Is Harriet going to be unfaithful? the Telegraph's Posh but poor column

[DivorcedDad]

I found out about the Mumsnet web site thanks to the "Posh but Poor" soap opera column in The Telegraph about a financially struggling couple raising kids in London. The lead character has found her au pair on Mumsnet.

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I used to sympathise somewhat with Harriet, who married a man who couldn't give her the lifestyle she grew up with, but last episode
she plummetted in my estimation.

She always was a bit resentful, in an understandable way, given her upper middle class family background and the way she was raised, but at least was loyal.

Now an ex boyfriend is on the scene and she is thinking about him all the time in the next episode.

\link{http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2006/10/25/baposh25.xml

Is this what all/some women are like?

Guy is not a rich guy, but he's a nice guy. It would be OK (from my warped male perspective)for her to be disloyal because he was being nasty or bad, but is not being rich enough to justify her behaviour?

Or is it just like Hugh Grant's "About a boy". fun, but not reflecting the real world and its challenges at all.

Anyway, I am sitting here wondering what the mum's here think about Harriet's behaviour. maybe once again I am mis-reading a wife's perspective, or is it just that "we are all individuals" so there is no real "girls perspective.

I am new to Mumsnet, so I don't know if a divorced Dad's questions and issues are welcome.

Richard

Posh but Poor sucks imo. Harriet is a complete drip and Guy is a ridiculous snob. It has zero reflection on real life. If you want real life go to Relationships and you will find out what we are all really thinking.

Welcome to MN btw.

You can tell it's monday - you're in Relationships already, doh.

Have no idea what you are on about as I don't read the Telegraph but COME ON - you already know the answer to your questions really. We are all individuals, ergo for everybody that thinks like this Harriet (and some probably do) there will be ten others who each have a completely different perspective.

Anyway, I welcome you and your questions/issues to Mumsnet. It can be a very comforting, friendly, informative place! It can also be TOTALLY BRUTAL!!!!!!

I LIKE posh but poor but I agree with Divorced Dad that Harriet's dangerously close to Ruth Archer territory. Which would be a shame because i liked her and so does my dh and it was the loyalty to guy through thick and thin richer and poorer that appealed to us. Yes Callisto Guy is a snob -- but Harriet was no drip. She has to make do with limited budget, has gone back to work four days a week when she would much rather be with her DD... and she has to put up with upper middle class snotty in laws. If I had all that on my plate I don't know how i'd cope.

I like posh but poor a lot. It reminds me of my family life before my wife left. In retrospect I wore her out with my tribal rituals and penny-pinching. Too late now. I hope Harriet stays with Guy. He is nicer than I wasmore interesting job, better sense of humour. I would like to know more about his parentingthe seaside episode had him making a beach camp fire which sounded fun. I also like the grandfather--telling the boys that muslim women are naked under their burqa was just the sort of outrageous, politically incorrect think that an old fart like him would do.

cheers

I find posh but poor infuriating but i do read it. It is the world I grew up in but one i left with great speed aged 18 when married my first husband (who was not posh at all). And it is not one i ever want to return to. My main questions is if boarding school is really so great that it is worth never seeing your children? And also bankrupting yourself.

Oddly I find Guy a more interesting character than harriet who is always whinging. I feel sorry for them over the aupairs (been there, suffered that). Guy is like some weird throwback from another century. Harriet doesn't appreciate his humour I think. I think she will have an affair with James, though it will an Archers-style cliche if she does. Also, I wonder who writes it? Any Telegraph readers out there who recognise the style?

I liked today's episode. Why did she not marry James? Borat is the au-pair boyfriend from hell

What I want to know is, viz Harriet in today's episode: is she really plump or just thinks she is? because in an earlier episode she said she was 'borderline' size 14 . Either she's put on weight or is Harriet trying to say that nowadays size 14 is plump????? If so, i am suicidal ..... (as an unquestionably size 14)

I didn't like today's episode. She should not really meet James without Guy. The right thing to do would be to invite him to dinner with his wife. The whole thing is leading up to infidelity and it sucks.

What exactly does Guy do all day? He is at home drinking vodka with the au pair's boyfriend. Is that what travel writers do.

Also, can anyone work out what Harriet's charity actually does?

I have never read "Posh but Poor". However, if they can afford an au pair it seems they are using some definition of the word "poor" which I have not previously come across. Like those women in novels who are supposed to be "frightfully" short of money, and in the next para are picking Tarquin up from his violin lesson at prep school.

Don't know much about Posh but Poor, but an aupair is the only form of childcare I can afford Unquiet Dad. I am a single mum, working part-time receiving working & child tax credits. My kids share a room so that I can squeeze the aupair in. I'm not poor, but I'm certainly not driving Tarquin to violin lessons in a 4x4 either!!!!

are aupairs not expensive then? sorry, I don't know much about them.

pretty much cheapest form of childcare you can get. The live in & get approx £80 pocket money for up to 40 hours help a week.

You learn something every day. If they are so cheap why do they have this cachet of being something only a certain kind of middle-class person will have? Why do so many more people (us included) use nurseries and childminders?

I can see I'm going to have to read "Posh But Poor". I've always felt "middle-class but poor"...

I'll answer my own question - it's probably because you need a permanent spare room in the house, something which not a lot of people with more than one child are going to have...

I had an au pair because when my husband left I brought the children into my room and put the au pair what was the kids room. I told her I was vegetarian which wasn't strictly true but meant that we could all eat lentils and pasta. My mum fed the kids meat at weekends. It mean that I could work because she took them to school, then went to her language classes etc and two days a week collected them too. And she did babysitting. She was very catholic (slovak) and had no boyfriends which was good too.