Am I a brokey and is my family poorer than the average Brit?

[Donnysredcard]

I think I’ve been deluded into thinking I was well off my whole life, to begin with I’m weird af so only had a handful of friends growing up who all had alcoholic/messy parents who didn’t teach them hygiene so no one else wanted to be friends with them except me. That kind of warped my view of things, the kids from normal families never invited me around so I was comparing my clean home (unemployed mum who stayed home and cleaned it) to the home of alcoholics. And in all honesty those families probably had more income than my mum because they had dads who worked. I also got free lunch at school and they didn’t even though they definitely could have done with it.

Obviously growing up we were all told to eat our dinner because other people were starving out there.

I had my children extremely young (massively pregnant at GCSEs) and then Covid hit while they were toddlers and I was always reading in the news headlines along the lines of “half of all British children don’t have a bed” “half of families rely on food banks” “X amount of children have rickets from malnutrition”. Again I thought I was doing better than a large percentage of the population.

Now my kids are in school and they are far more sociable than I was at their age and im socialising with their parents by proxy, it would seem everyone is going on foreign holidays constantly, other kids have branded clothes, not just a few branded clothes but branded everything down to their socks. Everyone seems to have a nice car while I can’t even drive. Etc

This is not an ungrateful whinge I know there are starving children all around the world I’m just wondering if anyone has had a similar revelation?
I’ve never heard anyone say they were unaware they’d been broke their whole life until they were well into their 20s.
Im a little worried about my kids feeling inferior to their friends too I guess

Really strangely worded thread…

I don't think it's ever been claimed that half of British children don't have beds.

It’s not something I’ve noticed. My DCs are older but my neighbours (village in south west) are not going on constant foreign holidays. I assume that most new cars are pcp - but that’s just an assumption.

I can’t remember the exact quote. But it was a surprisingly high percentage. There’s always loads of headlines like that and then you go out in the real world and everyone has Nike socks

You must have realised that you you were an outlier when you looked around the exam hall and noticed that very few of the other girls were in a late stage of pregnancy.

Nike socks are not extravagant though… you can get those on sale. I think I’m starting to understand the real point of this thread now, couldn’t quite put my finger on what was off. It’s just a variation of ‘all poor people shouldn’t be wearing brands, shouldn’t have a car’ etc. They should slumdog millionaire through life.

It's fairly clear OP is using an exaggerated example to make her point...

OP I think you only tend to notice your own situation relative to others when you find yourself among people who are different. I grew up very similarly to you, in an area where there were a lot of people much worse off, and it was uni when I realised that things I thought were normal (or for Rich People) were pretty standard for e.g. all my flatmates from middle class families. Then I got a job in an industry with lots of very well off people and felt even more out of the loop still. And on the flip side, in this industry, I've got friends who are gobsmacked at some of the things I've done/never done because they've never spent any time with people who grew up in the same circumstances as me. A highlight of one of my working relationships was explaining the concept of the Provident woman to an industry friend of mine, hahaha.

Your life is your life - don't spend it worrying whether your kids will feel different, because they're inevitably going to meet people from all walks of life with different circumstances and what's most important is that they're happy, healthy, safe, etc. Lots of people don't have branded everything and foreign holidays every year and even if everyone else did, you can afford what you can afford: don't beat yourself up, just find a way to talk to your kids about the difference in different families if it comes up in conversation in future.

It really isn't.

No not all Brits drive expensive cars, travel abroad or buy branded clothes.
Which most people know....

They are for little kids though. Mine have always had supermarket socks and I’m now seeing all the other kids have Nike.

It’s about a million children who are believed to not have their own bed in the uk - about 1 in 15

this wont be spread evenly round the county though

ALL other kids? In the UK have Nike socks?

nope

Yes I sort of feel like I was in an echo chamber my whole childhood and then Covid extended it to my 20s. My mum didn’t even have a job and dad didn’t live with us but I was comparing myself to 3 friends who all had parents with alcohol issues.
Only now going round my kids friends houses am I seeing how a lot of people actually live

Yeah I hear you,

i grew up in a deprived area but I didn’t know that I just thought it was normal.

then I went to Cambridge and honestly my mind was blown.

I thought my family were quite rich - and they were for where I grew up, not by comparison with any of my uni friends though!

Agree with @scoopsahoooy — once you step out of your original environment, you realise your notions of comparative privilege can be way off. I mean, I knew I grew up dirt poor even by the standards of my bottom of the WC environment, but Oxford was a total revelation. People whose mothers had been debutantes! Who grew up in manor houses or went deerstalking or whose summer jobs had been at opera festivals!

I haven’t bought my kids branded clothing until they were old enough not to get stains on them, but whatever they did have was always gifted. And again if we are running with the Nike socks example, it’s entirely possible to get a multipack of those in Tkmaxx for a few quid. You can be thrifty and have ‘nice’ things, you don’t have to default to ASDA just to match what’s in your pocket.

Well you can only buy them what you can afford OP. My DD10 attends a mixed school in terms of child's parent income. Some of the wealthier ones don't buy their kids branded stuff.

My DD likes branded socks but is also happy with cute none branded ones. I still tend to choose most of her clothes and get Nike, Adidas or NB trainers. Clothes from Zara, River Island, H&M, Next, Boden and TK maxx. I wouldn't say I'm rich and think these are all normal places to shop for kids stuff.

Edited to add if your kids are housed, fed and loved then I really wouldn't worry about it.

Even Nike stuff from tkmaxx is a stretch for me. Which was fine when they were toddlers now I’m looking at the teenage years and starting to worry about bullying. My kids are way more sociable than I was at their age, I didn’t care what anyone thought of me when I was a kid because no matter what I did I was still a weirdo lol.

Talking to my kids friends parents has been a learning curve a lot of people are doing a lot more than I thought was typical

@Donnysredcardits very common to live in a sort of echo chamber when you’re on, only really seeing different walks of life when you move town or go to uni or whatever.

And you are obviously still very young, so it’s not unusual for you to still be a bit naive as to the wider world and different peoples backgrounds.

As for are you broke? I don’t know, it sounds like you are doing ok and are managing to feed and clothe your kids and give them a nice life.

Did you get your exams? What do you work as, what’s your income etc?

You sound curious and observant and realise there is more out there than what you thought was possible as a child, so hopefully you will do well.

I grew up thinking we were poor.

We lived in a large detached 3 bed house, 3 cars on the drive, foreign holidays, my mum never worked, but we never wanted for anything.

Still grew up thinking we were poor.

Its all relevant.

Ps - supermarket socks are fine. My kids never had Nike, it is not necessary.

When they are teenagers, maybe decent branded trainers, but other than that, unbranded is fine.

same here as my Mum would always say we were too poor to buy Ribena etc.

Another one?
What is the obsession on here with "ALL THESE PEOPLE WEAR DESIGNER CLOTHES?!?!?"

You're doing fine. Not sure why there are so many rude responses on here. I earn a very good income and am also surprised at how much money (or I suppose different priorities) people on much lower incomes seem to have. I've never bought designer gear because I don't see the point for children.

Yes it is. What the hell is a brokey?