What do you think denotes class?

[CheeseWisely]

Hoping to keep this lighthearted. Inspired by a conversation with DH who wasn’t brought up in the UK so is a bit baffled by our class system.

What denotes different classes to you? I was brought up very working class (single parent, council estate) so can’t see myself as anything else, probably unless I had a lottery win type of change in fortunes.

We earn on paper a good amount between us now, but we also live in a very expensive part of the world, so the detached house with land I would associate with ‘middle class’ is still way out of our reach. We have a comfortable life but still live in a flat.

Can you move up a class? If so what factors would decide that? Earnings? Social circle? Attitude?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Treating everyone with consideration and respect no matter who they are. That's class.

I agree, but for the purposes of the thread I’ll clarify working / middle / upper class.

If you are asking about it you are working, if you are bothered by it you are middle and if you don’t give a fuck you are upper.

Except the upper classes are as obsessed as anyone else, they just pretend they're not 😄

But what class?

Working - you wipe your nose on your sleeve
Middle - you use a tissue
Upper - you wipe it on someone else

You're throwing your usual NYE party. Which member of the school staff is most likely to be there: the headteacher, the teaching assistant or the caretaker?

Taking a shortcut through the churchyard you encounter the vicar. Which greeting do you use?
Evening Welby
Hello Justin
Good evening Mr Welby
Evening Vicar

Of all the hospitality establishments within 5 miles of your home, which would you feel uncomfortable walking into?

Your next-door neighbour tells you that her niece is applying for nursing courses. Do you consider this an aspirational career choice?

Has any of your domestic arrangements been criticised on Mumsnet for being (a) chavvy or (b) posh?

DH wiped his nose on a muslin cloth (as he was putting it in the washing machine) earlier. Not sure what that makes him 😂

If you’re on Mumsnet you’re middle class. Or that’s what everyone tends to want to believe!

This guide used to be considered infallible 😁
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_and_non-U_English

If you are working class you have a washing up bowl.

Honestly the poshest people I’ve met have no interest at all in class. The lower middle and upper working seem a bit obsessed with it, but really I don’t think anyone else cares.

If posh people have no interest in class, where did the PLU stuff come from?

Isn’t it upper middle?

I studied Sociology, so working class would be manual occupations, middle class is white collar jobs. Upper class is characterised by wealth - they tend to own land, businesses, assets.

If you then look at social characteristics, there is demarcation around leisure interests, these have and continue to change over time. Both working and middle class have had more disposable income, so it's quite blurry.

Arguably there's also an underclass in Britain which is families with intergenerational benefit dependency in areas of high economic deprivation.

Thanks for the responses. I think DH’s pondering (that I don’t know how to answer) comes from the fact that we have some friends who definitely grew up working class, but now doing very well for themselves live in +£1mil properties, kids at fee-paying schools etc. He thinks therefore they must be middle, but I having known them for decades still see them as working. I don’t know how to define it in a way that makes sense to him (or me; frankly).

There are no demarcation points between classes. It is a very broad spectrum.

Everyone and his dog likes to think they are middle class because they have a good standard of living, a managerial job, play golf and shop at Waitrose. It is not that simple because money does not buy class.

You can certainly be rich WC.

I’d class myself as ‘educated WC’ — I have several postgraduate degrees and though far from rich, work in a traditionally MC profession, but I grew up in a very poor, overcrowded household, daughter of a binman and a cleaner. I was the first in my family to stay in education past 14.

The UC cares a lot. They don't talk about it with others outside of their class though.

Think of it as a caste system and all will become clear.

What matters is 'who your people are' - your pedigree.