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?

@whatkindofdaughter. I grew up in the 70s . My parents didn’t really drink . We never went on holiday and my dad would not eat any of “that foreign muck “ . My only experience of foreign food was a Vesta meal ! When I started work I went for meals with colleagues and went on holiday abroad so my tastes changed .I remember buying a bottle of wine for Christmas dinner and persuading dad to try it . When he died I introduced my mum to foreign food and takeaways . She loved to try new things but had spent years pandering to what dad wanted .

You are right @Yrevocsid. There is a lot of inverse snobbery in the UK. At many (most?) universities the privately educated students are called RAHs. At DD's university the only halls of residence that is catered has a lot of privately educated students because a lot of them went to boarding school, and/or have never learned how to cook.

@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.

Misses point of thread entirely

Accents.

I'm from Yorkshire but live in London now and all the time new colleagues will suddenly say 'oh I'm from Yorkshire too!'

But in the poshest RP accents. Not a whisper of flat vowels. It made me realise that most private school kids don't pick it up. It makes me feel quite self conscious actually.

Oh and everyone can ski 🙄

@StrongLegs

I was brought up extremely middle class and was academically successful until I left home.

I then realised quite suddenly that the career I was in didn't pay enough for me to live and that my eyes didn't work properly. That was a bit of a shock.

I developed quite a lot of initiative quite quickly, I can tell you.

This. I grew up wealthy, well travelled, academically bright. Left university thinking I could do whatever I wanted. Quickly realised after a few years that friends who had grown up less wealthy were in much higher paying careers and if I continued to do what I was doing I’d never be able to provide for myself or future DC in the way my own parents had (private school etc).

Career changed late twenties and 10+ years later I think I’m doing ok. Have DH who has similar background and similar work ethic so together we are able to provide well for our DC.

I never really thought about it in that way until I read the above post.

@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!

Ah the correct way

I assumed that everyone owned their own house until my late teens.

Also discovering that some people thought other people were worth less than them on account of «class».
That was, and is and will always be, just plain dumb.
My jaw fell to the floor that day!

God, so many. I've mostly repressed them because they were embarrassing.

I especially remember my interview at Oxford where I was on my own in a room overnight for the first time, and it totally terrified me. Other people just took it in their stride.

I remember students in the "junior common room" just sitting around talking about their cars, ponies, sports and schools in common. I'm pretty sure one had a kind of laptop which was almost unheard of at the time (showing my age here).

They weren't unfriendly, and I'm certain that they didn't intend to make me feel like a worthless nobody, but it was like I was from a different species.

I was really intelligent and from a (relatively) good grammar school, and I'd assumed I'd just fit in with lots of people who loved learning. I was so relieved when I got my rejection letter.

I thought everyone bought a new (as in showroom new) car every couple of years, until I met XH. I was astonished that his car was three years old and he wasn't about to replace it.

Of my two sets of grandparents one lived in a council semi, as did my cousins, and the other on a private estate so I like to think I had a balanced upbringing

I'd never eaten peppers, aubergine or courgette before I was 18. I was taught to replace these with either onions or potatoes.

A school friend (Not a friend after this) refused to eat at our house because we didn't have a dishwasher and therefore "the plates aren't clean enough".

I'm quite staggered at all the things privileged people didn't know.
" not every house has a piano". Really?

Did they live in a bubble?
Answering my own question, I suppose they did.

@cakeseeker

God, so many. I've mostly repressed them because they were embarrassing.

I especially remember my interview at Oxford where I was on my own in a room overnight for the first time, and it totally terrified me. Other people just took it in their stride.

I remember students in the "junior common room" just sitting around talking about their cars, ponies, sports and schools in common. I'm pretty sure one had a kind of laptop which was almost unheard of at the time (showing my age here).

They weren't unfriendly, and I'm certain that they didn't intend to make me feel like a worthless nobody, but it was like I was from a different species.

I was really intelligent and from a (relatively) good grammar school, and I'd assumed I'd just fit in with lots of people who loved learning. I was so relieved when I got my rejection letter.

I attended Oxford from a similar background . . . Most of those people didn't make it through the interview process!

I can remember going to someone's house when I was about 6 and at some point in the afternoon whispering to my mum 'where do they keep their books?' And being genuinely astounded that some people didn't read for pleasure. This was the 60s when there were only a handful of radio stations and 2 tv channels that only broadcast for about 8 hours a day.

We were very hard up but everyone in our extended family read voraciously. We hit the library at least twice a week and my grandad used to buy loads of secondhand books regardless of what they were. He'd come home with a massive bundle of books tied up with string and proudly place them on the table saying "That's a lot of reading for sixpence".

One of my happiest memories is being about 14 and staying at my grandparents for the summer. I was in the sitting room reading and when I looked up I saw both my grandparents, my two teenage uncles, my 6 year old cousin and me all sitting engrossed in our own books, entirely at peace and happy in one another's company.

I went to live with another family when I was 15. Similar to all of your discoveries, I was amazed she left lights on and heating on at night in winter rather than switching them off to save money. Like a pp she taught me how to cook with garlic and spices and herbs. She used to mix a gin and tonic every evening at 5-6pm and give me one. Where I was brought up, alcohol was beer for men down the pub or for birthdays or special occasions. After dinner every evening, everybody read books and journals. They had a tv but they switched it on to watch specific things and read the rest of the time. She used to take long baths whenever she wanted and I was so shocked. Where I came from, a bath was an indulgence and the idea of having one after 6pm was shocking.

@thisisnotmyllama

I had this one uni friend who was the son of some kind of very rich international businessman. He (my friend) was appalled one day when I bought a samosa from a stall and ate it walking along the street. This was ‘common’, apparently!

Same guy, packing to go for a two-week stay with relatives in their home country. He’d laid out 17 pairs of trousers on his bed, and I said ‘Why do you need all these? You’ve got more trousers than days you’re going to be there!’

He looked at me completely baffled and said ‘But I’ll need to change for dinner?’ like it was obvious.

We were poor and my mum thought eating, or smoking, in the street was common.

I grew up really poor, parents lived off benefits for most of my life, lived in a council flat, never had spare money, holidays were out of the question. The thing I was most jealous of though, was the fact that other people had whole cupboards full of different kinds of cereal. Sleeping over at a friends house and being given a choice of about 6 different cereals for breakfast just amazed me. We only ever had Rice Krispies or weetabix, and never both at the same time, only ever one box in the cupboard and a new one wouldn’t appear until every crumb of the old box had been eaten! It seems funny now, you’d think I’d be more jealous of people with gardens, or who didn’t have to share a bedroom, but no, it was the cereal that did it for me .

I am a lot better off now than I was as a child but still poor compared to most. Plenty of people are shocked that I don’t have a shower or a dishwasher, let alone a garden, yet I still feel privileged compared to where I’ve come from.

@CrouchEndTiger12 I didn't know oriental was offensive either. Asian usually means from the Indian or a Pakistan region so I would describe someone from Thailand as oriental ie from the orient. My friend is From that region and she describes herself as such. Why is it offensive (genuinely) ? I have never heard it associated with anything derogatory - in fact the opposite it is usually used to describe things of great beauty and Grace

Looking back I probably came across as a bit of a brat but going to a friends house for tea for the first time after school in primary, things that came out of my mouth after she'd proudly shown me around her house and I'd met her parents, her dad was home;
Where's your downstairs loo.
Where's your shower room.
Where do you keep your books.
Why are we having fish fingers, chips and beans for tea at 4pm.
Why are there two beds in your bedroom, I had no idea that children shared bedrooms.
Why is your father not at work, he was unemployed at the time trying to find work.
When do you have music and dance lessons or go riding.
Where do you park your car if you have no drive or garage, they had no car.
I was never invited back again, her mother told me it was a council house.

In my teens I couldn't understand why people were baffled when I said see you in two weeks in the summer, we were off to Europe but they stayed home for all of the six weeks.

I was also quite shocked when I found out not all families had a mothers help during the holidays to keep on top of activities for me the brat and my sibling.

My parents were fortunately fairly grounded and sent me to a local comprehensive rather than private school and this stood me in good stead for later life.

I'm quite staggered at all the things privileged people didn't know. "not every house has a piano". Really?

Assuming this poster was a child before the internet was developed, went to private school and all her friends had pianos how would she know any different?

We are all more aware of what happens in the world because we have such information at our finger tips. It was much easier to live in a socially isolated bubble in the 60s and 70s.

@Backstreetsbackalrightdadada

And and the worst thing you could do that trapped people - teenage pregnancies. I mean at 13/14 - we had loads in our county, just trapped people into poverty that much longer, especially if they had shit partners along the way. I mean really smart kids but never had a chance at exams etc, or their kids were taken into care and it broke them. I got to uni on scholarships and no one else had teen pregnancies in their schools like that! Maybe half of us had had kids by 17? And two had multiple

I think this is because teenagers from well to do backgrounds have abortions. It's so totally unacceptable to parents for them to have a child and it's unlikely anyone they know will have a baby that young so it's less of an option to keep it.

I grew up upper middle class, internationally, so I am very privileged and have met some very rich people at boarding school, travelling, university and through work. I grew up in different countries and have 3 nationalities. One of my parents is proper upper class with titles/family history and the other parent was a refugee (middle class in their original country but not treated as such on arrival nor for many years thereafter). So I know what that feels like and I have lots of friends who have moved and settled in other countries.

I also have friends &
distant family who are poor living in India and Russia and have stayed in rooms for 1 pound a night living on pennies but have also been on private jets to Capri and at dinners where I have been invited and friends have spent thousands on vintage champagne and caviar.

So I don’t know what the other half is to me. I don’t see anyone really as the other half neither my super rich friends nor some people I have made friends with who can barely read and write. Technology means I can stay in touch with the latter across the world now and mixing across nationalities, ages and classes is important to me.

I have been to jewellery shops and clothing shops with friends dropping hundreds of thousands but have also lived with people hand to mouth in India and survived on rice and very spicy dhal for months.

People are people. I have been to weddings with machine gun security and celebrities and to weddings in a village, both in India.

Good people are kind, caring, open and generous with what they have (be that lots or very little). Generosity is also about giving others time and attention and making them feel valued. It is very important to not judge others on their background. Everyone remembers being made to feel “different”/worth less be they rich or poor and no matter their nationality or race or sexuality etc. Life is much harder if you are poor but if you can still shower love on those around you and not let the poverty get to you, you are much better off than many rich people. Also many immigrants are just so grateful to have made it to a “rich” country they feel blessed even if they remain poor in that country relative to others. Just as many poor villagers in developing countries feel blessed to make it to the city even if they live in terrible conditions by any British standards.

I went to a birthday party at a house with fitted carpets; we had big rugs on dark brown varnished floorboards round the edges. I still think having ham and cheese in a sandwich or toastie is wildly extravagant. One or the other.

My family were working class as a small child but progressed into the middle class as I got older. We were definitely privileged as teenagers. I started working for a billionaire at 18, I’ve now worked for a number of old money billionaires and multi millionaires. You really get a sense of how the other half live. Mostly though they are weirdly frugal. All drove ordinary cars and you’d never be able to pick them out as wealthy on first glance.

I grew up in a very middle class wealthy area. I was pondering a few things the other day.

So we all went to private school I was 1 of 5) and basically your parents chose the school they liked and off you went. I didn't realise until I had my own DC that state schools don't work like that and you don't get a choice my parents were gobsmacked at the allocations process.

I didn't realise until about the age of 13 that not everyone's mum was a sahm who had a cleaner 3 times a week and went to the hairdressers twice a week.

Dad also bought brand new cars and would change them before they got 'old' (3 years) . I thought this was just normal - I didn't think about where all the old cars went.

We never had any limits on heating on in the house etc didn't really realise it was a thing until I bought my own house and got a shocking gas bill 😮.

I remember once feeling poor because we didn't have a live in house keeper in her own annexe.

Coming on Mumsnet for different perspectives is a a really good eye opener.