Middle class indicators 2022 part 2

[Pullandpush]

Current thread has 1000 posts so restarting.. Was asked at the end of the last thread what I would identify as & I am solidly working class due to working hard to pay our mortgage, kids in state school & having a very modest lifestyle.

Not ironing. The biggest WC signifier among my friends is the choice to iron or not. MC do not iron (apart from work and school shirts), WC iron everything.

This is so very interesting! My parents had a massive thing about ironing absolutely everything, so I do. Well I used to. My husband finds it very odd and quite annoying. We iron much less now unless it is very creased. Still getting used to this!!

I don't really understand why you wouldn't iron though? Clothes need ironing! The only reason I don't know is because of time and because my husband thinks it's unnecessary unless the clothes look awful

@Pullandpush I think household income is also an indicator though. Your hobbies may not be distinctly middle class (if there is such a thing), but income does come into it to some degree

Also @Pullandpush - maybe ask Mumsnet to link the last thread in your OP so the previous OP and PP can be seen

It appears most people on the thread and the other one are talking about the (white) British middle class. "Interesting"

Absolutely this. This is the most white middle england thread I have read. There's a huge middle class across a number of ethnicities and religions across the country who couldn't begin to relate to this. I'm middle class through and through and the idea of growing veg, camping, hiking, never wearing designers and not caring about appearence and focusing on playing classical music is totally alien to me. For a start we're urban and rarely go into the countryside and secondly much of this doesn't reflect our culture and background or interests at all yet we're as middle class as the next one.

*On these threads it's all, "Oh, you can tell the MC because they read books / play musical instruments / go hiking / grow organic food."

Which I'm sure many of them do, but the implication that the WC do not do these things (so that it's a MC identifier) is downright insulting*

I agree. These threads are always dominated by people who describe themselves as 'very MC' and always have an awful lot to say about the interests, education and tastes of people with WC backgrounds which, to those of us who actually grew up WC, is complete bollocks.

Me: all my older male relatives were miners, female were SAHM, barmaids, cleaners, shop assistants. I'm the only member of my family to go to university but as a child we were taken to the library every week, walks in country parks as a main form of weekend leisure activity, were encouraged to work hard at school, never had designer clothes, never went on package holidays.

DP: also the offspring of parents who left school at 15 to work in the mines or the steelworks, had music lessons as a child and got as far as Grade 8 (I'm not a musician but I think this is very good?)

So sounds quite like all these MC markers that people have so much to say about.

Yes - my experience is very like yours. Dad was a repair man, mum did a variety of clerical jobs, wider family was also all WC. We all played musical instruments, because both our parents did. Plenty of books in the house, visits to the library etc. Family were always interested in our education, encouraged us with hobbies etc.

My parents were also environmentally conscious, recycling, no single use items etc. long before it became mainstream - where do people get the idea that caring about the planet is only for the wealthy?

Granted, riding horses or going sailing was never an option, but plenty of hobbies and educational activities could be done on a WC budget.

I think a lot of MN posters base their assumptions about WC culture on "benefits street" type TV programmes.

Re schools, the sad fact is that housing in catchment areas with very good primaries and/or grammars, will be unaffordable for many who’d much prefer to send their children to such schools.

We are in an area with very high-rated grammar schools, and some equally high-rated primaries, and house prices/rents are correspondingly eye-watering.

My parents were also environmentally conscious, recycling, no single use items etc. long before it became mainstream - where do people get the idea that caring about the planet is only for the wealthy

Yes, in the 1970s it was all about 'milk bottle tops' for charity, taking rags to school to raise money for school funds and then we were taken to the local shop to each choose a few penny sweets. We used to drop off foil, cardboard and newspapers in a woman's garden on the way to school and she (presumably) sold them on, wouldn't happen now, but that was just what everyone did. Plus everyone did hand me downs and bought and sold prams, cots etc.

I remember that the phone rang about a dozen times an hour the day our advert for a pram went in the local paper, after a while we just answered the phone with 'sorry the pram is sold' and put the phone down only for it to ring again straight away.

Granted, riding horses or going sailing was never an option, but plenty of hobbies and educational activities could be done on a WC budget

My friend had a pony that she kept on waste ground at the side of their (tiny terrace) house. Her parents both worked in the local brickworks, her dad made bricks and her mum cleaned the offices in the evenings.

I think a lot of MN posters base their assumptions about WC culture on "benefits street" type TV programmes

Yes, it does sound like this, but it doesn't make it true.

Yes, I probably grew up 'middle class' because my parents went to grammar school and university and went into professional jobs. But my grandad and most older male relatives were down the mines at 13, grandmother was in service then worked in a factory. My grandad was a massively keen gardener and walker, grandma played the piano, they were at the library every week. It's easy to stereotype.

I think a lot of the difference between my cousins (who would be viewed as working class) and me (who would be viewed as middle class), is that I moved away from home at 18 for university and have lived in various different places in the UK and abroad since, whereas they still live where they grew up. So we have had quite different experiences as adults. But that doesn't mean they are not perfectly respectable people with perfectly respectable hobbies and interests.

Lots of factors typically involved in class, cultural capital is as relevant as economic means.

As for private schools, they are nothing more to a means of keeping the class system ticking over. If they didn't exist resources and money would go into the state system, which would level the playing field significantly, which is exactly why it will never happen.

‘Clogging up places’ is a pretty negative metaphor. I wouldn’t consider sending DS to private school, regardless of affordability, because to me, it’s an unethical choice that perpetuates inequality.

👋 I'm definitely working class and owner of a wanky bell tent, we camp at areas of outstanding beauty where we can go on hikes and visit areas of historical interest and not campsites with a clubhouse or entertainment. We have expensive ethical branded outdoor clothing we wear day to day that I have a keen eye for hunting out on Vinted/eBay. I have no qualifications post GCSE's and I am a cleaner. My parents had no post 14 qualifications. We live in a terraced house in one of the most deprived towns in the country. We also have had many holidays at Pontins.

Private school is definitely the preserve of the very wealthy unless on a scholarship - when my kids were growing up we had an income circa £75k and no way could we afford school fees. We definitely are middle class though - income, hobbies, job titles etc. I'm no longer with my exh and in a way we do not live a particularly middle class hobbies lifestyle but our income and jobs do define us as upper middle class (plus I'm rather keen on the opera!)

Private school is a popular method of working class with cash to present as MC. Identified by eg personalised number plates and sports cars at pick up / all brand new uniform (no 2nd hand shop) / lavish “what I did on my holidays” stories.
books in the house used to be a good one but the kindle has out paid to that to a degree.
how about fuchsias / begonias in the garden vs banks of rhododendrons or herbaceous borders?

i feel so sorry for people who tie themselves up in knots to conform one way or another. Do what works for you. I am looking forward to my all inclusive package holiday in a few weeks because I am exhausted. I don’t care what that makes me.

It’s so funny that only in the UK can you be judged for having the wrong plants in your garden.
fwiw Monty, the biggest gardening snob out there is coming around to ‘some’ begonias and was evangelical about fuchsias on this weekend GW.

@AtillatheHun Re private schools, this thread, the previous one and some others I have seen on MN suggest that private schools vary massively. I've seen some comments that state some of them essentially accept anyone who will pay whereas others are still quite elitist and try to preserve a certain image.

I found this very interesting as I knew nothing about this! Maybe some schools are more concerned with perception and image and others just want all the money they can get

Maybe some working-class people just want the best for their dc and believe that’s private education? It really isn’t as deep as some people are suggesting.

All inclusive package holiday is meaningless. Is it 3* in Benidorm or one of those Ikos places that Mumsnetters rave about that cost ££££s?

But even then, it's not a given that Benidorm = WC and Ikos = MC. After all, who's more likely to be able to afford Ikos, the teacher, who MN will always say is MC or the plumber, who MN will always say is WC, despite probably earning many times what the teacher does?

There are definitely MC package holidays - Kuoni is another example. They even have a concession in the MC mothership, John Lewis

@sunja - I went on a few skool tours recently and the most well established / old / looks like Hampton court palace one of the lot had an interesting donor’s board which suggested they’ll take all the cash (roubles) they can regardless of source! I think that old boys / girls being a dominant source of future pupils probably isn’t the case any more as fees outstrip earnings so much more dramatically than ever before. Mine are ata a place with a really generous endowment which means lower fees / excellent scholarships however I totally misread the place as being very down to earth judging by the cars in the car park because it turns out that what I was looking at were 6th formers cars and not the parents’ :(

I don’t know what ikos is and I’ve been to Benidorm. It’s actually fine and quite a good laugh too.

@AtillatheHun interesting. I recently read this article: www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-charts-that-shows-how-private-school-fees-have-exploded-a7023056.html%3Famp

Which shows the increase in fees in the last 25 years compared to the increase in wages. Astounding. Pricing many people out. It will be the UC and UMC before long if that trend continues

i can’t see most private schools surviving in the next few years. A combination of cost of living crisis, nervousness about another pandemic and this generation attaching stigma to private education.