General Chat

How many stupid and Insensitive things have we done as adults let alone children? We don't always get things right but hopefully we learn from our experiences.

I can understand why people still feel keenly about their childhood experiences, however someone who may have been shallow, exclusive and even cruel at times as a child may grow up as an adult to be more sensitive or at least a kinder person. I wouldn't hold a grudge against an adult purely for the insensitivities of a child or teen. Rather than Kama, I just hope they turn into a nicer adult.

i remember janis joplin felt the same way.not part of the incrowd.made to feel like an oddball.but hell she turned out some wicked music.sadly drugs got the better of her.but in the short time on this earth she made the incrowd look small.think they call it karma.well bless her she had her moment.lol

Thanks sue

I'll delete the other thread!!


s
xx

n for Sylvia

BTW


I knew Rosemary Brown


We had a neighbour who had also emigrated from Jamaica at about the same time as Rosemary and her husband Clifford.


There were 5 of them who came over, not quite together but within a few months of each other. They all began in either Montreal or Toronto, and maintained contact with each other over the years.

OH had a graduate student in the 70s from Jamaica, whose much older brother had been one of the 5

All of them became high achievers ........ Clifford Brown was a psychologist (or might have been psychiatrist, never know the difference!) .... he was very quiet and used to sit in the corner watching Rosemary.


The graduate student was the one did have a problem ........ he never actually managed to get a permanent job, even in a university situation because he was black. He got as far as interview on more than one occasion, and would see faces drop when he walked into the room.

There was nothing wrong with his intelligence or the standard of his degree. Just his colour.

He had a Scottish sounding surname .................... and was even invited to a Scottish Clan meeting for that name in Vancouver by soemone who was just going through the phone book looking for the name.

Of course, with him, it was probably a slave owner two hundred or so years ago who gave his surname to all his slaves.


sylvia

Hi Janey

very interesting subject.


I actually grew up in what I later discovered was a matriachal society ................ the mums ruled.

It wasn't until I read a social science paper published some time in the 70s about the wives of dock workers in Liverpool who ruled their husbands with rods of iron, that I realised that I had grown up under the same system.

The dock workers were big beefy men, strutted around outside the house, lords of all they surveyed ......... but inside they were meek men who handed over all their money to their wives, getting small amounts back to spend, and the wives made all the decisions.


.......... very similar to my upbringing, except that the men were not dock workers, and the attitude crossed all income levels!

Most of the mothers also worked outside the home. Many in the cotton mills or stores. My best friend's mother was a cook in a major cotton mill. My mother worked in a high-class ladies and children's dress shop. The mother of another friend was an high level personal assistant in abusiness, and so on

Part of it was necessity, but some of it was maintaining a little bit of their own independence.

What that kind of society did mean was that once I had passed the special 11+ exam and got to the Grammar School, that is the academic school in the English system ............... the world could be my oyster.


That is, as long as I could persuade my mother that I really did need to stay at school past the then school leaving age of 16 for a grammar school student (15 for non-academic)!

The school bent over backwards to help students interested in going on to university to get the courses needed to do what they wanted to do.

I don't even remember there really being cliques ........ yes, there were groups of different friends who did different things, and there were parties at the weekends in some houses and with some groups ................ but I was in another group who did other things.

But the fact that we all wore uniforms meant that there was no distinguishing feature during school time to show whether we were from the right or wrong side of town, or even whether my parents had more money or less that anyone else.

And, of course, in the 50s, no-one had cars ....... not even most of the teachers!

............. and most certainly not a private swimming pool in sight in a northern mill town!



I did find it somewhat interesting when I joined Friends Reunited a number of years ago, that I in fact now had nothing in common with the ones that I contacted and who responded back to me. Some didn't bother to answer any pms. One told me she didn't remember me at all ........ and we had been reasonably close friends for the last couple of years at school!

The 2 or 3 people from school with whom I had maintained contact over the years were the only ones that I did in fact had something in common with. And that is when I realised that I had in fact made my choices back in 1959/60.



Of course, I had basically left that town at the age of 19 when I went away to university, returning only during vacation times, and then I left the UK for good in 1967 ............... so I never went to reunions, parties, or met them on the street in the city centre.




I think what I am trying to say is that I was content with my small circle of friends, a circle that got even smaller once we left the school and moved away to universities all over England.



sylvia

Well you're right, Janey. There will always be some reason for exclusion. A childless woman, a university educated person in a factory of blue collared workers, an unemployed person. All excluded from whatever "club" they are trying to join. Anything that puts a person offside with their classmates, workmates, community etc. That's the small stuff:-)) Then of course we can go onto the bigger stuff - racial prejudice, sexism, agism etc. etc.

Sue x

Definitely the general context makes a big difference. If I'd kept going to school where I lived, class would not have been an issue. It was a working-class area, the whole east end of town. We lived in a new development of small houses with big backyards, and lots of kids -- the 50s. Working mothers were not the norm there, either. The only neighbours' occupations I remember were an auto plant worker and a school custodian -- the days when unionized blue-collar jobs meant job security and good pensions. My dad was white-collar, a salesman, but our "class" was east end.

If everybody shares one characteristic, or several, it's something else that works as the in/out dividing line. If everybody is good-looking, there'd still be something. Looks is certainly the biggie when you're a kid, all else being equal. And girls are always lower on the totem pole than boys.

I remember my psychologist not quite getting this; he pointed out how black people in Jamaica don't feel excluded etc. He was white, born and grew up in Jamaica. Well duh. It's "normal" to be black in Jamaica!

When somebody like Rosemary Brown, a "brown" Jamaican woman who became a politician in Canada (and called her auto-bio "Being Brown"), came here as a child, she didn't get it. She came from a family (and community) of strong women, in a society overwhelmingly composed of people of colour, so being a girl of colour hadn't been a social handicap to her. Suddenly, both were. Just by a change of definition of "in" groups.

Well that's the whole point Janey - Sarah and her like are too shallow to much care where their place in the wide world is. I have to say I was never at school with children who "had it all" as such. I live in an industrial city and most dads worked in the steel industry or mining. Working mothers weren't really the norm. Of course some families were a little better off but on the whole we all were much the same economically. The real difference was the pretty and not so pretty, the clever and not so clever....well you get the picture. Popularity was soooo important. If you weren't deemed popular you were nobody.

Sue x

I know! And you know what kills me?? How a Sarah Smith could go on so obviously thinking of herself as so important!

I know, she's probably a seething puddle of insecurity under that winter-in-the-south tan and the gold jewelry.

I hope so, anyhow. ;)

One interesting thing from that class -- we had the benefit of truly superior educators teaching us, and at least three of the boys, in particular, from the north end, went on not to follow in mummy's and daddy's footsteps (more daddies were rich doctors than anything else, the odd mummy was a lawyer, even in the 50s, and Sarah's mum was the director of the art gallery, a society lady "job" if ever there was one) -- but to become schoolteachers. Of course, I guess that's an easier choice when you still have mummy's and daddy's (and grampa's) money to fall back on. But still, credit to them.

I agree with most of your last post Janey. However, I believe that some people exclude themselves. Also what exactly is the "in group". Only big fish in a little pond. In the scheme of things Sarah Smith was only important in her own little world - in the big wide world most people had never heard of her - or cared to.

I was never part of the "in group". Would love to have been but realised later that my few friendships were real and not shallow as were many other. It taught me to value the true relationships I had and have.

Sue x

You know what it eventually was for me, Rose?

The realization that I really just did not care. What the Sarah Smiths of the world think about me, or anybody else. I only wish Mary Sue Jones could feel the same way.

I did talk to her a couple of years ago. I made herculean efforts to hunt her up on line. I knew she'd done her PhD in History at an ivy league university in the US, but that didn't get me where. Fortunately, her name is unique (and she was actually quite a pain about people getting it right; no dropping that "Sue"). I found someone who referred me on to where to find her: working in a battered women's shelter in our home town.

I talked to her and promised to keep in touch. I haven't. I feel like crud about that, but maintaining relationships is something I find kind of exhausting these days. Got burnt out on other people's problems a while back.

Anyhow, she -- she and I and two of the east-end boys (who weren't under the disability of being girls, of course) actually were the tops in that class at the time, and we also both achieved more than any of the north enders (one of the boys is an actual rocket scientist ;) ). But Mary Sue just never gained confidence to to be able to deal with the snotty brats who traded on their looks and money. She was just crushed by that experience; her own special light was never acknowledged by those peers, and no matter what she had done since then, that hung over her life.

Me, it wasn't an awfully long time after that, that I realized I really just cared less than zero about a Sarah Smith. I cared about things that were important, and people worth caring about. And that was what mattered, not what some worthless bunch of people I didn't care about thought about me.

Doesn't mean I couldn't be perfectly friendly with a Sarah Smith -- as you say. She might even have the odd worthwhile and interesting thing to say. Most people do.

Anyhow, what does just amaze me is the lengths that so many people go to, to exclude others, or at least to behave in exclusionary ways. In so many situations; I am not actually speaking in tongues about anything in particular here, although there are obvious examples.

I do think the key to "confidence" is self-knowledge, and accomplishment is part of that: knowng what one likes and what one cares about and what one does well. It's different from self-esteem, and in fact all the efforts to boost kids' self-esteem, for instance, will only backfire if they aren't being given opportunities to know about themselves, strengths and weaknesses, and to achieve what they're capable of.

And -- taught the importance of laughing at themselves. ;)

what a crock that last post was LOLOL (AND I had to edit some awful typo's ) ,,, great is the ability to laugh at oneself ;)

people annoy me just as much as they do anyone, regardless of whether I recognise their "human frailties"...but, when I've had my rant and kicked a few doors, I then make a superhuman effort to remember that they are human too ;)

But I do admire those who 'stand up to be counted' when to do so makes them unpopular, where that stance is to try and make the world a better, more equal place.

I did Janey :))

I am not sure I would have used your word " pushy" ..I think it is more having a confidence in oneself . LOL and this coming from me that has very little reason to be 'confident' ( in terms of looks , achievement in 'world terms' , or being anything other than a 'mumsy' type ) but it is genetic perhaps, this conviction that I am 'as good as' the next person.... less or more talented than some, less or more interesting than some...but of 'value'.

'In groups' , I tend to take little notice of...lol in the sense that they are so often subject to change especially in a cyber environment ... those 'in' are often 'out' just as quickly...therefore whether someone is 'in' or 'out' ...doesn't affect how I respond to them.

I think that probably I 'fit in' with most people, not because I go out of my way to, or because I have a common background ( or viewpoint) with them , but simply because I am aware of my own human frailties and see that others have the same, even ( can't mention relationship but extended family ) someone like the Sarah Smith of your description...as far from my own experience as is likely to be.

So what that ramble boils down to ;) is that I personally would rather be 'inclusive' than 'exclusive' whenever and wherever possible ...broadens the mind if nothing else :)

xx

Ah, but Rose, I'll bet you understood the message. ;)

In crowds; exclusion; shared experiences not shared by everyone; private events, or events otherwise outside the experience of some, treated like common / public experiences when they aren't; wondering why, when one is supposedly a part, one is still looking in from the outside ...

Let's call that spade a spade!

A public space is a public space. This website is a public space -- at least, a "common space", a space available to and occupied in common by all members of this service.

Now me, if I see a public or common space and want to use it in a way consistent with its public or common purpose, I will. Seeing the drug dealers or pimps on the sidewalk on my block isn't going to stop me from walking to the corner store. Seeing a majority of people present cheer someone who insults a vulnerable group of people at a public meeting isn't going to stop me from speaking up and out. Being disdained and ignored by law professors and lawyers who didn't think women should be there didn't stop me from speaking in class and applying for jobs.

But not everyone is as pushy, eh?

Some people see a public or common space being pretty much fully occupied by people who seem to share some private experience or language or sensibility, that they either don't share or don't understand, well, a lot of them will just feel excluded, and stay that way.

Not that anyone would ever intentionally fill the common space with the experiences or language or sensibilities they happen to share with some people but not others -- heaven forfend I should suggest such a thing!

I mean, I'm sure it happens somewhere. It happened in Bob Brown's backyard some decades ago, and 35 years later in a rented hall, and it certainly is happening somewhere as we speak.

Sarah Smith? At that reunion, I remarked as how Mary Sue Jones didn't seem to be there (and yes, I admit to stirring, because I hadn't seen her in a long time, but I knew exactly why she wasn't there -- lovely and clever and witty and accomplished person though she was, she was an east end kid, and frumpy to boot, and she had never ever got over the hurt of those years). Hmm, said Sarah Smith. Mary Sue Jones, Mary Sue Jones ... -- Her father was a *bus driver*, wasn't he?! Actually, he was a bus inspector. But to Sarah Smith, he was just outside the realm of her reality -- her reality, the world of horse-riding divorcees looking for real estate in the right part of town, being the supposed "common experience" of the group.

Heck, you'd almost have thought Mary Sue Jones was some interloper Canadian with a university education. ;)

-- Oops, she was! Just goes to show that "in groups" come in all shapes and sizes, and are sometimes defined more by whom they exclude than by whom they include ...

Hi Janey,

i don't think I have ever been part of a group...of either end lol. When i was a child we moved every couple of years, and so I was always the 'new girl' at school, having to make new friends and being shy that was not always easy. especially as i combined that with the unforgiveable sin of not being any use at sports but enjoying academic subjects :))

I only really found myself in a 'group' at college ( mature students) as we were all of varying ages and backgrounds there anyway and were together going through an experience that was new to us all :))

xx

... who threw Sarah Smith in the pool at Bob Brown's birthday party when we were all 12 years old?

No?

Well, neither did I.

That would be because most of the people in that class at school, and at the 35th year reunion where the question was part of a "fun" quiz, were rich kids from the north end of town, and I and three or four others were working-class kids from the east end of town. And we didn't get invited to anybody's swimming pool house parties.

So how did we feel, both when were were 12 and when we were 47? I'll bet you can guess.

Excluded.

Even though we were just as much members of that class as anyone else, both at the time and 35 years later. And we had our own experiences and memories. Not all good, for sure; mostly worse than the north end kids'. But equally real. Didn't matter. The "collective" experience of the group excluded us.

Mind you, we had some fun east-ender memories of our own. They didn't want to play with us, those north end kids, but we got along. It was their choice, whether they wanted to play with us or not.


Anybody remember ....................?

Or are you just not part of the right crowd either?