Things which make you aware of gulfs in upbringing between you and DH/DP/DW

[UnquietDad]

With me it is the way DW's family all live within a mile or so of each other and anyone moving out of the town or area is met with a raising of eyebrows. None of her old friends from school can understand why anyone would move "away from their mum".

Her parents still manage to "drop in" even though they are 50 miles away. They will frequently (although not as frequently as they used to) "pop" to see us unannounced and uninvited, which is supremely irritating.

I could not wait to get away from the town where I was born, and I'm quite comfortable being 3 hours from my mother!

Honestly, you wouldn't believe the rest. It's like an episode of Jeremy Kyle: 2 felonious step dads, mum decided to become a lesbian at 40, a dad who is a camp drama teacher, but isn't actually gay, actually about to marry 3rd wife, though I think my lesbian mother still fancies him a little bit, even though they haven't been together in 27 years. When I was younger people used to compare my, then man-eating, martini drinking, mum to Edina from Ab Fab, and me the mousey, bookish daughter Saffy. She now has a girlfriend, who isn't openly gay, and a male equivilent of a fag-hag who is actually the father of my childhood best friend who has always had a little crush on her. They get drunk on Fridays and watch Desperate Housewives together.

Then there is my sweet little 81 year old MIL who no-one swears in front of, has never had a taste of alcohol, but shagged the plumber while married to DH's late dad, and as DH has discovered while doing genealogy research, very likely had her first daughter out of wedlock nearly 60 years ago.

It's amazing I turned out to be so normal , and DH too!

Er, almost nothing.....I left home, travelled the world, and come back to my home town and married a man who was bought up almost identically to myself, just on the other side of town.

The one difference is that his dad did "the pools" and my dad didn't.

I bet you and your Dh fell on one another...phew...

Mine and dhs family..chalk and cheese, there is no other way of describing it.

Me middle class
Him working class

Him, only one to have a degree (and prob A levels too).
Me one of the few NOT to have a PHD/MPhil

LOADS of differences became apparent when we became parents, too many to go into here.

Me mum BF until self weaned
Him his mum wouldn't contemplate it.

My Mums main interest is obscure classical music, my Dads current thing is anglo saxon crosses
he teaches a University certificate in Christian Rural Studies (any takers btw? he's not great at marketing )

his mum is obsessed with Will Young and Cliff Richard. She will ONLY eat turkey/chicken potatoes and a few types of (overcooked) veg. She won;t eat pasta, rice,curry,salad,noodles,omlette, tapas, etc.etc. "foreign muck"

My parents will eat anything.

the mian difference is that his family are bloody rude and I was brught up with a v strong emphasis on manners, but they are from Yorkshire so therefore a different species .

They too cannot understand why anyone would move "away" and think it strange that we live all of 45 minutes away from Halifax in manchester.

In my family you always clear your plate. And other people's if they don't manage it. Dad even reaches over and helps himself. Sometimes when you haven't finished . My sister also does this.

MIL hyperventilates if she even sees someone taking a chip from someone else's plate or sharing a pudding.

I've only been caught out by this once when I cooked for FIL and SIL and their respective spouses. I forgot myself and brought out the bits of dinner (on a plate. I'm not a heathen) that hadn't been quite pretty enough to be served up. Nobody spoke.

OMG way to many to go into on this, probably why it isn't working out but a few:

Repression repression repression - dh's family don't talk about their issues. Instead they stick their heads in the sand and pretend everythings ok, let's just have a massive dinner and watch the 52in (or whatever it is bloody huge to me) television and the problem will go away. Whereas my family always always have to have it out. Discussions, arguments, heart to hearts it's always put out there so that everyone knows how everyone feels.

The most important difference is mil was a sahm who worked odd jobs as a nanny, cleaner etc but if their was a problem she had to take care of the kids (even when fil retired). she had to do pretty much everything in the house, cleaned, cooked, washed, ironed, cut toenails (yep she still does) but thus never got to do anything for herself. My mum has 3 degrees and is now doing a masters as she loves to learn and has always worked, taught me to cook as a child, clean, generally look after myself etc. This difference in parenting/culture is really stressful to overcome, as I refuse to do nothing except sit at home and be the maid/nanny with bonuses!

This interests me.

It seems that on MN, it is the women/ wives who are more likely to come from families that are liberal/ Guardian/ pro BF etc and the men/husbands are more likely to come from families that are Daily Mail/ conservative/ anti BF etc etc.

Is anybody on here the other way round?

Even on TV sitcoms it's always the wife who's 'intellectual' and the husband who reads the sports pages first, eats white bread or whatever.

Is it always actually like this? Are there men on a website somewhere moaning about their racist inlaws?

dp... brought up in a violent, abusive, uneducated, non loving home on a deprived council estate in N Wales

Me...although not a particularly happy childhood (both brothers in care when I reached 5)I came from a 'middleclass' home, relatively stable home environment and I had the opportunity to go to university.

The gulf between dp and myself is huge, his gaps in his general knowledge is staggering and he finds it very difficult to break free from his past.

how he survived I don't know. But he has stayed out of prison which is an achievement as he is the only one that has!

Morris - your description fits my family and DH's. They are civil to each other when they meet but have nothing at all whatsoever in common.

I often wonder if there is a mirror-image of MN somewhere (but not for long enough to bother to look, since it wouldn't be a place I would want to be anyway)

Very similar here. I never met DH's father as he dies a few years ago, but I think that eh and my dad would have got on like a house on fire.

Both middle class families, both no divorces, all happy families. My sister and I went to private school throughout and were probably slightly wealthier growing up (yachts etc) whereas DH is from a large family (4 boys) and had very frugal parents who didn't believe in spending any of the good salary his father earned! As a result his mother is now very well off and all 4 brothers have a good fiscal sense and all families are secure etc.

Both mothers were stay at homes, although my mother trained as a nurse and did work (bank, like supply teaching) when we were at secondary school when she felt like it.

So we're very similar and have very similar values which works well. Our families intermingle well. The only thing that is different about us really is our schooling and different attitudes towards it. He is more or less anti private schooling for example, whereas I would if needs must and finances allowed.

Perhaps we are all women who like... erm, a bloke who is a bit blokey? Rough around the edges? I always like to think that I have a fella who could beat the living crap out of anyone who tries to mug me... But then I am a bit odd...

Um main difference is that dh's parents are decent human beings who apparently like their children. They are nice.

Mine are not.

We occasionally swop childhood stories. DH tends to end up with a look on his face and say things like 'you know that's not normal right'.

Superficially though we come from similar families (income levels, religious beliefs etc). We both still live in the town we grew up in (as do at least half of our friends). We went to the same (religious) secondary school

Gawd - everything

dh - catholic, working class, victimhood, blaming
me - not religious (too many religions in my family so hard to commit), middle class and take responsibility for what you do

dh - traditional male/female roles and expectations
me - men and women are equal

my family - travel whenever possible
dh family - why travel? What's out there that's better than what we have

dh typical family day - watch tv and eat
my family typical day- go out

dh - home should be very clean
me - home should be reasonably clean but lets take ds out for some fun first - and dh should bloody help.

dh - deeply conservative
me - liberal

dh family - scatty
my family - independent

dh family - not great on education - getting married and being near mil is more important as is having a small life which the community can understand
my family - focus on doing well for yourself to get yourself the biggest life you can

my family - do your best
dh family - get someone else to do it for you

Not easy raising a child between us.

Thank god our families don't have a language in common as they would war.

What a fascinating topic. My husband and I have quite different families. His family were irish farmers who sent him to boarding school, which was quite out of their league financially, and was a total disaster. They hated each other too, his mum is a devout catholic, very nice but also passive aggressive , his dad is an atheist, right wing, highly intelligent, twisted fucker.

My parents divorced aeons ago, and my dad is now dead, but my mum is a lively engaged intelligent and wonderful woman, who was brought up very poor and in a JW household. Dad was a middle class prod (NI), very restricted and proud. My family ranges from council-made good, to my auntie who had seven kids before she was 22, and her husband who is a traveller (and a very nice bloke). One of my husband's aunties lives in a bit of a stately home.

In reality, me and my husband get on very well, we seem to be able to identify with each other's fucked up family situation.

He's an only child, I'm one of a family where the number of children is in double figures.

His parent live 10 minutes walk away, mine live 12,000 miles away.

I was brought up Catholic, (I'm recovered now ) he is now and always has been a godless heathen.

He's middle class and proud of it. I grew up in a reasonably classless society. I can never get to grips with the class system here.

I grew up in relative poverty and, in common with most of my childhood friends, consider 'make do and mend' as one of life's givens. He can't drive, wouldn't be able to distinguish a Rolls royce from a Mini, doesn't know one end of a hammer from another and stood in open mouthed amazement the first time he found me changing the oil and sparkplugs in the car.

I've trained him over the years in the arts of 'cooking from scratch' and 'making meals with leftovers' so at least I'm getting somewhere.