AIBU to wonder what activities/attributes/attitudes/acquisitions/attir e mark a person out as definitely middle class?

[PhylisStein]

I have just returned home from a Boden clothes party where I drank Prosecco and talked about house prices!

Am I middle class? How can I be sure? What else would mark me out as middle class?

Do I need more than one sort of houmous in my fridge at all times?

I met a woman who had those National Trust rope bannisters on her staircase, her whole house was plastered with pictures of the Countryside Alliance March against Hunting and her kitchen had an Aga (basement of city flat). She was so smotheringly MC that as DH and I left we were tempted to upend one of her foul faux marble urns at the door.

I have this very evening unsubscribed from Boden mailings on the grounds that having purchased one frumpy, oddly-sized and very poor quality dress ever which went straight to the charity shop, it is unlikely that i will buy from them again. Down the class snake to the very bottom of the board I suppose?

Or up carabos, you have seen through the emperors new clothes and so can pass.

I don't understand what makes someone middle class. To me that means kind of posh. But then I've had a few people in recent years refer to me as middle class. I don't get it. I grew up on a council estate in Liverpool and still have a bit of a twang; go shopping in my slippers and to school drop off in my pjamas; and consider dining out to be a bag of chips and a can of coke.

The first meal out my DH took me for was a bag of chips on the bench in the bus station ....

To me Middle Class is ...

ballet classes for your daughter
rugby for your son
drinking too much wine
driving a 4x4
John Lewis Lamps and soft furnishings with M and S funiture and faux ethnic touches
Eating locally sourced organic food - no pom bears or fruit shoots!
opera
hoildays on Mykonos

I forgot to add - growing your own vegetables and knowing what to do with things like pearl barley and polenta!

No to Boden, regardless of the class.
prosecco, not middle class(DH Italian we drink buckets of staff and we always have)
Drinking lot of good wine(DH Italian)
Eating lot of good food, fresh meat and fish, both of us competent cooks
DS played rugby, he had to, given up since.
Holidays: Greece, Dubrovnik, Italy etc.
Nothing middle class or posh about us, Continentals have no notion nor understanding of class, but they do have understanding of good life.
I have been known to venture to local shop in py's and slippers, and drive dd to school in the attire.

Yes knowledge of "what to do with polenta"
MIL half literate,in broken Italian/English showed me.

Wholemeal sandals and an A-line denim skirt.

Love wholemeal sandals - where can I get some?

Unpainted, nude toes in Birckenstokes, not a stitch of make up on, children with names yo can't pronounce let alone spell.

often very bad dress sense boden, white company dull sensible clothing with a dash of colour to make it look crazily individual

driving an audi estate car

to live in a big house in teh right area of courese send your children to private school and not have a pot to piss in

At the school gate, does not acknowledge lower classes (us in py's), instead gives you the evils.

I've never mastered giving people 'the evils' - perhaps I'm not really cut out for the middle class!

my OH was laughing about a family he saw on the train

little Sebastian, about 6 was reading the arts section of a broadsheet

I like your name FredBare :)

What mark's someone out as MC ? Oh let me tell you the ways...

• your parents were professional and you probably went to a good school.

• despite your good qualifications you chose a career/live in an area that does not afford you the lifestyle you enjoyed as a child.

• you now use other signifiers to mark out that you are middle class, including saying 'class is not about money' whenever you get the chance, calling anyone who has worked hard and made a bit 'new money' and turning your nose up at anyone who like to buy expensive cars, clothes or has a large telly.

• you are serious about parenting and have read many manuals. You are obsessive about salt, sugar, aspartame in your children's diets and police lunch boxes and children's party food like a columbian sniffer dog.

• you are serious about the environment and sort through your trash like a peruvian litter picker. You holiday in Norfolk (though this is because you can't afford a villa in Tuscany and would rather die than go to Turkey on a package tour).

• you only want your DC to be happy yet are already considering which is better - oxford or camebridge (hoping that a family member will have died by then to pay for it).

Brilliant wordfactory! Are you a writer btw? 'Cos you are very good!

proseco? sorry, you're not middle class. you need to be drinking at least non-vintage champagne.

ROFL So true, imogengladheart.

These self professed MCs are so obsessed with class, its unreal.

Everything they do is about proving how MC they are!

Hmmm, my dad was a diplomat and I went to boarding school. Grew up abroad with drivers, cooks, garden boys, maids. Rode at the Bangkok polo club. Went out with boys with trust funds and horrible drug habits.

Now I live in a deeply grim and not in any way gentrified part of south london, take my kids to macdonalds at least once a fortnight, and buy my clothes in Sainsbury's. My 12 year old dd goes to a rough comp and talks and dresses like Vickie Pollard. The junior school my other 2 dc's go to is pretty down-market too. When we mums meet up we tend to have our nights out at a Wetherspoons or Harvester.

But I still feel irredeemably middle class for some reason, despite all evidence that I've slid a long way down the social ladder. What's wrong with me?

ah wordfactory you are a woman after my own heart, brlliantly put.Can I add (less eloquently, just getting it all off my tits)

• child having oppositional defiant disorder/ untapped genius potential rather than being feral
• having your 'colours done' and spending days in coffee shops moaning about how little your husband earns (as oppposed to actually getting a job)
• black and white photos of children in the hall
• expensive smoothies in the fridge (and bottles of cheap champagne)
• still tapping daddy for money to try and give your children the childhood you had despite the fact that in the long run it didn't do you any favours

wonder why I don't get invited to mums' nights out ?