. At least grammar schools gave at least a few a fighting chance. Rather than abolishing them they should have improved secondary moderns. Poor bright children are in a much worse position now than when there were grammars everywhere and far fewer people went to university but it was fully funded.

Exactly. 1000 times this.

@EspressoDoubleShot

Ok, back in the day 1950 and 1969s grammar schools were still skewed to,and for the mc A minority we pupils got in yes. It wasn’t the norm.At all The 11+ content and emphasis favoured mc pupils, overall grammar school didn’t improve social mobility . IQ test and selection favoured the mc Yes I know a minority of wc kids made it to grammar school but overall class is and was a stifling and oppressive force against we

Sorry but that's rubbish. The stats show it improved social mobility and it's declined increasingly since grammar schools were closed.

You're wrong.

@RampantIvy

That’s a popular myth. Those of us who benefited from them in the 1950s and 60s know better. A lot of bright children from low income homes achieved success in grammar schools.

That simply isn't true of grammar schools now. What happened in the 1950s and 1960s bears no resemblance to what happens these days @Blossomtoes.

@EspressoDoubleShot is correct. Most low income families can't afford the tutoring that the wealthier families, who employ tutors to hothouse their DC to pass the 11+, can. As a result the grammar schools in grammar school areas are filled predominantly with pupils from wealthier families.

But the reason it isn't true of grammar schools now is because they don't exisr in every town like they used to. So entrance to them has become hugely competitive and resulted in hogh house prices in catchment areas, tutoring etc. When they were everywhere, even my relatives extremely poor little town, as a matter of course, it meant every child who had academic intelligence could get an academic education no matter what their background, which cannot now be accessed unless the parents can pay £15k per year for private education.

For poor, bright children, this was a route to fulfil their potential and some misguided people decided to "level down" and destrop it. Because why should they have that if not everyone can do it?

So fucking stupid. Rather than thinking wow this is a great engine of social mobility now let's set up the same for practical and vocational skills. I don't get it? Why trash stuff for people who also come from hard backgrounds rather than try to expand it to help more?

So idiotic and ignorant and short-sighted. I'm amazed anyone still defends shutting the grammar schools down when they look at the social mobility stats since that happened.

Oh can you stop boring on about grammar schools and get this back on track to the interesting thread it was.

@ChristmasShearwater

Oh can you stop boring on about grammar schools and get this back on track to the interesting thread it was.

Or you can stop trying to tell people what they're allowed to discuss on public forum that's come up in multiple posts as it's a direct cause of the issues in the topic...

Or you can stop trying to tell people what they're allowed to discuss on public forum that's come up in multiple posts as it's a direct cause of the issues in the topic...

It's boring and spoiling a good thread though.

@StripyGiraffes I’m not wrong about grammar schools not promoting wc mobility
I appreciate it challenges an optimistic notion people have that grammar schools lifted the wc out of disadvantage. A minority wc passed 11+ they were a minority. The 11+ was skewed toward mc. There are multiple sociological and educational studies support thus assertion. Grammar schools did nor significantly lift or alter outcomes for wc children,not now not back in the day. 11+ is a discredited mode of assessment with inherent class bias

@ChristmasShearwater

Or you can stop trying to tell people what they're allowed to discuss on public forum that's come up in multiple posts as it's a direct cause of the issues in the topic...

It's boring and spoiling a good thread though.

In your opinion.

[quote EspressoDoubleShot]@StripyGiraffes I’m not wrong about grammar schools not promoting wc mobility
I appreciate it challenges an optimistic notion people have that grammar schools lifted the wc out of disadvantage. A minority wc passed 11+ they were a minority. The 11+ was skewed toward mc. There are multiple sociological and educational studies support thus assertion. Grammar schools did nor significantly lift or alter outcomes for wc children,not now not back in the day. 11+ is a discredited mode of assessment with inherent class bias[/quote]
But if you look at the percentage of children in absolute poverty who went on to excel in education then compared to now, it was higher. Because of those schools. Yes more privileged kids went there than underprivileged kids, but academic kids from poor background had a way to get a good standard of academic education. In most poorer areas, where grammar schools have been abolished, the comprehensive schools are shit so with no rich parents an academically able poor kid has no way to get a good education that'll stretch them. No wonder only 7% of people (the richest not the brightest mainly!) go to private schools yet have over 50% of professional jobs! Abolishing grammar schools has demonstrably harmed social mobility, the data proves it if anybody wants to look.

The answer was to put decent merit-based vocational training of the same standing on an equal footing, like in Germany. Mittelstand, small businesses, technical apprenticeships. Not destroy the way for poor but academic kids to get anywhere out of spite because why should they if the others can't? So idiotic, it was one of the stupidest things that poor people ever did to their own families to go along with it. And it's also why we've now largely ended up with no social mobility and a Government and all professions dominated by private school kids.

@RampantIvy

That’s a popular myth. Those of us who benefited from them in the 1950s and 60s know better. A lot of bright children from low income homes achieved success in grammar schools.

That simply isn't true of grammar schools now. What happened in the 1950s and 1960s bears no resemblance to what happens these days @Blossomtoes.

@EspressoDoubleShot is correct. Most low income families can't afford the tutoring that the wealthier families, who employ tutors to hothouse their DC to pass the 11+, can. As a result the grammar schools in grammar school areas are filled predominantly with pupils from wealthier families.

I know that. I was arguing with the pp who reckons grammar schools were never a means of increasing social mobility. They were. Clearly that’s no longer the case and I never said it was.

@Blossomtoes and @RampantIvy

A study by Halsey & Gardner in the 1950s found that grammar schools were NOT a way out of poverty for the majority of bright but poor children. Even then, grammar schools were predominantly middle class. It's true that there wasn't the tutoring that there is now, but study after study has shown that, by the age of 7 or 8, middle class children are out performing brighter working class children because of the opportunities they are afforded.

You just have to look back at this thread, where people are talking about the poverty they experienced as children. Yes, a few very bright but poor children would have made it to grammar school but the vast majority didn't. For those who did, of course their life chances were improved, but the myth that grammar schools in the 50s and 60s promoted social mobility us exactly that - a myth.

[quote EmmaGrundyForPM]**@Blossomtoes* and @RampantIvy*

A study by Halsey & Gardner in the 1950s found that grammar schools were NOT a way out of poverty for the majority of bright but poor children. Even then, grammar schools were predominantly middle class. It's true that there wasn't the tutoring that there is now, but study after study has shown that, by the age of 7 or 8, middle class children are out performing brighter working class children because of the opportunities they are afforded.

You just have to look back at this thread, where people are talking about the poverty they experienced as children. Yes, a few very bright but poor children would have made it to grammar school but the vast majority didn't. For those who did, of course their life chances were improved, but the myth that grammar schools in the 50s and 60s promoted social mobility us exactly that - a myth.[/quote]
And do current comprehensive schools do any better on that front? Doesn't look like it to me.

I really don’t care what any study says. I was a grammar school pupil in the 60s. I’ve seen what some of my contemporaries from very poor backgrounds achieved. What’s the way out of poverty for bright kids now?

I was one of the poor students who ended up in a grammar and then on to a RG university. No tutoring as my parents had no idea about that stuff, let alone money for it. I was also offered partial scholarships to a few other schools, but they wouldn't have covered the full costs - so some of them must have charged.

I have to admit, I didn't end up nearly as successful as my cohort and am by no means doing that well in life. Sadly just having the same schooling doesn't mean you get the same opportunities. But in comparison to my childhood, I'm miles ahead.

Some other memories from that school which are relevant for the original topic of this thread (I sort of think that the school topic deserves its own thread) - finding out that three of my closest friends there all went to elocution lessons.

And going round to one of their homes (cough, mansion) and seeing their pool room and swimming pool! She was the kindest, loveliest person I knew too, and it turned out her parents were kind and gentle too, which is perhaps easier when you're rich and have no financial worries. That was the other effect of poverty which you just grew up blindly used to - the stress and angst of it all and how it made everyone sharper.

When I went to my 1st nanny job, they had guests staying who was sharing the nursery bathroom and I was asked when I like to bathe, I nearly said on Thursday (after my mum) but quickly realised they meant morning or evening, I had no idea people bathed daily

@NeverDropYourMooncup

Your post of all posts stood out to me and really made me cry. All of it. Especially the last line. If you don't mind me asking, are you NC with your parent/s?

@ChristmasShearwater

Or you can stop trying to tell people what they're allowed to discuss on public forum that's come up in multiple posts as it's a direct cause of the issues in the topic...

It's boring and spoiling a good thread though.

I find it interesting because both my dad and fil benefitted from the grammar system. My dad was inner city london, and ended up at a strange boarding school and then university. He would never have done that today. As it was his mum had to fight his dad over him staying on past 16 as his dad wanted him to leave and get a job.

My mum was from a much wealthy background and they met at uni.

My mums dad didn't approve of her choice in husband and told my dad in no uncertain terms he better look after his daughter.

Many years later, my dad visited him alone shortly before he died (he lived abroad snd and he was there on business so called in whilst we were at home) and my granddad apologised for saying it and said what a good job he'd done with his family.

My parents always made me aware in differences between their upbringings were so different. It was kind of normal and wasn't a shock for that reason. But my Dad was always adamant that the merit system as it had existed was what made all the difference to him and its interesting hearing similar stories.

@EspressoDoubleShot

It’s a popular misconception that grammar schools are route out for wc kids Grammar school are populate by, and serve the middle classes.they tutor and grift their kids in to grammar school Majority of kids in grammar are tutored with a cm and their parents know how to play the game, they know the rules inc the unsaid ones Sutton trust has written widely about grammar schools

I went to grammar school with never a minute of tutoring, so did my brother and subsequently my daughter.

Despite me never getting DD any assistance (other than a quiet space to study and plenty of encouragement) she excelled and now has a BA and an MA.