What defines "class" in a family?

[chatenoire]

It got me thinking as my DH would be considered WC on his own (manual work low salary, GCSE), whereas I come from a more middle class (parents went to uni, I have a master's). Our joint income is just above £100k. So my assumption is that as a family we're MC.

Joint interests are going on mini breaks, a bit outdoorsy (but no camping!), the arts, but we also like going to your average indie gig.

Ireland absolutely has a class system, just rather less stratified and much less segregated by education than England’s — and because almost Industrial Revolution, and a largely rural country till fairly recently, landless labourer/ strong farmer/small farmer, the social hierarchies of the religious orders and various smalltown occupations were more key than WC/MC etc. And of course, most of the UC was made up of colonial settlers’ descendants for a long time.

OP, your UMC family are clearly unimpressed you ‘married down’. Can you really have been so unaware of this in marrying your DH?

I think it’s a lot more complex than just your income and interests. My own household for example:
Both went to uni but were also both the first in our families to go
Combined income of about £80,000 per year with me being part time but we are both nurses and work pretty much all unsociable hours, working opposite each other to avoid childcare costs.
Spent the weekend at a NT site and an exhibition at an art gallery which probably made us look superficially quite MC but we don’t consider ourselves to be.
We are from very WC backgrounds.

@wingingit1987 yes your right this is where it becomes more attitude than financial. For example, there are many wealthy tradespeople but I imagine may still identify as WC. Similarly a high flier who has become bankrupt is still MC…upbringing, attitude and self identification come into it.

I grew up in social housing in Scotland. It wasn’t until I moved the the HC in England that I became aware of the concept of class and TBH I didn’t really know what it meant!

I find now that some people are very interested in it, in a bit of a competitive way and I find that whole experience quite interesting. It was never a thing for me growing up. Everyone I knew was juts like me and my family. We went to the local school, we never ever had people round for dinners, we would have parties with aunts and uncles and lots of booze. It was all very cosy and convivial and we grew up in our neighbours pockets.

I can see now I grew up in a very warm WC house and area and have since “moved up” in the world. But my values are the same.

This reminds me of a John Hegley poem ;

"I remember Luton as I'm swallowing my crouton," reads his pithy paean, half buried beneath its marvellous subtitle: A Poem About The Town Of My Upbringing And The Conflict Between My Working Class Origins And The Middle Class Status Conferred Upon Me By A University Education.
From a review in The Guardian

www.theguardian.com/theguide/comedy/story/0,,1803453,00.html

You really want to ensure yourself you still middle class dont you OP. This thread made me cringe.

my wage alone is £100k and husband £250k. We waaayy more comfortable than you. We got holiday house in spain, we went holiday a lot and flight business class everywhere. And i still consider my family as WORKING CLASS, because we still need to work. For me it doesnt matter if you WC,MC or upper class. What matter now how comfortable your life is.

i got friend who really snob, her DH is privately educated and oxford graduate, choosing classic names for their kids, only shops in waitrose, speak RP, children go to private school. But they still renting, really struggling with day to day but doesnt wanna change their lifestyle, just because they dont wanna mixed with MC. Its stupid and snobbish and ridiculous. Why people feel better if they MC? Let me tell you now, it doesnt matter what class are you. What matter now is how rich are you 🤣🤣

sorry i’m bragging here. I always hate thread like this 🤣🤣

I love fact that op came back with express purpose to state that she was upper middle class growing up

but no one actually asked her that question!! 😂

Your water alone is £100k.

odd then that last week you posted

i’m not working at the moment, DH still 45years old. We only have 5k in saving which will be gone because we going to holiday soon

@Abcdefgh1234

🤔

You earn not your water!

The point I was trying to make is that becoming rich, or becoming poor has little to do with "class" surely. Anyone can become rich if they make the right decisions, get into the right job etc., just as people who are rich can easily become poor if they make the wrong decisions.

Maybe life is just different where I come from .......

I'm guessing they'd accept him. Although they didn't like any of my other serious relationships. Apart from a fairly UMC French one that my DM met a handful of times. He definitely considered himself (and his family) a "petit bourgeois" .

The more you tell us about your parents Op, the more 🤢 I feel about them!

have you heard of the stately homes thread?

I'm guessing they'd accept him.

I am confused. So they hid their prejudices re your husband from you until you were married?

You’re ‘guessing’ they’d accept him? But don’t they know him? Are they dead? Sorry if I’m being dense, or if you explained and I missed it.

X-post with @Floppyear .

Someone on an earlier post mentioned taking off your shoes when entering your/someone’s house. I’m confused… Is this MC or WC?

Basically! Up until we got fairly serious... Even my DM told me that once the "honeymoon stage" ended it would all go downhill.

Nowadays they say he's a "nice man", but still think he's lazy and doesn't work as hard as I do.

I can’t imagine having a relationship with my parents if they thought so derogatory things of my husband

Your parents really do sound a bit crap op

I could not tolerate my parents being so horribly snobby to my life partner. That’s awful! Have you no respect for him or yourself??

But how hard he works is irrelevant to his class?

I agree, though it’s more puzzling to me that they apparently say these things freely to the OP.

Having said that, there’s a certain disingenuousness to some of the posts in response to the OP’s last. I can easily imagine the parents on here saying ‘AIBU to think my daughter, who is a hardworking high earner with a master’s degree, could do better than a low-paid manual worker with only GCSEs and no desire to earn more/retrain?’

i think the op shared her parents view of her husband

And continues to

I agree, she seems very keen to describe herself as “middle class” and just generally quite concerned with what class she is perceived as. It’s really quite sad and snobbish.