When do you become middle class?

Not implausible at all. DH was an academic for years, though he’s now moved into industry —he has a sister who is a cleaner and two brothers who are a plumber and a delivery driver respectively. Their parents, now long retired, were a cleaner and a bin man.

Absolutely nothing to do with income!

I've gone from working class (council estate, chaotic single mother, mostly raised by grandparents) to passing for middle class in every day life. I think the key factors were university, accent, use of 'standard' English and certain experiences - I always read a lot, I got to travel a lot in my twenties, I was always a 'museums & historic buildings' type of person. I've been fascinated by how successfully I pass - I don't talk about my background much but people are generally surprised when I do. Its not even about money, up to a point. I'm less affluent than some 'working class' people I know on a day to day basis.

Is it so implausible for an tradesman and an academic to come from the same background? They could be brothers, born to the same doctor parents. I know a doctor, one of whose sons learned a trade, and the other followed in his father's footsteps to medical school.

Social mobility is a funny thing though.

In the classic scenario:

Start with a working class couple, The As, born into council house families whose parents worked in traditional working class roles eg bus driver/ cleaner.

The As work in a trade - eg plumber - and pull themselves up by their boot straps. Run their own business, work hard, make prudent decisions, Live in a five bedroomed new build and drive new cars on lease. Send their kids to private school. After school they do football, self defence. Holiday in hotels in Dubai.

The kids are at private school with other kids who come from a long line of middle-class people, the Bs. Their parents are hospital consultants and senior partners in law firms. They live in Victorian properties and drive (owned outright) ten year old Golfs and Audi estates. Their kids have been brought up skiing, sailing, playing tennis. They holiday in a damp cottage in Scotland or a borrowed villa in the south of France.

The A and B children will feel the multiple layers of differences between them.

I think the "middle" means you're not worried about debt and are planning for the future.

Who that applies to in this day and age is anyone's guess!

I grew up working class. My two parents both had unskilled low paid jobs, only one person in my whole family has a degree (it isn't me) and my family are more likely to watch football on the TV at the social club than tennis courtside.

Looking at my current situation, I am now middle class. I don't really know when it happened, but it is a realisation that I've come to slowly over the last couple of years. For me it's mixture of the following:

• marrying someone who is middle class
• the house and area we live in
• the wages we earn
• the type of jobs we do
• the difference in what my parents had at my age and what I have now
• a shift in what I like and how I choose to spend any free cash

I still definitely feel working class and 'other' when in middle class settings because of the following:

• I don't have a degree
• I use certain words/phrases that are seen as 'common'
• I don't understand a lot of the unwritten 'rules'
• I don't think badly of people who choose not to have a big 'career' a job is just fine
• I don't understand things like fancy wine or special cheeses
• I don't play an instrument and my childhood holidays were at caravan parks
• I have no expectation of any sort of inheritance and find it very very weird when people talk of their 'inheritance' despite their parents still being alive
• loads more I could list all day

I suppose economically you can move up in class, but I think you'll always feel some sort of difference, because most of the people who are the next class up will have had several years head start.

Oh absolutely.
But pp inferred that only MC parents want their children to have good manners and not see thrmselves as the centre of everything. Which is not true IMHE

You can't become middle class, in England anyway, any more than you can become an aristocrat. Even if you marry into the aristocracy, it doesn't make you upper class. Under the rules of English classism, you are the class you were born into and can't move.

@bigTillyMint There are horrible children within all classes. That doesn’t define class though - being a crap parent is open to all.

You become middle class when you automatically write and post a hand-written card or note in ink to thank someone for a gift or hospitality, rather than sending an email or WhatsApp. (But you also have already been in touch with thanks electronically).

I hate R4 too!

Some of the most over indulged and badly behaved children I’ve seen are from clearly white MC families

They do. It is continually held up as being important by politicians. Keir Starmer’s mum was a nurse. In the early days of nursing, women were middle class who nursed. That did not really change until the 60s and the expansion of the NHS. However it’s still not a working class job.

i don't think anyone cares anymore x

Middle class is ambition and attitude too. You can definitely be different to your parents. Education allows that to happen. It’s not all about money. It’s what you aspire to, what job you have and how you bring up dc and your values in terms of wanting to become middle class. Certainly many attending grammars from working class families attained MC status very quickly, They did not want to be working in a factory or down a mine. They wanted to manage the factory or become an accountant. They saw the drudgery and short life span of hard manual work and grasped the way out.

I don't think you can actually change class in a single generation in the UK, you can become "nouveau riche" but it usually takes two or three generations to obtain the kind of social and cultural capital to be truly middle class.

We have a huge middle class. Education, job and aspiration mark out the middle class. Has done for some generations now. What oriole did even a generation ago means nothing if you are a doctor and own a house! My DHs forebears were agricultural labourers and lace makers. My great grandfather could not write. My DM went to a grammar school. My DH also and went to uni and became a Chartered Engineer. It matters not one jot about family history. We are middle class by education, jobs and home ownership. We have had aspirational forebears who could take advantage of education and not be working class any longer. And escaping from it was important to them.

I find Carole Middleton fascinating. Did she ever dream her daughter would marry the future king, her grandson would be the future king.. The key for the kids was extracurriculars & education.

Also tradesmen mainly work for themselves. Our local electrician can name his price as he is in such demand, his wife is a very part time accountant working from home who does his books. They are our neighbours, kids in private school, multiple holidays, mum spends her nights ferrying the kids to multiple activities on top of what they are doing at their private school.
The parents are ambitious, invested & aspirational, the son is likely to do electrical apprenticeship to join his father in the business. Lucky kid to be able to join a very successful family business just like that.

But his children will be extremely middle class with all the trappings of upper middle class life they are enjoying during their childhood. Private schools, extracurriculars, numerous holidays (inc skiing 😉), meeting many famous people through their parents etc..

You take your kids to camp Bestival

@Simonjt city planning has changed a bit so depending on where you were living/when they were built etc. It’s visible in older areas eg Roath vs Grangetown in Cardiff. Cardiff is quite green city overall too.

City planning seems to currently favour building whole estates without amenities of any kind, no shops, schools, parks etc though they might have trees! It’s a particular irritation of mine but not relevant to the thread.

I’ve lived on three council estates, all have been tree lined and had lots of green space. There the only places I’ve lived thay have been tree liner actually.

I wish people would read Shakespeare, who used the term 'palpable-gross' and to my knowledge wasn't American...

I also wish people would understand that language evolves and to try and be classist about language is uniformed and childish.