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" Some believed that good jobs were just inaccessible for 'the likes of us', so there's no point getting you hopes up. Some were so uncertain of their employabi

" Some believed that good jobs were just inaccessible for 'the likes of us', so there's no point getting you hopes up. Some were so uncertain of their employability that they took the first job offered to them and never dared do anything to jeopardise it. " This chimes with my personal experience. I suppose the demographic I'm from in the UK gave me certain blind spots and self imposed ceilings. I'm now 25 and only just starting to figure out and balance against them.

arethuza 16y ago
In my opinion, those "self imposed ceilings" are far worse in the UK that any other limit to personal development - they also vary a lot given your background. I grew up in a small fishing village in the North of Scotland - where everyone (and I mean everyone) was very supportive of education and the idea that anyone pretty much do anything they wanted if they had ability and worked hard enough. My parents weren't well off but all 4 of my siblings and I went to university. My wife comes from a urban-working class background in a post-industrial area near Glasgow, she is extremely bright and went to University at 16. However, she had to constantly battle a "that's not for the likes of us" attitude from everyone in her community, including her parents (who are nice people, but just don't "get it"). When we first met she always made fun of me for having no concept of "class" whereas it was something that had always been made clear to her by her peers. Ironically, she became a lawyer and entered that bastion of upper middle class eccentric respectablilty: the Scottish Bar.