AIBU to feel middle-class luxuries have become increasingly out of reach?

Probably better not to have them in the first place if you find it that difficult.

Washing clothes cleaning the house, meal planning, shopping, cooking, washing up. Sourcing sports kit, school shoes, uniform, driving to extra- curricular activities, teenage drunken midnight call outs. Mowing the lawn, putting the car in for it's MOT, service etc, making dentist appointments, making parent's evening appointments, 8am football matches, horse shows 20 miles away. Booking tutors, hassling them to do their 11 + revison. Replacing lost sport's kit, phones, I-PODs, driving lessons. How would you describe that lot ?

You call bringing up your children “grunt work”? Oh dear.

We were on that and absolutely could not!

I am 50 I outearn my DH by some margin, we have always tried to split the grunt work, he was a SAHP for anout 2 years circa 2008. I have an adult DS and an adult DD what depresses the fuck out of me is how little has changed in the last 30 years since her age. You mistake my stating things as sex coded as endorsing that. Your attitude is niaive in the extreme.

And I'm not 'ypung' whatever that means. 🤔

You show yourself up every time you post. I think you're about 90. Though my MIL is 89 and isn't as backward.

Oh dear you clearly have no clue at all and futhermore refuse to inform yourself. Are you very ypung ?

I do thank you. Your posts are misogynistic 👍. You are perpetuating gender roles. Do you have sons?

Ok stay uninformed you clearly know best

How long have you both taught?

No thanks!

I’ve said YABU, not necessarily because of the cost, but because you think any of those things are middle class?? Get over yourself.

We are both teachers and have to be really careful with money. I buy all my stuff in charity shops. The food shop is my biggest challenge and we hardly evet go out to eat or get a takeaway. It's just the way it is but I do resent working so hard for so little reward sometimes.

I wish have a little look at this
https://natcen.ac.uk/publications/bsa-40-gender-roles

The 1950s are calling. They want you back.

Male coded tasks:
Taking out the bins
As the the yanks would say yard work
Building/ repairing stuff
Changing the oil/ putting air into car tyres
Repairing punctures, fixing bikes
Minor plumbing tasks
Female coded tasks
Baking
Sewing
Cleaning
Procuring home decor items
Managment of family diary including birthdays of family members
Liaison with schools/ extra cirricular clubs
Purchase of children's clthes.

I agree with Grayson Perry on how to define British Middle Class. You should watch his programme on it, it's really interesting.

Traditional middle class which has passed through many generation value the arts and culture. Class indicators would be music lessons, trips to galleries and museums, being well read, maybe even naming your children after characters from Classical Literature. Traditional jobs would be in the professions earning a comfortable living (appreciate now the professions don't earn comfortably thanks to CoL and wage stagnation). Outward displays of wealth are seen as tacky and quality is valued. You may see them in a 20 year old Volvo for example. They probably live in a period property in a nice part of town, and they've kept their sash windows.

The new middle class are those who have earned their money recently, rather than having been middle class for several generations in their family, are a completely different type who like to display status through labels on clothes, flashy cars, all inclusive holidays and big new build houses.

But you could also get less well off traditional middle class people who have all the cultural indicators but decided they wanted to be a writer or an artist or work in third sector, so don't keep up financially but still value all the above. However they may still be being subbed by parents, particularly if they are millennial. These are the ones who gentrify places.

Btw, what is a 'female coded task'? It's 2026.

I wouldn't know as I didn't 'pay' mine to do anything.

I too am a hospital consultant and have paid Dd also going to med school this september to bake for the church/ theatre group/ colleagues when she had the time and I didn't, I also pay her to clean the bathrooms at home. Why is it ok to pay teenagers to wash the car/ cut the grass but not more female coded tasks ?

A couple of decades ago was 2006, it was absolute boom times. On about 60K combined DH and I paid for 2 X childcare 3 days a week, mortage on a tiny 2 bed house in zone 2 and still had enough to holiday abroad, buy the odd thing in monsoon and maybe have a pub lunch and dinner out once a month each.- times were good.

Completely agree. About 10 years ago, i would think nothing of buying dior makeup etc or designer perfume several times a year. Splash out a bit more on going out clothes, buy designer bags and shoes mostly. Michelin restaurants and 5 star hotels. Now in our fifties, we have more income but less disposable and also started saving properly for retirement. I buy No. 7 makeup, clothes from h&m (which i love!) zara and M&S mostly. We are currently on hols in mainland Greece. We stayed in a 4 star hotel for a few nights, and we are now in a family owned 3 star hotel where we got a suite for £150 a night and it is stunning. Dinner last night, homemade for the family was 30 euros. Local wine is 5 euros in the supermarket and delicious. Holiday cost us £1400 for flights and hotels booked separately. £200 for car rental. I bought d&g perfume at the airport as my old mum gives me and my sister £100 for perfume when we go on hols as we help look after her and my dad. I would not spend £100 on perfume myself these days, just too much! Life is still enjoyable and in your 50s you wish you had all the money back that you spent unnecessarily. Definitely a case of not having same disposable income and not wanting to waste money any more.

Working class are those people who left school at 15/16 and do manual or semi-skilled jobs- childcare, factory work, council workers such as bin men, shop workers, manual labour like builders, gardeners, etc.= basically jobs that don't require a degree.
Middle class are usually degree educated professionals- doctors, teachers, solicitors, accountants and so forth. This a wide ranging group with varied incomes. You can move into this category from working class within a generation.

You've missed an awful lot of the working population out there, you go from manual work straight to doctors, accountants etc. and professions needing a degree. How about admin, secretarial roles, accounts assistants, bank clerks, managers in general?

The requirement of a degree is a bit of a red herring too. When I was at that sort of age (late 70s), maybe one in 10 pupils went on past O Levels/CSEs. Of those maybe half went on to tertiary education. You could have many professional careers without a degree including administration, working in finance, general management type roles, nursing, IT, even many aspects of engineering you could work your way up.

Going back further, my mother was very much upper middle class - old family, girls all presented at Queen Charlotte's Ball (when the invitation list to be presented was very exclusive) before "coming out" type of thing. She didn't go to Uni (something to do with a world war). However she worked in banking and was a social worker for a while without needing a degree. So by your definition she was "working class", despite being very much born into the top echelons of middle class right on the edge of upper class.

Totally agree. Small things have dropped off our shop. We don't go browsing around shops for fun anymore. No more 'grabbing a candle' in the supermarket or even buying 'Who Gives A Crap' loo roll. Not paying a premium to wipe my arse anymore. Just can't afford it 😂