Are you middle class or not, the Allegra McEverdy test

[Teatime55]

In the frankly bizarre Guardian article today, Jack Monroe says she didn’t realise she was working class until she met Allegra. (I think shes trying to defend her WC credentials).

So Allegra went to St Paul’s, her dad went to Harrow and Oxford, and was a psychiatrist etc. Dhe built a business that sold for millions.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegra_McEvedy

Anyway compared to Allegra I am definitely working class, are you?

I've just read JM's wiki and can see she was for several years prior to meeting Allegra. Don't know why I didn't think of that before.

A propos of nothing, I feel compelled to point out that Allegea McEvedy’s Big Table, Busy Kitchen is one of my favourite cookbooks. The sausage fennel pasta sauce is divine.

Quick Quick Slow is also wonderful – we make the pistachio pesto all the time.

I think we are all wc compared to Allegra. Or the vast majority of us anyway.

pretty much every guardian writer is middle class pretending to be wc. That’s why JM doesn’t stand out for them

Completely agree here.

But my point has been that there is no standardised definition of middle class so its a moot argument.

Is it based upon education? Income? (because the two aren't necessarily correlated). Standards of conduct/behaviour? Food choices? Musical preferences? Preferred hobbies and interests?

And you're quite right that a dinner lady isn't comparable to a barrister but it depends on a lot of things doesn't it? My boyfriend's mum was a dinner lady. She has a beautifully furnished home that she owns outright. I have a degree and an MA and earn c£35k in a professional career and yet my rented house is furnished with ikea and hand-me-downs. Financially, she is better off than I'll ever be but I am better educated than her. I have given my children better opportunities and more 'middle class' interests than she gave hers but she lives in a far more desirable area than I do.

One side of my ex husband's family was really rough. 'Common' even. But they included millionaires who were far more privileged than my children or I have ever been. They certainly werent 'middle class' by anyones's standards though. I could go on.

I'm not saying some people aren't more privileged than others.

Being born into or living in poverty isn't a marker of being working class. Amd it osnt the same. I know many people who would the considered 'working class'. I don't know anyone living in poverty.

And many of them are better off financially and more privileged than I am and yet many of them would (and do) consider me 'middle class'.

My parents were working class. I didn't grow up in poverty. I also know a very 'middle class' (by most people's standards) family who relied on food banks for a year.

Class is complex.
My dad was working class, my mum lower middle class. We had a fair amount of money as a kid because of business success.

I’d describe myself as lower middle class because I went to state school and never had riding lessons 😂

Simon Hattenstone
Take class, for example. Jack has been called out for flipping between saying she’s working class and middle-class. But loads of us are in class limbo. I grew up thinking I was middle-class – Dad had left school at 14, but now had a clothes shop and was an employer; Mum taught kids with special educational needs. When I started at the Guardian I felt more working class because so many of the people around me had had more privileged upbringings. Similarly with Monroe. But I’ve not been called a liar or hypocrite for it.

But loads of us are in class limbo.

That's a good way of putting it.

And it's because it's meaningless.

I care about how people behave; their social values/attitude; how they treat other people; their interests; their curiosity in the world. I don't give a shit where someone went to school, how much money they earn or their postcode!

Same @grey

Compared to Allegra McEverdy I'm working class, compared to Jack Monroe I'm working class. According to the BBC class calculator I'm not true working class, but either precariat or emerging service worker because true working class have more money than me.

Posted too soon

Same @GreyCarpet

But lots of people clearly do care. Hence why they rush to buy the traditional signifiers of being middle-class. Or recoil in horror from anything that might mark them as working class even if they or their children would like it/enjoy it. Or make a point of asking what school you went to when they first meet you/interview you. Or (a la jack Monroe) loudly proclaim their class in every other tweet.

And if I am being really honest I imagine it is easier for me not to think about it or care because I come from a long line of middle class professionals and I am also a comfortably off professional. I imagine those moving up or down the wealth /class spectrum may think /worry more about it?

It was an absolutely standard experience for grammar school kids through much of the last century.
You stand out as ‘posh’ in a working class area and then go to university (or in Jack’s case meet posher people through work) and find yourself seen as common among the private school people you meet there.
There are different ways of dealing with it- you gravitate to a peer group with the same background, often subconsciously, or you completely ignore the whole shenanigans and make friends with people from all over the class spectrum who also don’t care. (Oh and there are always one or two people who fake a posh background but that tends to end badly.)
Perhaps it’s been made harder for people of Jack’s generation than it was for my parents by the fact that constantly labelling yourself is such a thing now - it’s harder to avoid inconsistency in labelling yourself if you have to do it more often.

Well, I work as a lone middle class person in a charity that otherwise employs 100% working class people. And has upper class patrons.

It's noticeable in lots and lots of different ways, without a particular bias towards one class or the other. Good and bad in all.

But those differences are real and tangible, and materially, all the benefits are in MY, resoundingly middle class favour. Or to the upper class.

So whilst you may not notice it in real life (maybe because people socially mask in front of you, or because you don't have as wide and direct an experience of class differences as you think you do- quite common amongst the middle classes), it categorically has relevance. The charity I work for has to work bloody hard reversing the effects of class, so I do find it frustrating when people dismiss it.

I’m not sure the bbc calculator is correct, it reckons I’m elite. Mainly because I like going to art galleries and stately homes I think. And yes, earn a good wage.

i’d say I’m middle class probably. But Allegra sounds far more middle class than me and I suspect Jack might be more middle class than me.

Allegra is from the same class as my dad, upper middle. Jack is either solidly middle or maybe lower middle. Comparing yourself to someone from Allegra's background doesn't make you working class! She's a joke.

It’s not that complicated. Blue collar job = working class. White collar job = middle class. Upper class= the remnants of the landed gentry. There is a widening gulf now between lower and upper middle.

I agree that it's silly to pretend class distinctions don't exist. But how the hell do you define them? You can do it by income, I guess. But that isn't really the same as 'having class'. I know several rich people, for example, who are ignorant, loud, vulgar and repellent. They have plenty of money, but no class. And I know other people who live in social housing yet have post-graduate degrees.

I've never connected social class with money. For me, your class is determined by:

Your level of education
Your reading habits
Your taste (in art, books, fashion, jokes, etc)
Your way of speaking (by which I don't mean an RP accent, I just mean pleasant, sensible and articulate)
Your manners/how you conduct yourself/how you interact with others

Of the traits I've listed, how you conduct yourself/interact with others is the most important. Some people just have no idea how to behave. They are incapable of holding a civilized conversation. Instead, they talk over you, assert things aggressively, beat you down on every point, avoid eye contact, and so on.

For example, I belong to a book group. The people who attend are all polite, intelligent, and well-read. None of them are rich, none of them went to private schools, and none of them are 'posh'. In fact, a couple of them live in social housing. But they know how to behave. They smile, ask how your weekend was, make self-effacing jokes, listen when you speak, disagree in a calm and non-threatening manner, etc. I can think of several very rich people, however, who wouldn't fit into that group. They are too loud and brash and common (and pretentious). They wouldn't be comfortable because they wouldn't know how to behave.

I don't need to compare myself to somebody to know I'm working class. I am very clearly working class. I didn't go to college or uni, had a baby at 17, we live in a HA flat, I have an unskilled job, I watch shit TV, don't read much and drink cider and vodka.

The most middle class things I do is discussing social class on mumsnet

Haha. I find it amusing when some people decide not to do something because it doesn't fit into their class bubble - and vice versa. You'd see some people painfully enduring, for example classical music despite not being able to stand it, because "it's what the upperclass do".😆

Talk about limiting yourself for an arbitrary system. Most regular people don't quite fit into one neat box unless they're trying to do so (and this goes for everyone in every 'class').

I rode because my dad thought it was a valid form of transport!

He was Welsh rural class, the "middle class" yummy mummies at our class used to run over and check child if the horse threw them off, me, well my dad blamed me not the horse and threw me back on the saddle. I clearly didn't realise all this at the time. I just thought you got back on!

Agreed. I tend to feel sorry for people who cling religiously to class signifiers though as I assume it is a sign of insecurity.

Upper class parents would rather die than rush over to check on their child when it falls off. Mind you they wouldn't be seen dead at a riding school either 😂