Which "class" - Lighthearted!

[dingdongdahlia]

So, my dh is very proud of his roots and is quite happy to tell everybody and anybody about how we're a working class family. Personally, I think class is quite an outdated concept but definitely think there are some things that are still considered wc/mc/us.

I've explained to dh that it's not as clear cut anymore and while he works a blue collar job, it's as much about lifestyle nowadays as your employment.

I say to my husband he's probably closer to middle class now because of tiny little things that make up our lifestyle but he denies it vehemently. I come from a very traditionally middle class family and he says he "dragged me down" (with a cheeky smile).

So, in the most lighthearted way possible, what do you think?

Dh works a very skilled manual job, he has an element of responsibility and although he achieved his role through an apprenticeship I would say his level of knowledge is pretty close to a masters in engineering. He calls himself a spanner monkey.

I have a professional role that is traditionally a middle class career.

We own our own home in a suburb of a city in the south coast. Four bed with garage, almost paid off (we're early 30s).

We eat out at least 10x a month at naice places and stay in nice hotels frequently as a couple (disclaimer: directly linked to my job).

We shop at Ocado and local independent butchers, greengrocers etc. Christmas meat is always bought from the butcher.

We have at least one foreign holiday a year with several other UK breaks throughout the year.

We have a cleaner (he hates this but hates a messy house more).

We have a bean to carafe coffee machine.

Our kids are young but it's looking like we will potentially send them to private school for secondary.

He snowboards and skis. Trying to convince me to take the kids on a skiing holiday (I'm not keen).

We own Barbour jackets (the wax variety that don't have the logo emblazoned all over it).

He's voted Tory in the past.

Obviously this is very lighthearted and a bit of a family joke. Just wanted to see what people think.

I genuinely do not understand the wealth competition that always starts on these threads about class. There's a weird and highly transparent pretence whereby people fake an attitude that they truly believe lifestyles that are clearly top 1% are somehow typical of the middle class, or even at the bottom of the middle class pile. All you are revealing is your ignorance of the history and accepted academic definitions of class, to be honest. There's a lot of literature out there, it's an interesting issue, maybe go read up.

A determining factor of the BBC quiz appears to be who you know. So for example, if you know a nurse, it lowers your ‘social standing’ as it appears to be classified as manual type labour. Surely this is nonsense? I think personally anyone who relies on a paycheck to maintain their lifestyle and doesn’t

Perhaps the OP is a food writer?

...have assets/savings/inheritance. they can use to maintain a similar lifestyle for the rest of their lives is working class.

Re education being a marker, I don’t think havingecounts for a whole lot anymore (sadly) a degre

Spending a minimum of two hours a week obsessing about class has to be one of the defining British traits.

That’s interesting, Slipper.

Dh and I could live for a couple of years, if we were modest, on savings. Selling assets would give us longer. I don’t know how much longer!

But I wouldn’t consider myself to be very well off or anything.

I still consider us as needing to work!

I don’t think having a degree counts for very much anymore (sadly). A masters is now spoken of in the same way as a degree was spoken of years ago. It also needs to reflect what the degree is for eg a degree in commerce is leaps above an arts degree etc and this has to be reflected.. Therefore a degree can’t be used as a measurement.

I should add that I’m not trying to enrage degree holders. I’m not from the U.K. (and my birth country doesn’t have a class system) so I tend to be more objective about the class system.

Class is not about money. Money is plebeian. Capital is upper class.

What books do you read ? Do you listen to the archers? Do you recognise pottery and glassware by the make? Do you keep old things or replace and redecorate? How often do you change your car? How do you talk? Do you go out looking like crap or always smart-ish.

Middle class anyway has subdivisions. The OP is lower MC aspiring to upper MC and her kids probably will achieve that for her.

slipper an arts degree from a good university is infinitely more middle class than a degree in 'commerce' (whatever that is, so you mean business?)from anywhere. PPE is upper middle class. As is art history.

I remember a lecturer who could only talk about business degrees in hushed and pained tones.

What do you mean what is commerce A Bachelor of Commerce

No idea what a Bachelor of Commerce is.

It's funny, people always point out ways that make you/them MC, no one relays stories where the op thought they were MC but someone pointed out the one thing they do that makes them definitely WC.

Isn't the newly divorced Jeff Bezos a Bachelor of Commerce?

Loving this thread.

Agree you sound like quite a social climber OP. Your husband sounds a normal self deprecating type.

OK, a BCom isn't awarded in UK universities. It's a business degree, isn't it? Hardly MC

Of course there are more desirable degrees such as s law degree. In my home country an arts degree is popular as it is among the easiest of courses to get into. There isn’t anything negative about doing an arts degree. However it is definitely seen as a more basic degree as it needs to be followed up with something else. My point was if education was being used as a marker, particularly a degree, it seems strange that an arts degree carries the same weight as a degree in law or architecture when in real life this is not the case.

Ah, but you're talking about degrees in terms of 'usefulness' or 'employability' , slipper, which has nothing to do with where your degree choice sits on the 'class' spectrum.

I don’t think that what you have described indicates middle class. You’ve focused very heavily on money and that isn’t the same at all. I think you’re working class.

Perhaps the OP is a food writer?

No she said she had a middle class 'professional' job. good shout though!

Anyway your husband is a blue collar worker so you're working class.

Do people still believe a woman takes her husband's class? this whole thread is weird.

I don't want to be in any social class. I am in a class of my own. Note, this might have been said of me with more than one meaning.

Mumsnet never fails does it?
Honestly with the obsession with being MC and all that it entails you would think that being working class was a great travesty and/or moral failing.

There are many WC people with comfotable finances, rewarding careers, living in nice properties, having happy relationships and just, well enjoying life really. they even let us in to see the ballet

We aren't all stacking shelves at Asda, decorating our council houses in 'Live, laugh, love' platitudes, jetting off on package holidays and dragging our extended family members on to Jeremy Kyle cos they shagged our daughter's husband

And even if we were it would possibly still be preferable to the self conscious obsession with 'being seen to be middle class' that permeates this forum.

Try the caste system if you think class is complicated, by rights I’m shaming my caste when I clean my own toilet.