I was reading the “rich get richer” thread which made me think about something I have been wondering about, interested in other people’s opinions.
My parents came from working class, council house backgrounds, neither set of grandparents ever had much money, never owned a house.
Both parents left school with no qualifications, didn’t go on to further or higher education.
My father worked as a salesman, eventually got promoted to management and ended up working in senior management for a UK wide company.
I would say they were working class from birth but would probably be middle class now, jobs in management, home owners etc.
I would say I was raised middle class, there wasn’t a huge amount of money when we were children but certainly didn’t grow up in poverty, myself and siblings all went to university, have professional jobs.
I will say I recognise there is a lot of luck and timing in this (particularly in relation to house prices and the fact that my mother was able to be a SAHM because a family could live on one income then). I’m not a big believer in the idea that hard work always equals success, it does for some but not for others.
My question is, if they were born working class and are now middle class (happy to be corrected on that if people don’t agree) surely there needs to have been a point where you would say they had become middle class? So at what point do you become middle class?