Can I ask about inter-class relationships?

[edinbed]

I am from a deprived, working class background although I "got out" and went to univesity(undergrad and MFA). My last long term relationship was with someone from a similer back ground to me who had also went to uni, had a professional job.

New boyfriend is very middle class, family university educated for generations. He's lovely but our relationship started early this year then progressed under lockdown. Sometimes I feel self conscious about my accent (strong glaswegian) and some cultural stuff. He doesn't seem to mind but I've not really met many of his friends or anything yet due to the national and local lockdowns or his parents who live quite far away although I have met them and his sister on zoom.

I am self employed in a creative field and he is a professional.

Does anyone else have any experiance of inter-class relationships?

Interesting discussion . DH and I are both working class. I know we enjoy various touch points in our relationship as a result.
When I had middle class partners I did feel uneasy around some discussions and there were things didn't understand as they were outside my life experience, like boarding school, music lessons, foreign holidays etc.
I think that you can navigate these differences in background and a similar outlook is helpful.

My DP grew up working class (5 kids in a 3 bed house, no foreign holidays, parents in manual jobs). My family is very middle class (no kids sharing bedrooms, private education, a foreign holiday or two every year, DF is a professional and DM was a SAHM)

On a day-to-day basis we don't really notice the differences as we like the same things. But, around family its more noticeable. In his family everyone has kids in their 20s. I'm in my 30s and I'm building up my career before having kids. This is seen as unusual and his cousin made a remark about me being unable to conceive . Nothing major just little things.

@Fallada Thank you so much for your post! You are an incredibly insightful person. I will use bits of what you wrote to back up my arguments with a family member who thinks that all clever students should automatically aspire to Oxbridge and can't see that there's more barriers than just poverty, distance and your school. I have spent 2 years trying to explain what you have so beautifully summed up in a few lines. Cultural capital is far too often forgotten!

It can only work if there is no resentment, bitterness or excessive consciousness of differing circumstances and background.

If there is self consciousness with resentment, the whole thing will be eaten through from the inside - seen this happen multiple times.

*He's incredibly risk averse, particularly when it comes to money. I try and make ours 'work for us' but he hates debt (even mortgage debt) and would rather the money was 'safe'.

And in direct contradiction to this: also isn't frugal AT ALL because he now earns well and doesn't have to be....He walks into a shop and just buys stuff, no consideration made for price*
I'm WC and this is me!
My logic is that its OK to splash out on discretionary spends because you can always reign that in if you need to.
But if you tie yourself into a high mortgage then you're stuck with it, even if your income drops or interest rates rise.

I always find it weird when people on Mumsnet talk about wealthy people having "higher fixed costs" as if this is completely inevitable and not an actual choice they made on purpose.

@KillingOksana1- my DP's mum is like that. DP got pregnant aged 35 and her mum was really upset by it. She is still upset several years on. It just doesn't feel right to her.

I will admit, I think the lack of rudeness about people having children young is something my DP's family do well, though - there's no judgement if someone does have children younger, and a lot of support.

@Fallada - now your post saying I used to wonder how my new friends even knew some jobs existed, or were something you could aim to do! Like an opera director, or a forensic archaeologist or a museum curator! rung true so much for me! So I'm not as middle class as I might think.

I used to wonder how my new friends even knew some jobs existed, or were something you could aim to do! Like an opera director, or a forensic archaeologist or a museum curator!

Absolutely this. It would never have occurred to me that I could become a doctor, for example. I never thought, ' that's not for the likes of me.' It never even got on the horizon to be considered as an possibility.

Our school got the local bank manager (remember those!?) to come to persuade us to become bank clerks at a £100 a week - I remember the teachers looking at us and smiling, obviously thinking this would be a good job for kids like us - get us away from the factory packaging line.
Do you think the kids at Eton had that?

Middle class people have no idea how different your experiences are if you grow up working class.

I used to wonder how my new friends even knew some jobs existed, or were something you could aim to do! Like an opera director, or a forensic archaeologist or a museum curator!

God, yes. Our 'career guidance' at school consisted of being let into a small room off the assembly hall with a bunch of elderly leaflets about training schemes from three or four years earlier. The teacher who was nominally the career guidance member of staff just handed them out, and gave the impression (admittedly this was in the 80s, in a major recession with high unemployment) that most of us would be lucky to get a job of any kind, and that life was all downhill from here. I remember him once saying that as I got good marks in English, I should consider running a secondhand school book shop.

Then at university after I got there despite school and family opposition! I was suddenly meeting people whose parents were artists or surgeons or architects or documentary makers or politicians or actors or barristers or opera singers, or they were planning to become clinical psychologists or underwater archaeologists or travel journalists. I can still remember thinking 'Oh, all this was in the world all along, only I didn't know any of it existed...'

Middle class people have no idea how different your experiences are if you grow up working class

Neversayalways - do you think this is still the case?

The point made about people sticking geographically close to their family is an interesting one. There’s been research done about it for decades. One of the factors is the ability to easily access family help in terms of childcare or home maintenance, emotional support, etc.

I think that families where the parents come from vastly different backgrounds work best when they share the same ideas about money, education, spending, ambitions etc. If the parents have the same views, then they're aiming for the same things, and the differences in background are felt less.
My parents were from different classes and different religions but they had common aims about what they wanted as a family.

Neversayalways - do you think this is still the case?

Oh God yes, look at the Brexit debate! All those lefty middle class types who had been so on the side of the poor and so into community empowerment and listening to the poor - who were experts on their own lives- suddenly decrying them as ignorant and uneducated and shouldn't have been allowed to vote when suddenly they voted the 'wrong way'. In other words, they never saw working class people as equal human beings with an equal right to make political decisions. And they called people racist who were not racist as they simply didn't understand the lived reality of many working class people's lives.

Or just on a personal level my life has been one slow drip feed of realising how different my experiences were. I remember quite recently telling colleagues some anecdotes about casual violence as I was growing up and they were wide eyed and exclaimed, 'Never - where did YOU grow up' and I realised then that casual violence wasn't a universal experience.

suddenly decrying them as ignorant and uneducated and shouldn't have been allowed to vote when suddenly they voted the 'wrong way

Yes, that’s true. There was even a thread on here genuinely suggesting that only the ‘well informed’ should’ve been allowed to vote in the EU referendum.

Yes, that’s true. There was even a thread on here genuinely suggesting that only the ‘well informed’ should’ve been allowed to vote in the EU referendum

Yes, wasn't this a technique that used to be used in America to stop people of colour from voting? Or women over here? Now its used by the self-identified intelligentsia and self-identified progressive left to argue against working class people voting when (horror) the views of the working class may actually affect more affluent people (the other way round is fine, of course).

Or just on a personal level my life has been one slow drip feed of realising how different my experiences were. I remember quite recently telling colleagues some anecdotes about casual violence as I was growing up and they were wide eyed and exclaimed, 'Never - where did YOU grow up' and I realised then that casual violence wasn't a universal experience.

Casual violence isn't a universal experience, but I don't think it's exclusive to any one class. When I was growing up, actual social workers sat calmly explaining to me my parents couldn't possibly be violently abusive because I had such a nice home. I shit you not. And needless to say, they were.

No, but you are talking about domestic violence or parental violence which tends to be hidden behind walls. I am talking more about violence that you see on the streets when you are out and about. I obviously I wasn't violence is exclusive to one class, but that you are more likely to have seen it if you come from a lower class area.

I would hope social workers wouldn't make those assumptions about middle class people not hurting their kids. I certainly know a middle class mum who had both her twins removed when she took them to the doctor with unexplained bruising.

I think the legal system still has more of a bias to being lenient to young upper class educated men who attack their girlfriends, as the (male) judge doesn't want to ruin their promising careers.

There was even a thread on here genuinely suggesting that only the ‘well informed’ should’ve been allowed to vote in the EU referendum.

I'm not seeing the relevance of this to a discussion of social class, unless 'well-informed' is code for 'middle-class'? I'm WC and extremely well-informed, and I think that equating lack of political awareness and inability to weigh and process information with being WC is both dangerous and fairly offensive.

Oh, sure, I take your point. Sorry, I wasn't meaning to imply you were saying it was exclusive to any one class, just to stress that it is something that people stereotype as being 'not a middle class problem,' which is a problem in itself.

@Plesky - but some people act as if being 'well informed' means 'agreeing with me because I am considerably posher than you'.

Very classy to help stack plates. This simple act of kindness should be encouraged. Good on you.
One of my grandfathers was a baronet and the other was a cockney so I’m in the middle.
Just treat people with respect and kindness : if people can’t manage that it doesn’t matter what class they are.

In my extensive experience 😊 relationships between different classes don’t work. I wish this was not true.
I think people are more likely to marry into a different race than a different class.

I'm an American, and class differs here, but I think it's fair to say I married up. DH's family had more education, property, income, etc. than mine.

It hasn't made a bit of difference. DH never cared and neither has his family. I was a SAHM for a few years, but other than that we've both always worked.

I think if you treat each other well you'll get over the differences in upbringing and perspective.

I used to wonder how my new friends even knew some jobs existed, or were something you could aim to do! Like an opera director, or a forensic archaeologist or a museum curator

Me too. I was so naive when I went to uni, first in my family. I remember someone telling me that he was going to go into business. I had no idea what he meant. I only knew plumbers and hairdressers and teachers and mechanics and straight forward practical jobs with actual names. I had never heard of business. They all laughed at me and treated me like a foreign pet. Strangely enough none of them wanted to take me home to meet their parents.

I'm not seeing the relevance of this to a discussion of social class, unless 'well-informed' is code for 'middle-class'? I'm WC and extremely well-informed, and I think that equating lack of political awareness and inability to weigh and process information with being WC is both dangerous and fairly offensive.

Pesky Read neversayalways comment at 14.45 which I was answering.
I agree with your comment that it’s dangerous and fairly offensive.
The thread after the referendum saying that only the ‘well informed’ should’ve been allowed to vote in the EU referendum had a surprisingly low number of objections to such an appalling suggestion.

I don’t think class is important, but having similar values is.

My family were very poor immigrants, we shared our flat with another family for quite a long time. But we children were expected to behave, work hard and go on to further education to get a good job. A good job was in reality a small list of acceptable careers (we’re Asian), if they hadn’t pushed me I wouldn’t have achieved what I have. Its the only good thing they actually did.

My boyfriend is from a very wealthy family, he went to a well known British boarding school and his family come from money and his parents both have extremely good jobs. He was sent to board for convenience and status, he wasn’t pushed by them to perform well academically or to get a ‘good’ job. They think he has been stupid in his career choice as it doesn’t pay well, he’s an actuary like me (well, almost qualified)! So its not like he will be on a low wage. When I met them I was asked how much I earned and what my investments look like (erm, invisible).

I don’t give a shit about his background, type of job he has etc, he feels the same, although we both agree that we both went into extremely boring careers. In my experience people who think ‘class’ is important are normally either self absorbed or hold some sort of shame about their own background so over compensate (so snobs).

Op I think as long as you and DP get on and have a shared goal for the future then that's what matters.

DH and I are similar, middle / working backgrounds, I went to Uni. But he's the black sheep who never went to Uni although is now in a very middle class job

Money is definitely discussed far more in families who are cash sensitive than in families who have plenty.
My family have no qualms about asking how much, anything from a hairdo to a holiday, cost. DHs family would class it as height of rudeness.

FIL whos very Mrs Bucket, says things now and again that used to offend but now DH and I will have a good laugh at them instead.