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

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.

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.

The 1950s are calling. They want you back.

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

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

No thanks!

How long have you both taught?

Ok stay uninformed you clearly know best

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

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

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

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

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.

We were on that and absolutely could not!

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

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 ?

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

You can’t have been on MN for long if you believe that there aren’t still people (usually men but sometimes women) who expect women to do all the child-rearing and domestic tasks while their ‘DH’ comes home from work, goes out to hobbies, and gets a full night’s sleep every night. It’s still happening and it’s not misogynistic to point that out.

Nobody needs scented candles. Waste of money and could burn your house down lol

All our lives. He's now 60 and going to retire soon. I'm 56 and now work in FE as I got no wotk/life balance teaching in schools.

My children are adults. In my experience the most rewarding and worthwhile endevours such as sceintific research, marathon training or becoming proficient at a musical instrument are often difficult, demanding can be boring and repetitive - doesn't mean we shouldn't do them though.

Just remembered something and wondered if anybody has the same memory? I was a student in the 1990s, new to London and I could not believe my eyes when the Times ran this special offer - on presentation of a voucher from the Times, a 2-course lunch for £10 pp in the Criterion, Bibendum, Cantina del Ponte, Mezzo, Oxo tower (brasserie, not restaurant) and Blue Bird. Without alcohol. I remember going to Quaglino's and seeing, for the first time ever, that in the ladies' powder room' there were amazing scents - like all the ones advertised on billboards, standing freely, not fixed to the counter. To me it was not a 'middle class luxury for £10', it was more like 'I am a princess'.

Well you must be on at least £100k between you?

I agree but that’s not what happened.