If you grew up poor and in bad areas, did you feel like you were missing out by not being middle class?

[cocolamer]

I grew up pretty poor and come from a housing scheme once considered one of the worst slums in Europe. My parents did manage to move to another scheme when I was 8 but it was still a poor area and my parents really struggled to make ends meet.

I was clever at school but it was rough and if you were clever you got bullied. I did escape into reading and I think it was though books, films and TV that discovered a different world of middle class people where people had things like holidays abroad, music lessons, ballet lessons, trips to the theatre or the museum, different kinds of food and experiences in life. I would have been about 7 when I realised I'd been born into the "wrong" life! I longed for all the trappings of a middle class lifestyle and loved to read books and watch films that depicted the kind of arty, intellectual middle class family life I wish I had myself.

It was something I really felt right though school and I did seek out by myself schemes that would allow me to get free music and art lessons (never did get to do ballet though sadly) I did go to university and have a home and life more like the one I wanted as a child although I have made peace with my working class background now and appreciate the good bits of it.

Did anyone else who did grow up poor notice and feel like they were missing out on all the benefits of a middle class upbringing like music lessons, the piano, the art gallery trips, the educated parents with lots of books? I certainly met middle class people at university who seemed to wish they had been brought up poor like the boy I dated from south London who had me convinced he was from the "ghetto" but was in fact from a lovely town house in leafy Greenwich and his parents were both academics at good London universities!

My mum was a single parent working as a carer and we did not live in council house, she private rented. I didn't get free school meals either even though I was entitled to them, I took a packed lunch.

I had a really odd childhood because my parents both grew up middle class but my Mum sort of downgraded and was always poor. She didn’t have the intellect of my Grandparents nor the artistic talent my Grandad has, she was better at more practical things so did hairdressing which didn’t pay well at all back then. My Dad is away with the fairies and was always convinced he would be a big actor so he spent most of my childhood chasing that. They split when I was a baby so my childhood was always torn between two worlds.

Mum was poor, struggled to make ends meet, we moved houses a lot because landlords would sell up so we didn’t have a choice then we moved to a really bad council estate which was horrific. I had rocks thrown at me, our cat was almost killed by an errant Rottweiler, someone tried to steal my Mum’s car so we had a bin bag window for a while, my brother got weil’s disease after playing in a fucking drain with a kid on the street… The house was awful too, just really run down and I was embarrassed by where we lived so I’d tell my friends I lived ‘near x museum’ which was up the road in a nicer area.

Anyway, my Dad always had money. No idea how, he certainly never made it as an actor but he was always flush. Weekends would be like a different world, he’d buy me whatever I wanted and take me wherever I wanted. He paid for extracurricular activities and took me on fancy holidays every year. I basically switched between being poor and rich every week, really fucking weird divide.

Subsequently not sure how to feel about my childhood. I was embarrassed about my home for most of my life and never felt any real connect with either of my parents, particularly my Mum. Like you, I sought solace in books and I’m now an English lit lecturer so I took that passion to the extreme.

Me too.

I don't agree that the definition of WC is unskilled labour. I wouldn't call plumbers,electricians,construction workers or any other trade job unskilled.

They are not unskilled labour. Unskilled labour is something like shelf stacking in a supermarket, manual labourer in construction. The trades you list are very skilled roles and often business owners. They are middle class.

Also between the 50s and 70s many WC people worked in the manufacturing industry and earnt enough money to buy their own houses. 100 % mortgages were very common back then, so no deposit was needed.

They are absolutely not MC jobs.

The life you yearned for is not the norm. The greatest start in life is having loving parents and a secure home. It sounds like you had that. All the horse riding, ballet, theater and piano lessons don't make up for that.

Agree @Ibizabar plumbers and the like aren't middle class jobs.

They aren't.

Middle class jobs are professions that require further education, usually degree level.

No, but I did want better for my children.

DH and I both came from very deprived back grounds and have done very well for ourselves considering.

We've both achieved more than we could have dreamt.

Being home owners was a "pinch ourselves" moment.

Every time we get on a plane we have a little "pinch ourselves" moment

We also feel like imposters everyone we buy something from Harrods/book a holiday/buy a piece of real jewellery etc.

Our children have the lives we dreamt of and never thought possible.

Yes. I have siblings, so it was a case of, you can't have any interests because of money and it's not fair on the others. I saw it more just before I started secondary school. At the end of year 6, you got to go away for a week to do all kinds of outdoors activities, and I couldn't go because of money, so I was stuck at school with a couple of others who couldn't go and do activities there. The teachers did try and make fun for us but it was nowhere near the same.

Secondary school was the same with trips to France, etc. Only it was 'get the money in quickly' which meant if your parents couldn't pay up the day after receiving the letter, you missed out because all those who had two working parents could pay straight away and places filled up. And it was every single trip.

I always wanted to start horse riding as a kid too and I would read up about horses, and buy the magazines just to feel a part of that world, even though I knew I'd never the chance.

I'm sure there's lots more examples I could give, but those are the ones that I have remembered the most :(

This is the same for me.

Mine don't know they are born either!

We used to hang out on street corners freezing. Mine goes the home and bargain cafe to do homework and have a cup of tea with her mates.

I'm really thankful she is like this. And not like I was!

They are not unskilled labour. Unskilled labour is something like shelf stacking in a supermarket, manual labourer in construction. The trades you list are very skilled roles and often business owners. They are middle class.

No way. Come off it. It's very possible to do well for yourself in those jobs but it doesn't make you MC. Some WC people have more money than MC people. Class is about more than just money.

But if you’re a plumber running a successful plumbing business, are you still WC?

Class can be hard to differentiate. Some people believe you can change class, others believe you can't but your children can. For some people middle class is anyone who owns a business or is a manager, but they would not necessarily share any culture or background with the MC beyond probably being marginally better paid. And you have traditionally WC jobs like the trades which don't involve a degree etc. but are much better paid than traditionally MC jobs now, especially any funded through the state so GP, social worker, teacher. Also a lot more people have degrees now and have access to more social and cultural opportunities, so can be culturally and educationally MC but not have any money. Class is constantly changing, and the definition is very subjective despite a lot of people trying to find a way to define it. No sooner have they found a definition that fits and there is a shift in society and the definition doesn't fit again. Somebody has to put an arbitrary line somewhere to create a distinction, but it can only ever be arbitrary because the difference because it is grouping the two teachers in a new build living next door to a nurse and an electrician in a matching house as being distinctly different from one another even though their lives are mostly the same.

Yes. Plenty of WC people have their own businesses. My DH had his own business for a while. We were still WC.

Some people believe you can change class, others believe you can't but your children can.

Some think it's only your children's children who can change class, and in the case of the Beckhams (possibly anyway).

Yes.

If I win the euro millions tomorrow (please) I won't suddenly become a different class.

There are more classes than just working, middle, and upper.

The move-betweeners usually fall into these categories. For example me on a low income, renting but in further education and having certain political/cultural interests put me in the emergent service worker class.

Somebody from a WC background who progresses themselves to the point of being as wealthy as traditionally MC people would be a "technical middle class".

If you got rich and pursue similar interests and have a similar field of influence as a MC person you will be called a "new affluent".

I agree that part of class is generational background, if you are going to categorise people in this way.

If I win the euro millions tomorrow (please) I won't suddenly become a different class.

That is true. And the example, at the other end of the scale, often given, is one of the royal family losing their position and fortune. They wouldn't just become working class and wouldn't be accepted as such.

Nursing has always been a middle class persons job.
it is a graduate profession.

'Nursing has always been a middle class persons job.
it is a graduate profession'

Not true. It's relatively recent that you needed a degree to go into nursing.

Regardless- it’s always been full of middle class women.

I actually think of nursing as being more working class than middle class, to me being a doctor is more middle to upper middle (in terms of occupation, rather than background, which are of course two different things)