Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over: Landed Gentry + My thoughts - Writing Wednesday

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, 

Recently I watched another episode of Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over and I found it rather interesting. If you are unaware of the Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over series, it's a series where Stacey stays with different families from diverse backgrounds across the country to see what modern family life has grown to be like. I have so far watched the Trad Wife, Mormon, and Orthodox Jewish family episodes but I would like to talk about the Landed Gentry episode today because I think that Stacey does bring up some good topics that I would like to explore further.

In this episode, Stacey went to stay with the Arckwright family who live on a grand estate in Warwickshire. The history of the Arckwright family is quite fascinating as Johnnie Arckwright, the current owner of Hatton House, is a direct descendent of Sir Richard Arckwright, a man who made his fortunes through opening the first factory during the Industrial Revolution. Stacey went to investigate this family because obviously their wealth and their possessions have been handed down to them through inheritance. As someone who grew up in a working class area in Luton, Stacey was not used to the wealthy environment and so she asked some very honest questions. One of the topics she attempted to explore was whether its necessary to have that amount of wealth. The wife of Johnnie Arckwright is Arabella and Arabella's mum was talking to Stacey about wealth and whether it is right to send your children off to boarding school when they're young. Arabella's mum seemed unable to understand why someone wouldn't want to aim for a wealthy lifestyle, whilst Stacey couldn't understand why people like the Arckwrights needed so much materialism.

When it comes to wealth and inheritance, I'm largely of the mind that people should be able to do what they wish with their money, so long as their choices aren't harming the people around them. From their history, it seems that the Arckwrights have worked hard to get their money and it looks as though the family continues to reinvest their money back into the local economy, which is a real positive. Yes there is an economic divide in the UK and yes there is economic disparity amongst certain communities as the current capitalist system does not eradicate the inequality completely. However, as soon as we begin to police people's decisions with money, more inequality is just going to come as a result of that. Instead, I think that the best way to bridge the gap between rich and poor is to change people's attitudes towards class. One of the things that Stacey was able to pick up on when she visited the Arckwrights was that they were a very loving and welcoming family who, despite their materialistic possessions, were very relatable people. To me, this is how rich people should behave, with loving compassion that doesn't ignore their humanity. What can often cause such a chasm in class is not just money but also people's behaviour. People are keen to gloss over this part because it sounds rather insignificant but often I find that some rich people are unable to understand the poor and some poor people are unable to understand the rich because neither side is willing to be hospitable and learn. The Arckwrights sent their son Harry to boarding school at the age of 8 years old, which I thought was rather young. I have also written various blog posts one my thoughts on private education and how it isn't really as good as people make it out to be. However, the Arckwrights are hospitable people and hospitable people make good helpers. One can get rid of the wealth but if people's nature towards other groups of people don't change, then no change is really made. People with better attitudes are more likely to help others and so we must work for better attitudes in rich people.

I don't always 100% agree with Stacey's viewpoints but here she asked some genuine questions that I thought needed some clarification. Let me know what you think about how wealthy people should handle their money in the comments below and I'll be sure to reply to them. I ♡ hearing from you!

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XOX, Juliette 

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