What does upper middle class look like?

[LabradorsLabradorsLabradors]

In conversation with an acquaintance (unrelated, but about the readership of the New Statesman magazine), I was just referred to as upper middle class. I'm not, by the way. Or at least not in the way I think of it. I was a lower middle class child who went to a smart school on an assisted place, did well academically, and married 'up' (I guess quite a long way up), having met DH through mutual friends. It just galls a bit, because I'm proud of my roots (Jewish refugees, tenant farmers, an early Labour MP), and want my kids to be too.

It was a pretty confident assertion, given she doesn't know much about me, and I'm wondering what made her think that. What does upper middle class look like?

multiple labradors? ;-)

If we must play this game, then I would say university educated, professional job, owns own house, comfortable money wise to have a non ancient car and regular holidays.

JRM

Tbh I think having an MP in the family isn't a bad start.

I do have multiple Labradors. It'll be the Labradors, I reckon.
I also believe my Labradors to be particularly fine specimens of the breed, and quite possibly gifted.

I don't really like playing the class game at all. I just feel bothered that I obviously fit some stereotype that I don't think is me at all (although possibly just my own stereotype).

Surely JRM is upper upper class?

You sound a bit reverse snobby tbh. Like you’re offended at being called upper middle class.

Why does you being seen as UMC mean your kids can’t be proud of your roots?

And are you suggesting they shouldn’t be proud of your DH’s roots because his family was wealthier?

Are you really stressing over whether you are lower middle class or upper middle class? . Why not just accept that you are most likely 'middle class'.

Do you have a lake?

This describes me but I went to a northern comp and consider myself working class.
Upper middle children in private school, second home, social circle politicians/judges.

It's more what it sounds like. It's the voice. If you have the voice then people will think you are Upper even if you aren't.

I do have the voice. I sound quite posh. The school did that to me. Until I go home, then I get the accent a little.

Then maybe you are Middle Class but not working class? You might have been brought up working class but through education and job you have moved out into the middle classes somewhere? I mean if we must have these distinctions I can't see how university educated home owning professional job could count as working class, whatever the roots.

Voice, confidence, dress sense, manners. You can pass at it (I do) but those who really are UMC will know.

To me upper middle class means at least one if not both earning well into six figures. Ownership of at least two properties. That slight bewilderment at ever needing to worry about money. I have friends who are far richer than I am. They are 'green' and frugal about not wasting food but they have three homes for one family of four!

I know two people who come from titled aristocrat families. In both cases, they've had very expensive educations, but achieved very little in terms of career. This hasn't mattered, because their trust funds enable them to drift from job to job, trying whatever takes their fancy, usually following an introduction from a family member or friend.

Both have been gifted expensive property in London - one a house in Henley-on-Thames, the other a penthouse in Soho - from the family property portfolio, which includes other London property, and houses abroad (Paris, Normandy, Hong Kong...)

Both are actually rather nice people, very sociable and excellent hosts. I mean, they'll still be first up against the wall when the Revolution comes, but they're not bad people.

It's so confusing isn't it? My family a couple of generations were firmly working class and now we're definitely not but I'm not sure where the line is. For instance, what about the person who grew up in a rough area and had a very working class family but managed to go to university when it was free and it was the leg up to a nice house and privately educated children? Surely they're upper middle class?

See, thats me, and I’m not.

As Matthew Paris’s said, of JR-M, the really posh never hyphenate. And his mother’s side of the family were from very different stock to his father’s. Ambitious, hard working , and solid working class.

Enough money and status that your lifestyle and ambit of choices are unaffected by political and fiscal changes, short of revolution.

So what are you? Middle middle class? My definition might be out, but surely it is somewhere in the MC?
And who defines anyway? Is it self id or objective measure?

I don't think I've ever met anybody who is upper middle class. Isn't Kate Middleton supposed to be?

No this is just normal middle class.

UMC is red chinos, second homes, boats, horses, public schools, labradors (yes labradors) and not giving an eff about anyone else despite ostentatiously pursuing charitable or environmental “causes”.

Upper middle class is not just having kids at private school.

It's being able to do this for multiple generations. It's multiple homes, private schools, skiing every year (at the right resorts), dive certificates, socializing at the right events, private healthcare as standard, the right social network...

UMC = public school, house in Fulham and one in 'the country', skiing & the Italian Lakes, club memberships, Rolex for 18th bday. Men are bankers, women work in PR Socialise exclusively with other UMC and minor aristos.