What makes you middle class?

Your insistence on markers like education and income. Your stereotypical talk about 'Opera and Ballet'. It all screams first generation middle class.
ETA. If you think it is 'unclassy' to look down on others, why did you jump on my first post to let me know I wasn't upper class? Surely that wasn't very classy behaviour? That said, you now say you aren't claiming to be middle class......which I think is a good call. I put you at upper working, in fact the judgement that @Superlambaanana has placed on me is probably far more accurately aimed at you.

@LovelyTheresa I can't believe you are only 40!

You have the haughty, chippy attitude of a much older woman who is totally jaded and deeply dissatisfied that life has not served you with what you think you deserve. It oozes from your language, attitudes and opinions. Your every word drips with faux plummy accent vibes.

So I'm sticking with my bet that places you firmly as lower middle with WC heritage and desperate to rewrite your own identity. Trouble is you just can't be something you're not and class is partly a very intangible thing, but people just KNOW! The way I just know you are not elite or even Upper middle! (That quiz btw is BS - how much do you earn, who do you hang out with and what hobbies have you. That is not sufficiently to make a definitive judgement.)

Perhaps I am completely wrong and you are just deeply unpleasant for some other reason not related to frustration around your provenance and identity, but why else would you be on an anonymous thread banging on an on about your MC 'tastes' and insisting other people are 'common'? 🤔 Thou dost protest too much!!

To be honest, you just sound like a Tory. a truly classy person doesn’t look down on others.

I don’t consider myself to be middle class at all, which was my original point. Out of curiosity, could you clarify Why you think I’m lower middle class?

I just did that test. It put me as 'elite' which I don't even think I am, but if you are going by it, then I am indeed of a higher social class than you. I suspect that we both knew that.

ETA. As for my 'seeming older' I was brought up by my very upper class grandparents. I think that they would see me as a failure because I didn't marry a peer! I preferred to carve out my own path, though.

Im in my mid 30s - you seem a lot older than 40. Your attitudes are more aligned to the attitudes of people I know in their 60s, to be honest.

I keep “banging on” about ballet and opera because you keep banging on about having “upper middle class” tastes without actually quantifying what they are - but yes, I’m clearly correct about what you believe these “middle class” tastes are since you have confirmed you are in fact a ballet fan 😂

You did mention education level. You said one of the thing that makes you middle class is your education level. I can show you, if you like? Even in the post I’m quoting now you state that education is a factor, so I’m not sure quite why you are picking up on that point.

You are talking in circles here. One minute you are stating that you are upper middle class because you are educated and like “upper middle class things” but the Kardashians are working class because they are “new money” (they aren’t), they are “uneducated” (they aren’t) because you don’t like their “culture” yet Paris Hilton is upper class, despite being culturally on par with the Kardashians.

Why would you class yourself as of a higher social class than I? What accent do I have? What are my personal tastes? What is my education level? What is my net worth? How do these measures compare to yours?

The BBC Great British Class Survey puts me as established middle class.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2013/newsspec_5093/index.stm

The working class and the upper class have more in common both don’t give a f@ck what the middle class think.

How old are you? I am forty. I love how you think you know my tastes, why do you keep banging on about ballet and opera? I do love ballet, because I used to do it professionally, but I'm not into opera especially? You keep going on and on about education level, as well, when I never mentioned that. I think that class (in the UK) is a complicated web of social signifiers. Accent, personal taste, education level, wealth, all play a part. You were the one who jumped on me shouting that I 'wasn't upper middle class' because I am not super wealthy, which is frankly bizarre and also makes me think that you do have something to prove. If I'm honest, if we met I suspect I would place you as lower middle.

This is what I don’t get about your stance though. Why is she upper class and the Kardashians are working class? It’s like you think you somehow decide who is upper/middle/lower class based on absolutely no consistent measures of class.

I bet I am at least as educated as you are. I probably earn similarly to you too. Yet you have decided you are not just middle class, but upper middle class, based on the fact you have “middle class tastes” and I’m working class because I like the Kardashians (when actually I don’t even like the Kardashians 😂😂)

Liking ballet and opera -and being uptight doesn’t make you middle class. I am possibly middle class based on the fact I’m fairly highly educated (2x degrees and a postgraduate), I work in a professional job, I own a home, blah blah blah. But I’m not into ballet or opera and I’m quite “forward thinking”/sex positive - so does that mean I’m working class? Or does it just mean I’ve not got a stick up my arse? Who knows.

IMO it’s more of an age thing, I bet you are a good bit older than me. I can tell by your outlook.

Paris Hilton is upper class. She reminds me a lot of girls I went to school with.

You must be a super fan. How working class of you 😉😉.

So is Paris Hilton middle class then? She’s every bit as klassy as the Kardashians are.

It seems you are wrong anyway. They were wealthy before they even went to America. Robert was friends with OJ Simpson, remember. Being the child of a lawyer is certainly middle class.

“The Kardashian family are originally speculated to be descendants of wealthy Armenian immigrants and their father Robert was a very successful lawyer known for his participation in the O.J. Simpson trial. As a wealthy lawyer the entire family grew accustomed to growing up in an extravagant lifestyle. However, Kris and Robert divorced in 1991 and she then married Olympic athlete Caitlyn Jenner shortly afterwards.”

They aren't old money, I don't think. Kim and the others weren't rich growing up, the Jenners maybe a bit more because of their father. Kim actually worked for Paris Hilton, who is genuine old money.

@Ruminate2much yes I think you get a free pass if you're not English. In my kids' school the mc parents and dc form one group and the wc form another (all v similar incomes) and then there are east European and Asian families who effortlessly move between groups. In particular I find the wc parents are either outright unfriendly to me or only friendly up to a point. I will never be able to join their circle because I have a different accent, different interests and different priorities and that clearly makes them want to keep me at arms length.

Round here wc women nearly all have long blonde straight hair, wouldn't dream of going grey, they dress v well although not in clothes I would wear, acrylic nails, a full face of make up, heels etc on the school run. They use fillers a lot. They look sexy and take a pride in that. Mc women wear trainers, minimal make up, may have naturally blonde hair but wouldn't tend to bleach it.

Out of curiosity, why is that people are often horrified to be seen as middle class?
It's nothing to be either ashamed of, or proud of, surely?
As explained, I see myself as classless. Or a mix. But, if people saw me as middle class, though it'd be inaccurate, it wouldn't offend me.

I’m a higher rate tax payer now, but I’ll always feel working class

I agree there's a class system in NI, but it's different. I've been exposed to both systems.
My parents backgrounds were a mixture of working and middle class, which adds to the confusion!
I definitely don't think many sociologists would see me as solidly middle class, for all sorts of reasons. But, I'd feel disingenuous describing myself as working class.
I do feel in between/classless. That's my lived experience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NRS_social_grade#:~:text=According%20to%20Ipsos%2C%20NRS%20social,income%2C%20wealth%20or%20property%20ownership.

Ipsos says the NRS classifications don’t attribute class. They just rank according to the occupation of the ‘head of household’ (in itself fairly problematic). (It’s pretty broad-brush stuff, and if, as the Wiki entry suggests, the NRS classifications are sometimes adapted for Ireland by the inclusion of a new letter, F, to farmers and agricultural workers, it really doesn’t work terribly well, as it would put farmers, big and small, at the bottom of the classification.)

I've lived in England since my 20s. But I felt the same where I grew up. My father's long time friends had big houses, children in private school. Some of my schoolmates got free dinners, and lived in tenements with a lavatory shared between several neighbours. There was a huge divide, and I always felt somewhere in between.

Middle class to me looks like:

• Your parents and grandparents went to university and were things like engineers, judges, senior military officers, university professors, doctors, etc
• Lots of extracurriculars as a child
• Childhood of travel to ‘interesting’ destinations both at home and abroad, never package holidays, often centered around some kind of cultural or athletic outdoor activity
• Multilingualism and musical instruments
• Disdain for anything considered highly processed or packaged for the masses (food, holidays, home decor, bestseller books, pop music, etc)
• Family meals sitting down at the table, children encouraged to participate in conversations
• Screen aversion, big bookshelves, quirky educational podcasts, documentaries, love for obscure and/or offbeat literature, FT weekend, board games
• Home ownership
• High value on outdoor activities
• High value on education for its own sake, not for the sake of employability
• Your parents and (often) grandparents are/were globally mobile and well-traveled
• Likely have inheritance coming from more than one family member
• Independent education

Very little of it actually has to do with the salary of the adult in question, but it doesn’t come without some degree of generational financial abundance.

@Ruminate2much there is definitely a class system in NI. And it's starker and simpler than the English landscape. If your NI parents were MC you are MC. In England, MC people might not identify you as MC though because many see all Irish people as WC. They're wrong of course. My parents were Irish and both grew up in houses which had live in servants. That, for me, is the definition of MC. Although I have a normal job and lifestyle now, I'm still MC because of my family history. See West, East and North Belfast for WC examples (in some cases an even lower category of non-working class is needed!)

Why not?

Nobody has said rich people are upper class. However, the Kardashians are very much old money so by that metric they are upper class then?

I didn't say that wealth and class were not linked, I said that rich people were not automatically upper class. Do you really not understand the difference between old money and new money? Plus, if you are born upper class and wealthy and somehow lose your money, that doesn't make you automatically working or lower middle class.

As others have said if you’re caring about whether you’re middle class then you probably are. Working class don’t give it a thought and nor does anyone upper class — those two classes tend to be comfortable in themselves without something to “prove.”

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels like this. I wonder if our Celtic roots contribute too?
I actually grew up in England from the age of two. But very Northern Irish family 😊

Your mother has confused class with money OP. It is a subjective and dated term and can be used in a positive or negative way.

Often people who are ‘nouveau riche’ say someone who is self-made or who has married into money often brags and talks a lot about how how much they earn and how much things cost etc. They might have done well and have a high income now but class is about much more than money. Similarly, someone can be seen to be middle class but have very little disposable income and or belongings.

To me class is much more than money. It can be influenced by a number of things and it is about more than money. It can mainly be influenced by education but it is about views, beliefs, values, interests, friends, where you live etc etc.

Someone could drive a Porsche, wear expensive clothes and or jewellery and still be crass, cheap and still be seen as working class.