What makes you middle class?

This thread is getting into the realms of Carry on Films now! Which is great as they were fab and I love that it's making me properly snort with laughter!

Class is such a weird and wonderful thing - the way it brings people like the LovelyTheresa out of the woodwork.

I'm honestly still sniggering at someone, who claims to be a millennial ( born after 1980) asserting their superiority in 2024 by saying they "had the classics read to them at a young age" 🤣

Fuck knows what this makes me (other than a pedant clearly), but surely someone who was (puts on best plummy voice) so 'properly educated', would have been informed by their governess, while she was imparting the classics, that none is singular.

@LovelyTheresa
"God knows. None of you are really middle class, I suspect."

None of you IS middle class I think you mean Tessy 🤣🤣🤣

I think that means you are a swinger.

I’d always heard it was whether you read a broadsheet newspaper (middle/
upper) or a red top (working).

Huh. I'm middle class.

I once drove about 11 hours with husband, his brother and his brother's wife. Husband drove the first half, I sat in the front, other couple in the back.
Then husband and brother swapped and BIL drove, with his wife next to him, DH and I in the back.

Hello! That quiz places me as elite. I’m not. V WC.

I know many ‘upper class’ people through marriage and literally the only people I know that use the word common are on my side.

My husband and all his public school friends watch love island, football etc.

If your financial position is secure, you can be happy in any financial zone. The art is in not wanting more than you have. I no longer care.

I know what you mean.
The British, or more particularly English, class system seems pretty far removed from Karl Marx.
I think he believed the bourgeoisie were simply those who had means of production. Obviously society and industry has changed enormously. But, there are modern-day equivalents. I agree with you about landlords - to me that's the ultimate means of production, in our current climate with housing, especially rent, so expensive.

My family had an odd collection of books. But after I read HMS Ulysses, I also read my dad's History of the War at Sea (multiple volumes) for the Admiralty account of convoy PQ17. Same story, told differently.

I grew up on a council estate but I'm now pretty well off. Own home paid outright etc.

I think the idea of becoming middle class is mostly just a way to get people to extend credit for things they can't afford. Nice cars on finance, a cripplingly high mortgage for a house in the 'better' area, furniture that costs more than they really should have spent etc.
In actuality I only really see middle class people as those who make money from others. For example landlords, business owners, those who work for themselves and choose how much work they do and who they work for (I'm aware anybody can freelance and life pay cheque to pay cheque but that's not who in talking about here). I feel the notion that the things you own or places you attend define what class you are as quite silly. All it does is tricks people into spending money they don't need to in order to appear better off than they are.

I know a few very very wealthy old money sorts and they don't give two hoots abouts anything. One buys the cheap vegetables and gin from Lidl and says it no different really to any other gin. The other, when not at work, wears jumpers and trousers with holes in. They have millions in the bank (one of these people even owns castles). They literally don't care about anything lol

🤣

@Notmyuser she's definitely NOCD 🤣

I learnt to read, and then I read whatever I WANTED TO READ. Much easier.

Same!

By that measure half of Britain is middle class.

Bored, but middle class.

"I had the classics read to me at a young age"



That actually made me spill my popcorn.

Just reading along, fascinated..................

just in case i wasn't clear enough , I'm not middle class 🤣

tiger bread, high whiny voice, frumpy longish dresses, victorian villa, husband has a beard and makes websites/ DJs hiphop music for his uni mates who also make websites, introducing pesto to lower class schoolgate mums, showing off that you holiday in the south of France rather than Butlins and that's why mummy has to work dahling, marrying your first cousin, getting outraged by anything that's got nothing to do with you, wearing pushbike helmets, getting even more whiny when lower class mums' kids do much better than yours academically.

sorry had to get that off my chest 🤣

Only one degree? I consider that to be quite lower class. I’ve got two, one a masters, and one postgrad. I was also read classics from a young age, played instruments (one paternal grandparent played in an orchestra, as did my mum. I was shit at it though) and we very much spent our weekends doing “cultural” activities like stately homes, art galleries, despite my parents being very much working class.

That being said I find all that shite boring and I wouldn’t inflict it on my own children. I’d much rather go to an indie/rock music gig, or a comedy night. They read modern classics - none of your irrelevant hoity toitt bullshit.

Your picture of me couldn’t be further from the truth; not because I hold any value judgement on any of those things; simply because I can’t be arsed to do my makeup or tan.

Im not sure why you can’t leave the house without your passport - I just use a driving licence? Seems extreme to take a passport, to be honest. Also, I tend not to buy alcohol every day either. Do you? Is that maybe why you are not able to follow a coherent chain of thought? I hope your “very upper class” grandparents can invest in some rehab for you if so 💐.

I also look young for my age but that is absolutely not a class marker, and it’s utterly bizarre that you think it is 😂

No, we can't. As I have tried to explain, class is a tapestry. It isn't any one thing. My education level is only to first degree standard, but I come from a cultured household, I had the classics read to me at a young age, etc. I was just sort of steeped in culture, as are most upper class people.

Upper working, lower middle. Potayto-pottahto. You might be one or the other, but I picture you with drawn on eyebrows, fake nails, you might wear fake tan but not slather it on like a chav, and have a sort of interdermnitate accent which certainly isn't posh but isn't rough, either. I am generally to be found make up free except for BB cream, eyebrows left alone, clothes expensive but rather carelessly thrown on, and despite my age am asked for ID to the point where I don't leave my house without a passport. My best friend says I have Jane Birkin vibes, and that's accurate. If I had said that to begin with, maybe you would have understood more where I was coming from.

“You keep going on about education level, when I never mentioned that”

Your first response to me:

My income, my lifestyle, my sensibilities. I actually consider myself upper middle class although my income doesn't really put me in that bracket. My education level and tastes, however, do. Also my accent, I sound even posher than I am.

At 17:33 today, you state:

” If I'm honest, if we met I suspect I would place you as lower middle”

At 18:53, you state:

”I put you at upper working”

Can we safely conclude you are talking shite now?

@Notmyuser she's away to aggressively iron her tea towels. Sorry, gless closths.

A minute ago I was? Have I been downgraded now?

Being on mumsnet. lol.
Class is such bullshit. I think the range of middle has broadened out. Like most people would claim they were.
I feel like the underclass personally. But some of my family are multimillionaires. Not that they'd lend me a fiver, lol. Nor would I ask.
I think university education might be the traditional marker for it but God knows at this point.

God knows. None of you are really middle class, I suspect.

Education and income are of course markers of social class! You even brought up your own education and the education of others when you were deciding on what category to put people in, yet when I do it it then it makes me lower middle vs when you do it as upper middle class 😂😂

My parents are lower income than me and less educated, however I’d definitely say they have a more “middle class” outlook than me. Their tastes are more “classy”, their cultural activities are more traditional - their values are probably more aligned with yours than mine. Does that make them more middle class than I am?