What makes you middle class?

Nailed it.

Agree with all of this @SkyBloo

I'm not convinced that's true @Drearydiedre . I look at WC life and thank heaven I don't have to live it. And actually, I don't fancy being part of the top aristocracy either. I really like being ordinary MC.

@Icantlooknice

Accent
Mannerisms
Behaviour at gatherings
Choice of clothing, footwear, hairstyle, make up, nails
Dentistry or lack of it
Type of car you drive (or if you drive, or if you have 1+ cars - surprisingly working class can have a tonne of them)
Where you live
Level of education
Conversation topics - think history/theatre, vs football/love island
Ability to drink and what you drink
Holiday destinations

Really easy to spot - I stick out like a sore thumb at DH family gatherings… I can’t drink, I don’t like staying up late, I speak in a posh accent, my clothes etc are more expensive, I find the separation of sexes and conversation according to sex bizarre - with my family males and females all mix and chat, no one talks about football.

It goes like this - middle class everyone is going on about who brought the best bottle to the party, working class everyone is trying to outdo one another on who was able to find the cheapest bottle of reasonable tasting plonk (which is then bought by everyone in bulk) - reverse snobbery.

Being middle class means living a suburban, predicatable existence and caring a lot about how you are perceived. Hence a focus on respectable careers and clean houses.

Everyone knows the working class and upper class have much more fun.

@Geebray makes the valid point that middle classes exist in every single European country. There are always people who want and prefer to live a respectable (It's the only word I can find) life wherever they live. They don't need to earn the most money or have the flashiest car, but they choose to live in a manner that says they have enough for a funeral outfit, or the three-day school trip to Ypres) without going short of food at home. To me, that defines middle class... enough to get by and with a little over for emergencies or special events. Ideally something in the bank for a rainy day too.

Nope. It is not the norm, unless you're lower middle class in those countries as well.

Have you spent much time in Ireland? France? Holland? Germany?

It really isn’t, you know. Period novels written by UC gels needing to up their dress allowance are full of UC mothers wondering, horrified, how to break their children of the ‘dainty’ non-U table manners taught them by the governess before they go away to school. There’s a Molly Keane governess watching in distress as her charges, allowed down to dinner for a treat, ‘eat enormous quantities of food in a greedy, rather slovenly way’, copying their parents.

🤔😀

It's when you only use a napkin to neatly dab the corners of your mouth after eating, rather than wiping up the beans you've dropped down the front of your jumper.

The complexity of it is also compounded by the British attitude towards it. Everybody belongs to a class. Everybody can work out exactly where you are in the class system within about five seconds of meeting. Even people who painfully try to adopt the affectations of the middle class are immediately spotted as interlopers. Yet nobody mentions class (in polite society), and we pretend it doesn’t exist. There’s even sometimes talk of moving to a “classless society”. But people know it’s a pretence, and everyone knows everyone knows it’s a pretence.

This.and actually you know damn well what class you are really. Change does happen but takes several generations to embed.

My maternal grandparents were working class. My paternal grandparents were lower middle. My parents sit right on the line between working and lower middle & fluctuate depending on situation. My siblings and I are lower middle class (despite us being very highly paid, degree educated professionals. You will take your shoes off when you enter my home!!). Dh is upper middle. Our children are upper middle.

Yes [though it needs a regular professional clean too], but street dirt is more than dust. If everyone picked up after their dog...but they don't.

It's beautiful, represents two craftswomen's labour for 6 months, and I want it to last.

I was born and raised working class, and probably still am as both my husband and I are on quite a low salary compared to average. However. We now have a monthly window cleaner and since this has happened I feel middle class as fuck 😎

I think it's education and mindset with some upbringing throw in.

When I was young, my friends said I wasn't working class as I had a 'posh' mum! She's from Devon and I'm from a rough northern town; if you go to university and have a decent job round here you are middle class.
I'd say in the general population of the country I'm educated working class.

Placing a value on academic education

Of course its not quite as simple as this but: working in a job where the value is based on brain based skills (analytical, knowledge based, problem solving, people managing etc), rather than physical skills or those learned through manual hands on practice.

Being raised to have an emphasis on long term decision making over short term/impulse driven choices

Avoiding overt wealth display

Individualism over community

Not really worrying about what people think of you/your choices

Can't you hoover a £6k rug?

how you do your make up

Unless it's because you own a £6000 handmade rug...

Or European and clean

I'm mc and I don't believe that, because experience has taught me otherwise. My wc father was all for all of them.

@TheGreenManalishiWithTheTwoProngedCrown don't you notice the compulsive cleaners only ever clean and tidy what's on show? Their cupboards and drawers are usually revolting.

Houses which are pristinely spick and span in an overly house-proud way definitely belong to the working and lower middle classes.

I think I’m a mix of working and middle class, a foot in both camps. As I’ve got older I’ve probably gone more into the middle class camp, but find middle class people far more accepting of my hybrid lifestyle than working class people. Inverted snobbery is rife, particularly amongst women

Absolutely.

@Superlambaanana Thank you so much for that. Sums up my thoughts about the immune-system-deniers and compulsive cleaners perfectly.

Has anyone mentioned horses yet?