What makes you middle class?

That’s not upped middle.
Upper middle is having gone to an elite boarding school and watching polo matches / having family with a large pike in the country with grouse shooting or similar

I think level of education is key. I'm the grand-daughter of a coal miner. My parents and grandparents had no choice but to leave school in their mid-teens and go straight out to work. I had the good fortune to be able to go to University in the 90s, before tuition fees kicked in, and have a professional career. I don't think I could claim to be working class anymore, even though that's how I grew up.

>Endless holidays
>Sociable hours
>Average wage

I'm a teacher and I can't be arsed to roast you but this is definitely not the case.

Your use of the word “supper” says it all. Working class say “tea”, middle class say “dinner “ and upper middle say “supper” unless they are “dining”
Or so I’ve read…
😂

@RegretMisery

As for doctors. Most I know are working part time hours, still getting enough, pension contributions… while hubby works in senior position and/or in private practice. All driving enormously expensive cars and in very nice homes.

Incomparable to working class and honestly it’s offensive to suggest the comparison.

I think the reason it is discussed so much on here is because the classes used to be clearly defined but now it's more of a blur so people have to figure out the acceptably middle class jobs/hobbies/clothes/decor/words/opinions so that they aren't thought of as less than someone else.

I think the COL crisis will exacerbate this somewhat.

I'm not too proud to admit I'm a working class/lower middle class sharp-elbowed Hyancinth Bucket. Not saying I'm proud of it just that I can admit it!

I don't know how relevant these labels are in todays society. Most would agree about the upper class - the landed gentry who use their estates to generate their income, but their wealth is often outstripped by business magnates like Alan Sugar, Richard Branson, Dyson, Ratcliffe and so on, so even that old label isn't perhaps as clear cut as it once was.

The middle class question is possibly more interesting. Some will argue its financial, others cultural, others upbringing. University educated people with great degrees find themselves struggling, and builders businesses take off. Does avocado for brunch v. a greasy spoon fry up determine it? Or is it the car parked outside the cafe? I haven't got a clue. I'd like us to free ourselves from these labels and do the things that we enjoy, and associate with the people we like without concern about what category we'll fall into as a result.

I am upper middle in my birth country. Here, I think I am just an eccentric foreigner with expensive tastes.

It’s correct that you lead with income when describing your upper middle class status because it’s one thing that definitely separates the upper middle class from the lower/middle middle class.

You can be poor and middle class (and indeed much of the middle class is now impoverished due to choice of career and stagnant wages in the UK), but you can’t be poor and upper middle class. Ski holidays, private schools and second homes in the Cotswolds don’t pay for themselves.

@RegretMisery

I totally disagree with this.

The actual working class are working 60-70 hour weeks, sometimes 2 jobs. No pension. Unsociable hours.

A teacher, once in the job a few years, earns the average wage, good pension, sociable hours, endless holidays.

Totally different.

That's bollocks. My dad was a crane driver, skilled manual labourer, cash wage packet at the end of the week and lived from one pay packet to the next in terms of his outgoings and income.
But he was also very well read, politically aware, a erudite conversationalist, astute critical thinker and enjoyed going to the ballet (not very often obvs).

He was working class. Working class or middle etc is about where you are in the food chain of society.
While there are patterns/correlation of attitudes and entertainment choices etc that can go with the various strata (don't get many working class members at the golf club cos it's an expensive hobby), they are a false equivalence. Your opinions and preferences are not intrinsically linked to your class.

People do therefore associate some lifestyle features with certain classes but that isn't what defines it.

@Rainydayinlondon

as far as I know consultant surgeon would be working class by birth but living upper class professional lifestyle with job, their offspring would be defined as same.

There is no middle class in 2024. Jobs like teaching, nursing, medicine, social work used to be enough to support a household are now not enough to scrape by. Anyone who has to work for a living is working class.

So what if you’re a consultant surgeon but your father was a coal miner?

No they aren't 😂

Haha. I’ll remember this one!!!

They're working class still. You would be middle class as you would have been brought up different.

Education has blurred the lines somewhat. DH’s boss is upper class. He inherited the company. Has no idea what DH does in terms of running the company on a daily basis, he just swans around having lunches and getting in the way. DH is more highly educated and intelligent than his boss - but his boss owns the company. That’s ultimately the difference between middle and upper class - the middle class person might be smarter and more skilled but they won’t own the company.

There doesn’t seem to be one clear cut definition. It’s probably not worth worrying about.
The definition of what activities people like by class are probably less to do with interest and more to do with available money/time. If you have higher earnings then you are probably more likely to go to the theatre than if you don’t. You might love to go while working on a low wage/when unemployed but struggle to justify the cost of tickets (if you can afford to buy them at all). You might struggle to go to even a free museum/cultural site because the cost of transport, accessibility without a car, feeling like you have to make a donation, having to buy food at the cafe etc. You might also work at most times such locations are open and you’ll be doing all your own household jobs vs outsourcing so you might have less free time.
I think virtually all of it is bound up with money and generational wealth.

Both of my parents were born working class, and became middle class. Their values were at odds with their upbringing, and by the time they were established in adulthood, they had little in common with their parents.

It’s the father’s job; I am middle class my DC are technically working class, but they behave middle to upper class due to school/friends and our lifestyle being more middle class due to me.

Oh and you can't change your class. It's ingrained in you from your upbringing.

Not money.

"What?" is posh. "Pardon?" is very much working class. "Sorry?" is the middle way.

Yes, though it’s not always stemming from a zoned-out lack of interest. My parents weren’t fully literate during my schooldays, so were never able to help with homework, tended not to engage notes home from school, and were petrified of parents’ evenings in case their inability to read well became humiliatingly obvious. To them, teachers were scary authority figures poised to humiliate them.

In adulthood, I’ve taught literacy in prisons, and the percentage of prisoners who struggle with reading and writing is high, still.