to want to appear to be more working class than lower, I mean, working class

[adelvice]

Over the last few weeks and months I have noticed more and more what a divide in the community there is between the Middle Class Mums and the Working Class Mums and it feels like we're back at school with the attractive, well turned out "popular" ones going one way and the kids from the council estates and highstreet branded gear going the other and just like when we were at school, I can't help but want to be more like the popular ones and would like for once to feel like I'm running with the in-crowd.

It feels bad though that my DD does not do the clubs, groups and other activities as the other mums one because I work and secondly because I really cannot afford the £4.50 a lesson fees! Also, I don't dare invite any of the mums to our house to try to make friendships as I work full time and struggle to keep the house tip top and would hate for them to see how we live!

I wonder though if I'm the only working class mum who is feeling the class divide at the moment?

I've name changed by the way as I don't want you to find out that I'm really a lower class bum and don't really shop at Boden at all, and instead just paw at the pages waiting for it to be on ebay the sale

Its so easy for people to say don't let it bother you when you feel lonely and don't fit in. My family is working class and we live in an HA house on an old council estate. My son went to our local catchment area school but wasn't settling in very well there. I noticed whilst I was doing the school run that I didn't fit in there and was even told by a couple of the mums that they didn't talk to me because I spoke well and wasn't "one of them" I moved my son to the only other school in the area after 6 months as he really hadn't settled. Now he has been there for nearly a year now and he has settled in lovely and is doing really well, but I don't fit in there either! I'm not "middle class" I don't drive a 4x4, I don't have a £900 Chloe handbag and I don't own my own home and have a cleaner or a nanny!

Now I can honestly say I really didn't/don't fit in with any of them. In the old school, I did have a few play dates and met the mums and made an effort, but we honestly had nothing in common and they were right I did speak well, compared to them anyway and I wasn't one of them. Me and my DP don't drink or go down the pub, we're not into football and the last time I went out clubbing was 5 years ago. We don't let our 5 year old (at the time)son out to play on the streets until 830pm at night and then wonder where he was and that the "little shit" didn't come home until 10pm!!

I now find at the new school that again I can't talk to the mums about much, I have no nanny or cleaner issues, I haven't had a lovely 2 week holiday in the Caribbean and am wondering where to go skiing over xmas and new year.

Where does a person like me fit in? What sort of a person am I that makes 2 completely different types of people not want to say hello to me? I say hello to them, I smile and try, maybe that's what I'm doing wrong, maybe I'm trying too hard?

Class does matter especially if you are ostracised for it.

Class isn't about earnings. Teaching is a traditionally m/c occupation because it is a profession and requires further ed whereas banking isn't necessarily despite it earning more. Outdated system (shoddy sentences due one handed typing), this link quite good: here

I don't really care about class, or the state of your house/what car you drive as long as you are a nice person and have similar ideas and interests to me. OP and Emjxxx I feel so sorry for you!! Where are all the normal people? Is there really such a divide that everyone fits into either 'chav' or 'yummy mummy' stereo type? I guess I fit into the "educated slacker' mold, I am middle class enough to speak well and have a degree but I don't care enough about appearances and conspicuous wealth to have a flash car and wear make up everytime I leave the house. (plus I hate 4x4 and Boden!!) Mind you I haven't had my kids yet (due in June) so maybe this is a shock yet to come!

Are there other avenues you could use to meet like minded people rather than just thru the schools which are obviously catchment based. Crafts/environmental/arts clubs etc?

What Rocketleaf said.

I've read some of this and am still confused as to why it should even begin to matter to anyone.

I suppose I was/am upper middle, from land owning horsy types but I was brought up to deal with everyone as equals from the labourers, with whose children I happily played to the local MP with whose children I also happily played along with the children of other farming types. Neither of my grandparents went to uni - the land came via my grannie whose brothers were killed in the war but they were both very well educated. Neither did my mother or I go to university although I became professionally qualified after the DC were born. I carved a successful career in the City in my twenties and was as happy to spend time with work contemporaries on the trading floor as I was with the more plummy corporate finance brigade. My mother has spent almost all her money principally on three marrriages and I will inherit a modest sum, if anything eventually.

DH comes from parents who were originally working class but his mother became a teacher and his father an engineer through education. Their parents were miners and in service. Although, principally because they have scrimped all their lives and actually had very good jobs, they are worth a considerable amount of money but they are incredibly chippy and talk continually about people like us can't mix with people like them and it is frankly tedious and I cannot help but think they are the only ones to think it. The bitterness is palpable and that is why, in my opinion, they had/have very few friends. On the other hand the MIL is unspeakably snobby about people she thinks are uneducated and common, like her hairdresser, called Tracy - ha ha. My mother would never ever think so badly or be so rude about anyone and neither would I.

DH is I suppose very much a professional, we are extremely comfortable but not I would say rich. I work full time from choice. One DC is at independent and one at state. Both when state at primary. We have done what is best for them as two very different individuals.

I can honestly say that I have everything I want but actually I don't want very much. I am happy with Boden (sorry) and M&S and very happy to drive a 10 year old car and park it up alongside the 4 wd Volvos at school. I simply don't care on school open days when I am in per una next to the mums in LK Bennett and they don't care either, probably because they know I don't care - and I'm happy to say gosh that coat look fab or what a brilliant dress and you look lovely but I just don't want or need that sort of stuff and I don't think they look down on me for it. I'm pretty sure though that some of their houses aren't paid for and that some of them have far more to worry about than me.

Oh god what a long rant and I bet none of it makes much sense - just my way of trying to say others will only care if you care yourself and try to anything other than who you really are.

ClassyDiva Er, I'm a teacher and so is DH and although we don't earn 100k we earn a lot more than 25K. Not that this has anything to do with class but check your facts first.

Anyway, does wearing Boden make you middle class or just a bit dull? Tbh i think it is quite difficult to define class, I'm from a very working class background but would probably be seen as middle class through education, profession etc