What makes you working class?

What makes me working class? The fact that I work. If you have to work to earn a living, you are working class. Sorry I know that isn’t the answer lots of aspiring middle class people want to hear.

Sorry to say this but if you have to ask your working class

DD is growing up working class. I'm a TA , OH is a stonemason. Vocational as you say.

Cultural capital? We haven't done opera indeed , but we have done museums of all kinds , theatre, musicals, she's going to every single trip she's picked for (skiing in Italy next) , visited all kinds of places etc.

We have a great interest in her education, knew her teachers well in primary,less so in secondary, supported her, helped her with homework, explained classwork when she didn't get it, talk about her day, help with revision, etc.

She did go to the local primary (one of 5) , but unless private don't most children? However, it was a faith school and the best academically in the area at the time. Not just that, but it is a feeder school for two very well regarded secondary faith schools so we had a long term plan and we wanted options.

None of us are bothered about brands or bling , except for trainers , but I doubt Converse/Nike/Adidas are a real class identifier. If they are, oh well... we like what we like.

I mean yeah, we do AI , but it caters for Germans rather than Brits so is that acceptable? 😬

Where does that fit in with your view?

In my country working class means only blue collar/low skilled jobs, so it's confusing why so many people here are proud of not achieving more/ashamed of being called middle class.

Chippy tea

It's not an insult, you know, but horror at being described as such seems to emanate from your comments.

@surreygirl1987 I didn't say people who work, I said those that need to work. Millionaires that work, whether middle or the upper classes, do it by choice.
I earn over 150k but still have bills and need to work to pay them. I consider myself working class - most people are.

So a married couple where one is saying a mechanic and one is a sahp, he's working class and she's just what, under class? Without class?

But isn't it just upper class?
I was thinking middle class is about being actually able to afford things but without "family wealth".

I read somewhere that there's no such thing as middle class.

Just working class and upper class.

If you need to work, you're working class.

You can be high earning working class, low earning working class, somewhere in the middle working class.

It is about access to resources. That includes earnings, investments, inherited wealth, but also family you can fall back on. An aristocratic young person might be doing a cleaning job and have little income, but their family has vast wealth the young person will inherit and has a vast safety net.

Not an accurate measure of class but this is my take:

Poor/ underclass: financially manages day to day/ week to week

Working class: financially plans month to month

Middle class: financially plans year to year

Higher class: financially plans decade to decade

I find this fascinating. I would like to think I'm working class, but probably realistically bordering middle class.

My mum was a duty social worker, but not a very senior manager, my dad was a community worker, then manager and now a freelancer. Grew up in a small ex-mining village. We never had any spare money and grew up on findus crispy pancakes and oven chips. We went abroad twice when I was a child, once was with an inheritance when a grandparent passed away. I got called 'posh' at secondary school but at uni I was amongst the poorest and people laughed at my local accent.

I now have a mid-senior job, dp lower paid healthcare worker. We do have foreign holidays and trips away at least once a year. Mortgage, 2 cars, some branded clothes, weekly shop online, have a cleaner, eat out about once a month. But we do need to budget quite carefully. Family could help us if we got stuck financially but not indefinitely.

Our dc have never been skiing for example, we don't have savings for uni for them and paying for driving lessons will be a struggle. We could never even contemplate private school.

Are we middle class? Working class? I don't know!

For me, "self-made" is an alternative term and the right term to use. It means something like "working-class-done-good" to me and is about state of mind, as others have said. You may have a middle-class 'lifestyle' but to me, a person who grew up on free school meals and who has experienced financial hardship... that person is WC to their bones because of what they have experienced, and I would consider calling a person with that background MC to be an insult.

Surely it's the hard working people that Keir Starmer keeps banging on about

One can be middle class and quite poor.
A friend’s family were “Landed”, had a “family seat’’ and hunted with a well known hunt-
In the 1960’s her family had to pay massive , crippling death duties.

Friend ended up in a modest 19th Century semi detached villa .
Definitely upper middle class by birth and manners.

I wasn't brought up in the UK with its class system, but I am middle class even by UK 'standards'.

That's just income though. What is your occupation ? What level of wealth do you have? What do you do in your free time? What are your interests? Who do you spend your time with and what are their occupations?

Not expecting you to answer those but they are the questions that'll determine class.

If you're in car sales and do exceptionally well on commission but blow it all on commercial goods and AI holidays, rent your house, have no savings, spend your free time getting drunk with your mates from the supermarket you are WC despite the high income.

Wow! Deficit model.

Needing to work for a living.

level of formal education of parents

I am self-made, yes, but would you still call me working class? Seriously?

This is surely ridiculous. I know multimillionaires who live a very luxurious lifestyle who work... we can't possibly say they are working class. Also, what about a couple where one person works and the other stays at home (eg with the kids) - is one working class and the other not?

For that matter, my own parents were often unemployed and their income came from benefits. Were they NOT working class because they didn't work and had a different source of income? Come on...

Its not cut and dried but to me the stereotypes that seem to be validated a lot are:

• not being that convinced that there's a huge value in "academic" education, a preference for vocational/skills based work
• some quite conservative values including an expectation women are unlikely to be the breadwinner, or won't work outside the home when children are young, men will be a "provider"
• fewer rules/limitations on children & young people (less limiting screen time, later/no curfews, allowed to do things like play out unsupervised at an earlier age)
• valuing conspicuous displays of propsperity like cars, branded clothing, very regularly updated/on trend home decor
• a big focus on appearance/presentation but particularly with regard to effort put in, whether thats your home or your makeup, lived in/natural look is not desirable, its considered better for things to look "done" and for that to be clear/obvious. Things that match.
• close family/community ties, a strong network of family & friends who help with childcare, provide favours - linked with a broader perspective that its ok to need/want help & ask for it
• more likely to follow popular trends in terms of entertainment, holidays, fashion

I would call you "self-made", not middle-class.