Working class parents don't know how to raise children!

[speedymama]

A long time friend of mine is married to an Australian. They are visiting friends and family in the UK with their 2 children. I have met the wife before when we visited Sydney so I'm accustomed to her blunt declarations but this time I really had to control myself.

They were staying overnight at our house and she said that she loved watching Supernanny. She then said that working class people have no idea about raising children and they were the reason why society was breaking down. I was completely poleaxed by that comment and did not respond. DH and I are both from poor working class backgrounds but her father is a millionaire and her DH, who I met at university, is very middle class. She then repeated the comment again later on and DH & I held our tongues for the sake of harmony. I wanted to point out that parenting is not a class issue etc but I know that this would have led to a heated argument (she is very strident when it comes to arguing her point) and I did not want to create an atmosphere, especially as there were 4 children under the age of 3 in my house. I was so relieved when they left the following morning.

What would you have done?

Yes.

So there.

Exactly Happydaddy. My youngest brother is the only one of us who doesn't have a degree. He earns shedloads more than me and my other bro put together and has just taken voluntary redundancy from his IT job with a payoff of tens of thousands.

Classifying someone as working or middle class means nothing. Just stop it or I will get very angry!!!

Reason being, one gets dirty at work, one doesn't.

That's from the old white collar and blue collar days, though innit?

I did say that this is the way I personally define class, in my head. I think if someone comes home from work with dirty hands, or would if they hadn't washed them, they are working class.

Does that also mean that if i retrain to be a builder, I change classes?

Wow, i wonder what class shifting feels like.

Well, how else can it be defined then? Realistically, so that people other than sociology gratuates understand?

yes but WS he had an IT job, he is still middle class. Not having a degree doesn't make you working class.

Like I said. If you have to work for a living, your working class. If you don't have to, then your upper class.

If you fret about your social standing, your middle class.

I only did A level, not a graduate.

I love this subject. I am off out, will check this thread later.

Keep it civil! If it gets deleted I can't read it.

FWIW we used to live in the postcode in Hants that has the largest average household income in the country £160k.
Not us btw not by a long long long shot...
Their teens used to hang out, swear, smash windows, drink and be generally oiky
And their parents used to drop them off in the BMW's and Mercs outside the video shop in the shopping parade at 7pm and pick them up at midnight. After they'd woken up our kids for 4 hours.
I think there are equal quantites of all classes that screw it up tbh I mean even Prince Harry is bit of a hell isn't he!

And what about all the Traders in the Stock Exchange? They are all young working class lads but drove about in Porsches and had flash apartments. See... ahah!

And Australians banging on about class
I'm a kiwi and have to swallow my tongue to read that!

Yobbish behaviour doesn't define class. Plenty of posh nobs act like yobs because Daddy's money means they wont get into trouble.

So the class system is purely something for sociology students to worry about. That's a relief!

Colditz- why does it have to be defined? Why do people have to be labelled? I wouldn't bother with it unless you're in marekting and have to sell something to someone - and they use a hell of a lot more sophisticated classification systems than that,don't you worry.

I think you're born working class or middle class and you'll stay in that class whatever you go on to do in your life, or however much you earn. I think its more down to what your parents do than anything you do. So Paul McCartney can claim to be working class, but Stella McCartney can't.

I have no idea what I'm talking about mind.

Class exists because it exists. It's like like racism doesn;'t exist or sexism.
You can't prove or disprove arguments by holding up examples and saying "there!"
Some working classes are poor, some rich, some have degrees some don't, you could produce lists longer than the arms of 20 gibbons and only just be starting.
Work and income is a tiny aspect of class definition. you can be middle class and be a brickie, that doesn't make you wroking class. You can be working class and be a university lecturer It makes you middle class doing a working class job and vice versa. That's pretty simple stuff.
It's attitudes and expections that define the class you are in.

the whole class thing makes me laugh, surely if you work you're working class

Not since the emergence of the middle class during the 19th century, no.

don't know about working class but a high proportion of the "can't be ar*d to work class" are c*p parents! At the other end of the scale a lot don't have a clue and pay someone else to do it.

Tthat's true daisy, they can't be arsed to work or to parent

My friend's DW does know the background of both DH and myself and trust me, she was not goading, she was serious. She despises working class people and finds it difficult to conceal her true feelings. For the life of me I cannot understand why my friend married her! Another common friend and his wife cannot bear her either. At the wedding of our common friend, a band was booked for the reception and half way through their set, the Australian wife, went on stage, pushed aside the professional vocalist, and start singing herself because she thought she could sing the song better. My other friend had to calm his new wife because she was going to pummel her to the ground. Everybody at the reception was gobsmacked that she would have the audacity to do this at someone else's wedding without asking and without invitation. This is the honest truth and I am not exaggerating. She is extremely rude and pompous.

The trouble is, I have known my friend for nearly 20 years and it is his wife that causes all the problems.

She really believes she is the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the perfect everything. She is so lucky that I have a high tolerance threshold. DH does not and he is not keen for them to visit again. I really don't know what to do when they visit again in a few years time. He is always telephoning me and sending me emails - he values our friendship and works at keeping it going. I just need to find a way of minimising my contact with her.

Have you ever read/seen Jane Austen's 'Emma'? The woman really really reminds me of Mrs Elton the vicar's wife. I'm not one who normally makes literary conections like that but this one just sort of leapt up and slapped me in the face. This woman sounds like just such a comic character that you almost have to laugh

alligator- there are lots of WC people on my degree course, I'm one. And I've worked in an office.

I am not sure how much old stereotypes of WC and MC work any more, it has to be either a ubiquitous MC with the 'under class' being the WC ( social benefits claimants, etc) or it being a more vague attitude based thing.

Most of all though, it's just who you feel you identify most with? We have a nice house (albeit renetd), car, DH has a management (albeit low paid) job, kids eat proper food, I'm an under grad- but we are very WC, it's a habit of birth I guess, but people do change clas if ythey really believe they o- I have a good friend who has lived with my oldest friend for years and has taken on her MC status- he comes from council housing, alkie aprents the lot- he now yachts ant weekends and has a secong house in France where the food is nice .

When I worked in the field, the percentage of my parents referred to me because they were 'bad parents' (a very small percent BTW) was equally struck between WC and MC, it was just harder to solve the problems of the WC ones (he drives me mad, under my feet all day, I have to give him a swipe:

Answer A) why not let him in the garden for a bit, have a glass of wine and relax?
Answer B) I'm not surprised, five of you cooped up in one room in temprary housing. How long is it again until you get a house? nine months? gosh...)

very real situations, both. And I'm a lot snappier when I am worried where the food money is coming from than when I know the bills have been paid OK.

SFPC you have got my point exactly.

maybe it is all to do with what sort of bread you buy? Ie, supermarket square white = working class, baker's granery bloomer = middle class, whatever the cook gets = upper class?