Wealthy family - how to make Teen realise this is not "real life"

[homebythesea]

Will try not to drip feed - and this is not stealth boasting - just the facts...

We are a wealthy family by dint of good luck, mad property market in the past and inheritance. However both DH and I come from very ordinary families - me especially (grandparents factory / manual labour, Council house, Mum left school at 14 etc etc). Dh from Professional family but again his Grandparents were shop owners, generally very ordinary MC family.

As a result of our financial position the children have always been privately educated and we enjoy several nice holidays a year. We live in a big house in leafy Home Counties. All their friends are the same if not wealthier (staff, pools etc).

We have been painfully aware of this privileged "bubble" we live in and have constantly tried to drum into the DC's that they are fabulously privileged and the vast majority of people would give several limbs to enjoy the kind of things they deem normal. We do not give them all the material things they ask for (much to their disgust) and are constantly accused of being mean (eg not buying extra trainers before the old ones are worn out, limiting day trips in the holidays because of the expense etc.). They get limited pocket money.

However my 14 year old has become the most monstrous snob and comes out with comments on all sorts of things that make me wince, and make me fear for his realtionships with others out there in the wide world that he will have to deal with when he inevitably has to go outside the "bubble". It also makes him look and sound appalling - something he doesn't seem to get.

He comments on peoples dress, accent etc, can't seem to understand that the solution to a problem is not always to throw money at it, seeems without any empathy or understanding for those who have less than him, and will actively refuse to do things or go places that might be populated by "chavs" who, according to his warped view of the world will inevitably cause trouble and be unpleasant.

Because I always pull him up on these types of comments and ideas we are in almost constant conflict and on many occaisions I have pointed out that this family is not "all that" and it is only through luck that we are in this position. We have half seriously threatened to take him out of his Public School and send him to our local State school just to make him realise that he world is not populated by some kind of alien race as he seems to think.

One day he will come down to earth with a bump - it can't come soon enough. But in the meantime any suggestions for practical things we can do now to stop the rot?

I think part of this is immaturity and part is the particular type of ignorance private schools can perpetuate (speaking as a parent of 2DCs who have gone through it). Hopefully it will improve with age anyway as his horizons broaden and he becomes more socially aware (that is coming already as he can keep up a good front in social situations)

When DD changed from one private school to another at 11, one of her classmates said "My parents would never send me to school in ....., people there are all common and have no money". At the age, that attitude had to come from her parents and that will be the case with the attitudes of some of your DSs friends at just 14. Sadly this then influences others in that peer group but it will change.

I found it changed quicker in DS as the boys were more politically aware sooner where DDs friends seem to find a knowledge of anything more than celebrities and fashion embarrassing for some time, much to my chagrin.

I'm sure that a combination of more education, good parenting and time will sort it

I agree that he's unlikely to still have these views at 18/21 etc. He's probably just making sure he isn't seen as different at school.

However, you could make him realise that by having these views he is insulting his own family.

Could the two of you spend a day going to where you / your Mum were brought up? See the school / houses you lived in etc? Then let him know that thinking everyone from poorer areas are 'chavs' is insulting to you personally.

He's unlikely to change his views if he still sees poorer people as something completely different to anything he knows. Make him realise that it's you and your Mum he's talking about! Maybe that will change his views a little.

Although agree with MI about voluntary work giving more opportunity to look down on people.

Local sports/drama/music group?

Just wanted to say that you sound like a lovely Mummy, with her head well screwed on. I'd be tempted to try a period of just not engaging with this sort of behaviour at all. Whenever it comes up, just walk away in silence. He knows your opinion, you don't need to keep repeating it. He is 14...he may well be enjoying the rise that it gets out of you... I also agree with a previous poster about bringing the issue up with school.

i had a similar upbringing to this. i recall around this age at school we all used to come out with very snobby comments. i remember wincing every time a female friend said 'oh fgs why do poor people wear such awful clothes? why can't they save up for levis?' and so on. looking back i wonder if it was a bit of a phase we went through because most of my peer group grew up to be quite nice, enlightened adults. the jean snob girl is an art teacher in a state school and campaigns for state school issues and is actually acutely aware of social problems etc.

i dont know what the short term solution is - i just thought the longer term outcome might make you feel better

It's not that he thinks he's in a bubble- he is!

Agree with sm that changing schools is a terrible idea, and serves only to make a hamfisted point.

He is (hopefully) never going to know what it's like to be poor; trying to show him is like nailing jelly to the wall, and is somewhat patronising to people who actually are poor.

Just keep challenging the comments and he'll be fine.

i lived in different bubble.scheme life
had never met anyone with a bought house, everyone working class same as us
i went to uni never having met anyone from private school

Don't worry too much...when he gets to 6th form age, if my friends were anything to go by, he'll probably discover a working-classier-than-thou group who want to pretend they are slumming it (a la Common People by Pulp).

When I went to uni I met a lot of very middle class privately educated people who were very quick to argue that actually they were working class and not posh at all! Of course I'm not suggesting for a minute they shouldn't be proud of their working class background, but the amount of defensiveness & raised hackles on this issue was quite amusing!

aye,met plenty we had it hard in the mearns types at uni
the deliberatae downplaying of any hint of affluence
but also met some smashing thoroughly posh types at uni too

Get him to get a job when he's 16, rather than volunteering. Only rich kids can afford to volunteer rather than actually work.

Get him to do the leg work though- trailing up and down the high street with his CV etc. Don't you get him a job.

Stop pocket money at 16.

Also, it's only rich kids that can afford to go travelling to these developing countries...! If he wants to do that, get him to pay for himself.

I went to Bristol University and I did get a fair bit of "you're really nice for someone who went to state school" the subtext if which was "you're really bright for someone who went to state school". That only lasted got the first term. After that e wry one forgot what school who had gone to.

ah yes,the get a job,get on yer bike, do some leg work
given the recession and huge amount of young folk struggling how achievable is that
volunteering locally is not for rich types its for anyone who can do it. library and local authority and online has contacts.

We are not rich and Ds had managed to volunteer with scouts as well has having a job.
My dd has volunteered with a sn club since she was 12 and will carry on when she is 16 and will most likely work as well.

14 year olds come out with all kinds of shite, trying to establish what they think on the cusp of adult-hood, not able to see the shades of grey but taking comfort in their black and white view of the world. University will shake him up a bit but in the meantime give him time with his relatives who are considerablylessricherthanyou, when he's a bit older he can graft for his pocket money and in order to get into uni he'll need to do some relevant work experience and voluntary work.

But be careful though what you wish for - brother's friend's went all Swampy dreadlocks at uni kicking back against his very m/c public school background and at 36 is still travelling the world in his pink ex-army lorry carving out a life as film-maker/photographer. Whilst he has a fab life full of misadventures, his father always says when thinking of his education, "150K down the drain"

It is unfortunately pretty common behaviour for 14 year olds, and he'll probably grow out of it. I think volunteering overseas might be disastrous - his negative attitude to "chavs" would be combined with a "they're not really poor"

I'd be inclined to have a quiet word with the school - he's obviously not got this from you, so they should know that this kind of crap is in the air, just like you'd tell them if there was homophobic and racist stuff doing the rounds.

FWIW - I think he's asking you to set boundaries. All sorts of confusing ideas going on right now based on his privileged position, he is tryi g to make sense of it. One way is to think that people with less somehow 'deserve' it and therefore he deserves his place in the world.

I think you should continue to challenge him in a thoughtful, non confrontational way.

I do not think you should start forking out for done poverty tourism adventure.

You will have more of an effect on his attitudes than you think - and once at university his horizons will broaden yet again - or maybe not but surely thst's up to him.

When my son joined a Public school for the sixth form only a boy said to him on his first day "People who don't send their children to private school don't really care about them". He was really upset and shocked at such an attitude.

The boy was 16 so old enough to know better.

That's true. I remember saying to an old Etonian friend at university that I hadn't met anyone like him until going to university. He looked at me and said 'ditto'

Tbh, you have choices and you've made them, then you expect your DS to act as if you hadn't. How can you tell him it's not 'real life' when you've chosen to spend your money on those things? If you truly felt as you are telling your DS, you wouldn't give him 'several nice holidays per year'. You would have 1 nice holiday per year.

I'm not criticising your use of money. You have what you have, and you are able to spend it as you please. What I am saying is that I suspect you are projecting your discomfort about your change of circumstance onto your DS.

At my crammer those of us who had not been to boarding school (but ALL had been to private) were generally known as "scum" - to our faces.

Book rec: 'Chavs' by Owen Jones to challenge some of his ideas. I've not actually read it but the author was only 24 when he wrote it so a bright 14 yr old might find it accessible and engaging,

Lougle- yes we have made choices and enjoy the fruits of our labours as it were. However that material stuff has not I hope affected our core values, which is what any parent tries to transmit to their children. Are you trying to say that because of our lifestyle his attitudes are therefore acceptable? It is our constant tellIng him that his views are narrow minded and prejudiced that causes the friction!

And I'm not at all uncomfortable- just grateful and mindful of where I came from

I don't think making him a voyer of poverty is necessarily the best idea. Are his friends like this? In which case can you do anything to expand his social horizons so he can meet peers who will question his views?