What makes you working class?

I'd greatly appreciate you leaving my mother out of your comments.

On MNs WC seems to get confused with the underclass & MC with UMC.

Class changes but there's usually transitional generations that are a bit of a meeting point.

Eg
My grandparents were almost entirely WC. My parents grew up with my grandparents in blue collar jobs, values & cultural etc mostly WC

Except for a desire for education which resulted in my parents going through higher education, having professional careers, values shifting and acquiring more and more cultural capital.

My siblings and i grew up mostly middle class but with residual hints of the WC origins of our parents. Focus on education, all went to russell group universities etc, music & ballet lessons, taken to theatre, opera, orchestral performances... but also football games. Parents always wanted us to wait to open presents on christmas morning but it never quite happened!

Our children however are completely middle class in terms of values, upbringing, cultural capital. I'd say it took two generations to shift.

Oh and yes, we do go camping. The children love it.

I like chips and gravy. I think that cements it for me.

Man some of these replies are beyond offensive!
And complete nonsense.
My family is working class going back to being peasants! Working class as in all my grandmothers/ great grandmothers worked for a living. Working class as in nobody worried very much about what class they belonged in, as in we could equally have our tea on the sofa with the telly on, or have a big meal round the table, with family, friends or neighbours.
Working class as in my relatives sailed the entire world and my grandad went to Brazil and Japan for work not on a gap year (and brought back some fascinating artefacts)
Working class as in my dad knew art galleries were free, books were cheap and education was priceless ( and for the love of it not for the job opportunities).
Working class as in 2 languages were spoken not just English and appalling French.
Working class as in options for work were not limited to one set, narrow path of school, university, desk ( although some of us did that).
When I read (only on MN ) what people seem to think working class means it's almost as if the only experience of wc people they have is either Waynetta Slob or Vicky off Little Britain!
The only distinction to me really is middle class people have ready money, family wealth/ assets and a total terror of being judged by those they consider their betters.

I was working class (raised in council housing and poor) but now live in affluent village and we own three properties. I have a high income and professional job. No one would know I grew up where I did. But I do feel deep down I am working class still. My parents live on social welfare. My accent has changed as I live in a different country for 25 years (not deliberate). I’m proud of my roots and how hard I worked to get out of the background I lived in.

Many children aren't really welcome in their own homes - clubs are an excellent way for those who can afford it to farm out their children for hours.
Poorer kids in the same position lurk in playgrounds, parks or bus shelters.

Why are they opposite ends of the spectrum?
The PE teacher wanted to teach sport. The English teacher wanted to teach English. They both chose appropriate routes to become teachers.

I don't see any difference between the two?

The PE teacher may own their house outright and have been middle class for generations. The English teacher may be the first in their family to go to university.

One or the other might be foreign and class could be an irrelevance

The PE teacher might love sailing and skiing and and the English teacher might spend every Friday at the Bingo.

There are so many ways they could be different, and have different class markers

It's never crossed my mind to think that which subject a teacher teaches determines their social class. How bonkers.

Absolutely they are both teachers, and both professionals doing a hugely important job. However my point still stands that profession cannot be used as a blunt tool to identify class as there is such a spectrum of difference between individuals. Granted I used extreme opposite ends of the spectrum as examples, but I wouldn’t say I was tying myself up in knots, rather illustrating a point.

Well, if you don't have to worry about house prices you are probably comfortably MC😁

Honestly, I find it ridiculous. A system that came about in the 1800s, when social mobility was alien and education limited to the rich.

I don't know anyone who talks about or tries to define their class in real life.

Interesting paper.

Class in Britain and Class in British Sociology Since 1945

I’m a child of. Doctor and Oxbridge educated director live on council estate what makes me ? 🤣

I worked with a woman who had a real stick up her arse about class. She made a big deal of where I lived (a more affluent town in south wales), having moved from England and would call me posh. I never told her I used to live in the Cotswolds hence we could afford to move where we did comfortably due to difference in house prices.

One day she was talking about someone else and said 'they're like you....you know middle class...with horses and stuff'.

How I laughed as she had such a bee in her bonnet about it. Her family were miners born in the Welsh valleys but she'd moved to a nice seaside town and husband had a good job. She was very into appearances, driving flash cars, had a big house and would holiday in exclusive areas. I really felt though she had a chip on her shoulder due to her roots rather than embracing her life now.

This is one of the funniest answers I have ever read.

They are both teachers. Despite their different routes into the profession.

Talk about tying yourself up in knots.

That’s cloth cap/ferret territory…

Someone I know is a research fellow at a top Uni but rents ex-council flat (for the full price), what it makes them? 😁

my Dad taught economics at a non RG uni, what class are we? 🤣

Could you please elaborate on the 1st paragraph for the ones who were not here 15 years ago?

I told my husband he's not middle class as we wouldn't survive few years of unemployment and he strongly disagrees.

Hmm … but a lot of working class parents I’ve seen are delighted when their kids are academic, work hard at their studies and go to good unis.

ive seen a closed mind set among middle class parents - they force their kids to mix with posh kids from well educated backgrounds even through the kids aren’t at all compatible personality wise

the parents themselves won’t expand their social circle beyond a very narrow group

my mc top professional well educated mum made an insinuation that wc class people smell (yes I know!)

they force their kids to do well academically and insist they go to uni even though doing so isn’t compatible with their kid’s natural personality

if child under achieves academically they straight out LIE

Finding the replies to this very funny, compared to the similar threads on here I remember from 15 years ago.

This thread posters seem desperate make the working class category so ridiculously wide that it includes 99% of people.

Some of the same posters are at pains to point out that they themselves are middle class, but pretend to be embarrassed about it, when clearly they are insecure about their class status (as in, they need other people to not be considered MC, so they can be it).

It's an interesting phenomenon, which says so much about the people commenting that I don't think they realise.

I think a lot of people who claim not to care about class care very deeply about how they are perceived.

I agree. And it's why I think it's good for people to learn other languages and spend time in other cultures

I always think it's a marker of a lack of knowledge/intelligence/foreign travel if someone is taking class markers too seriously

I love a class thread!!

It is such a huge spectrum in my opinion and there really is no single definition.

Just to chip in about teachers being considered MC which I think demonstrates that profession cannot categorise class… there is a huge difference between an Oxbridge educated teacher who is teaching English Literature or Economics compared to a PE teacher who studied Sport Development at the local university college…

Oh, I agree. But people are often just mistaken about elements of other countries’ cultures — there are people for whom the Queen and Danny Dyer have the same ‘British accent’.

Encouraging your child not to pursue education and training post 16 & going to work instead is v wc in my area. Not valuing education or widening your cultural/social outlook & not having aspirations. Having a very closed mind set is what I call working class.

I haven't read the thread but having a tattoo of your child's name seems a working class trait where I am.