bettering oneself

I think that all the parents [ our own parents] generation simply wanted their children [us] to have a better quality of life. It's all changed now, but back then speech did matter, and if you were badly spoken it would harm your prospects. So, speaking properly, dressing cleanly and neatly and generally having manners was considered by all as being very important.In a different way, it still does of course, which is why teenagers at some schools are having life lessons in what to wear to turn up to job interviews and what things to say.

Was sent to elocution lessons and loathed every second, to 'make sure you speak like a lady'.
Pretty sure made not one iota of difference other than to put me off poetry for life.

Looking back i would have liked to have got rid of my northern accent. at 23 I entered a competition in Woman's Own and got through to the last 20 who would be given the chance to become a stewardess on a cruise liner. I rather fancied that to get out of Sheffield so went further and had studio photos taken ( paid for by them)and filled in a 20 page questionaire.

My mother told me not to bother. They will never take you with your Yorkshire accent.
And of course they didn't. the winners were not better looking but all from the home counties.

In Germany speaking German I have lost my hang ups about a northern accent. I've taught English for so many years it has quite faded away.

Although I loved it at My Comp., in the 50s -very early 60s I do remember teachers saying that kids who were playing up or not achieving would end up as factory fodder.

I thought this was elitist and to be realistic a job in a factory back then was a very good option. You had a job for life if you wanted it, you had a secure income and redundancy was a word we never heard.

It wasn't all wonderful. I remember being told to "clear off" when I turned up to volunteer in a poetry reading competition.

I had a local accent and only the "posh" kids were asked to read. It was hurtful but by this time I was becoming very critical of the system and knew I could read well despite having a local accent - why wouldn't I - I lived locally.

My DH went to a Grammar School and was told off for having a local accent when reading Latin. We laughed about that because I don't think Latin was spoken in BBC English.

Luckily I think all that nonsense about the way people speak is almost a thing of the past.

Well said Soontobe

That is lovely vq.

etheltbags1 - what do you think you should do. I think you should do what you think, not what someone else thinks.
Your mum is doing what she thinks. You should too.

Because I know what it feels like to be such a disappointment to my mum I decided that all I wanted/hoped for my girls was that they would be happy. To my mum's disgust I never pushed them into professions or high paying jobs. Today they are well rounded young mothers who love being with their children and partners. Sometimes they struggle financially but they manage. They both work part time to help make ends meet; one as a barmaid and one in a call centre. My mum thinks they've 'wasted their brains' but what's the point of having a career and/or lots of money if it doesn't make you happy. They are living life the way the want to and tbh I'm proud of the them for the way they treat their children, their partners, other people and themselves.

I do feel that the idea of "bettering yourself" is a very class orientated one, particularly the way you describe it etheltbags1. I had hoped the strict idea of class was diluted into insignificance in today's world. The things you describe are things you do to show your place in society and I have to admit that I believe my friends would not judge me by that set of rules (or judge me at all) and those who would are not likely to be my friends.

However, I do want, just as no doubt your parents did, my children to have the greatest opportunities in life. My mother would have held many of your views but I was lucky that my father's views were considerably more liberal and that his background, although not wealthy, was one that held education in high esteem.

That is what I have believed I should give my children - the best education (for them) possible and the confidence to believe they should be able to go as far as they can if they were prepared to work for it. I also hope I encouraged them to be open minded about the people they met in life and not to judge the book by the cover.

This has always been a class obsessed country but I do see things are changing for my grandchildrens generation

Very wise words indeed etheltbags thank you

Good, I'm glad that this has helped you ethel

I agree with many of your opinions, my inlaws are gone now and cannot influence me but their values still haunt me and of course what we learn at school stays with us.
The world is changing and we must change too, and having cancer makes you think things from a different perspective. This thread has given me lots to think about, thank you all

Personally I was dragged up as they say! My DH says I have always have difficulty convincing myself that I am as good as the lowest dog in the street. My parents owned their own house which was unusual in our area in the 50s/60s. This was due to hard work on the part of my mother. It certainly didn't make us feel better than the kids in the council flats - I always wanted to be one of them. The house was let go to rack and ruin due to the fact that my father was alcoholic, violent and abusive. We never felt loved or cared for. That sort of thing sticks and I have been left with the 'never feeling good enough' thing. I suppose I have 'bettered myself' although unintentionally, as I survived the childhood, have always worked, married a decent man and brought up a decent daughter. I have a bit of a thing about people who think they are better than the rest of us because they have money or possessions. So what?

I think phoenix has summed it perfectly! I also feel sad ethel that you have striven for these material goals without recognising your own inherent worth. I believe we want our DC and DGC to have happy and fulfilled lives and education plays a huge part in that, but different talents will guide them in different directions and (to mix threads) if members of the royal family are an example of a "better" type, I'd rather be a worser. Value yourself for who and what you are and leave the likes of Hyacinth to her shallow and frankly laughable pretensions.

My DH has had a massive issue with self esteem over the years I have tried to get him to see that he is a good man ,husband and Father etc. just recently he has told me that whilst at school in the 50s at a school in inner London (his family was still living in slum clearance after the war) his headmaster told all the children that if they continued to drop their H's and speak with a cockney accent they would never amount to anything in life. He then felt so humiliated by that one remark that he never really attended school properly after that and his formal education finished at around 8/9. He has done well in life, never had a ' profession' but has always worked and provided well for us etc etc but that one remark has never left his mind. He is reticent to speak to people he doesn't know as he feels they will judge him from his accent. I sometimes wonder if that headmaster lived long enough to see the acclaim that Eastenders gets from the viewing public.

i was lucky to be brought up by parents who believed that bettering yourself meant mixing with the right people - ie honest, hard working, generous, open sorts. The wrong people were those who criticised you behind your back, stole and swindled and swore a lot. Money didn't come into it. Consequently I have lovely, genuine, interesting friends from all walks of life, religions and political viewpoints.

Yes, I have strived to better myself as my parents, did by saving enough to buy our own home, get a better position at work. But that was in order to live an easier, more comfortable life. Have more adventures. I'd hate to have had to stick to my Station in Life or struggle to Keep Up With the Jones.

When I started Comprehensive School in 1958 the history teacher asked each child what their parents did for a living. I was in a sweat because my dad was unemployed (unusual at the time). Luckily the teacher didn't get round to me. In Cookery the teacher would often say (what sort of homes do you girls come from?) the intake was about half council estate, half privately owned. In French we had to describe our homes and how many rooms it had etc., In English in the first year we had to write about our homes and family.

By the time I was 13 I was beginning to think this was all a bit sus, and they were doing some sort of survey about social class. The good thing was by the time I was 16 (I was a council house kid) I had worked out that the important thing in life was what sort of person you were and not where you lived or what your parents did for a living. I also met a wonderful range of children and wouldn't have been educated in any other way.

I think that we are all brought up by parents who have a range of ideas for us.
But I think that one of my parents' ideas was that eventually I become my own person, able to stand on my own two feet, and hopefully able to do what I think is best.
In other words, become my own person.

Our lives can never be the same as our parents, even if the parents wanted that to happen. Everyone, by definition, always lives in different times to their parents.

I thought from the title that it was going to be about educating yourself and learning new things, having new experiences, travelling etc- all things that I do and can't imagine stopping.
It was disappointing to find out that it wasn't about that at all!
I wasn't brought up like that at all and fondly remember discussions around the dinner table about politics, religion etc when young and having strong opinions. I judge everyone by their merits and respect has to be earned.
It was an interesting OP but completely alien to me.
Perhaps now that you feel equal, Ethelbags, you can relax a bit and just have fun.

My mother's the same, she'd decided I was going to be a doctor, or marry a doctor...... At 61 you'd think I'd have got over being a disappointment
When I married told me 'you've made your bed, now lie on it', would never turn to her for support or sympathy.

I, too, am a disappointment to my mother. She judges female success by who they marry. She planned that I should marry a doctor but I ended up married to a hospital porter.

After my divorce she decided it would be better if I stayed single but I remarried. DH was an area manager...hmm not a doctor but still a manager...but then was laid off and became a cleaner

I was also brought up like that Ethelbags, and disappointed my mother ever since-I have finally (almost) stopped it upsetting me.
I think it is very hard not to worry about how you appear to others when as a child it was drummed in to you at home and, to a lesser degree, at school where we were expected to become 'young ladies'.
Very wise words Eloethan, summed up beautifully - thank you.

I do so agree with tresco's last comment. To me, good manners are about being kind and considerate and not trying to make others feel uncomfortable. I think, in the main, the sort of manners that consist of a set of often fairly pointless "rules" (like knowing which item of cutlery to use or how to hold a wine glass) are of little significance in the great scheme of things.

ethelbags Just because someone has a good job and all the material things that go with it, has the "right" accent and what is commonly thought to be "good taste", it does not necessarily make them an agreeable person or particularly good company - as you seem to have discovered with your in-laws. I realise that some of these notions have been drummed into you from childhood but it seems they have only served to confuse you. On the one hand, it appears you have aspired to "better" yourself but on the other it seems like you have often felt unequal to the task and this has sometimes made you feel inadequate.

Perhaps now is the time to discard some of these unhelpful notions of betterment and just start enjoying your life without worrying about what you have achieved or how you appear to others.

Sorry, I forgot to answer the question!

Yes, you are. Hope this helps, but doubt if it will, somehow.

Oh dear!

I'm sure we can all improve things about ourselves by reading, learning new skills etc, but the phrase to better oneself smacks of the worst kind of the Hyacinth Bucket attitude.