To wonder why we are happy to define middle class but not working class?

[Argos]

This is continued from another thread but I felt it deserved it's own because it is something I would like to get views on! There was a thread on MN earlier this week along teh lines of what makes someone middle class and posters wrote long lists of their ideas on this.

Why when people define working class in the same way do they recieve lots of 's and patrionising comments?

I am not class obsessed, I just want to know why this is.

i think its probably true to say this:

the true working class don't want to be labelled as such. So those of us who are working calss and proud - probably aren't

All right then.

I am nouveau riche

Of course it's very middle class to even think about class...

I wish I were nouveau riche.

Any kind of riche would do.

Filthy stinking riche would be nice.

Actually nouveau riche is going a bit far.

perhaps jumped up parvenu describes me well

Someone once called me an arriviste which I think was menat as a put down, but actually I liked the sound of it.

Even cutting putdowns sounds quite desirable if you say them in French.

i was class aware when i was a kid. i ws aware my mother didn't want to mix with certain people and didn;t want me to either. She stopped me from seeing certain friends (who came from god families looking back)

I thnk self denial if a very middle class thing. having money in property or the bank but not spending it and sticking on an extra (homemade) knitted jumper.

charity shops is another one.

my dh who was brought up v. firmly poor as poor can be didn't used to like going in charity shops becuase he genuinely held the view that they were for poor people.

his love of spending and bargains prevailed over many years though

parvenu is my favourite - i love that word

Of course it's very middle class to even think about class...

Bourgeois, moi? :)

Upper class
Excellent job
Degree qual
massive house
never worrying about pennies

Sorry StrandedBear, I don't agree with this list. I've known a few 'Upper-Class' people and they've nearly all been jobless. They may do a bit here or there in a photography studio or charity but they never seem to have a proper job. I think that what you describe is the Upper Middle Class. The Upper Class live off inherited money and rent from land they own.

I think saving V spending is a (very sweeping) class indicator.

Middle classes save for something substantial, like a pension fund, or an ISA, which will go towards school fees or something.

Working classes save and then have a fucking good Christmas

underclass get the money from the provvy

I read a funny article some time back about Clegg and Call Me Dave - Clegg was Middle-Upper-Middle (he went to Westminster, then Cambridge which is less smart than Oxford, he family weren't quite top drawer, darling ) and Dave is Eton, Oxford, Bullingdon, smarter family which makes him Upper-Upper-Middle. And he has bettered himself by marrying up into the upper classes.

I think the British have an instinct for who fits where. It's not easily defined. We all recognise the Downton Abbey sterotypes but in reality it's much more subtle and people shift their class. Salaries are a red herring. Alan Sugar - hugely wealthy but from working class background. Likewise David Beckham etc. I know an elderly duchess who lives in a small rented room and is penniless. Upper class beyond the dreams of Julian Fellowes but no degree, no owned home, no money. There are lots of monied, upperclass twit types who could never dream of getting a degree - or a job. Not much different to Essex types (as in TOWIE) except for postcodes and accent.

And it's not just Britain - we happen to excel in costume drama and had a more obvious historical class system. But French friends are very aware of social division, and Italian and Russian friends. And American. And Indian - hugely. The caste system and the old class system not so different - I think there was a sympathetic understanding of that during the Raj - I know not that simple and complicated by race but there were parallels for sure. I think it's human nature. We are not solitary, we live in packs and arrange ourselves in hierachies like wolves or chimps....we just talk more.

Not in my case, Trillian - I feel I was pushed into identifying as working-class because of the amount of people who perceived me that way when I moved to England, and had no trouble making it very plain to me where my position in the pyramid/Venn diagram was. My doctorate, multilingualism etc doesn't seem to 'count' as an 'alleviation' to my origins. I can't say I'm all that bothered, and sometimes it tickles me, but it comes up on a not infrequent basis, and I've just had to learn to deal with it.

It's probbaly complicated by my Irishness, too - there seems to be a tendency to equate Irishness and working-class-ness for a certain kind of upper-middle-class English person. As one small example, I've had the immediate family of close friends (middle-middle-class shading towards upper-middle, well-to-do academics, beautiful old house in Derbyshire) congratulate me on not being out of my depth at their dinner parties, or on not being over-awed by the splendour of my surroundings when staying with them, and people explicitly expressing their puzzlement that 'someone like you' went to Oxford, or remarking on my 'brogue'.

Upper class - really doesn't involve money necessarily. Much inherited land is sold - not all of course - there are many levels. Lots of upper class people who are broke. Friend of mine now in Ireland, kids constantly ill due to damp, tiny falling down cottage - far too proud EVER to sign on and also feels he would be taking from 'the poor'. Frankly he is The Poor but would never see himself that way. Scrapes a living doing odd jobs. So could be called working class in that he works as much as he can and just manages to support his family - but you'd know those upper vowels and manners (yes I know - not all Uppers are polite but you know what I mean) betray a very different background. He's a gentleman. But on his uppers in every way!

Anecdotes but one description can't sum it up.

I'm working class. Dad was a carpenter, mum a housewife. I was educated to GCSE standard. I'm an office manager and DP is a fireman.

What would this be then? Mate was a secretary, her dad was a shef, mum was a cleaner, she married a solicitor and now has shed loads of money - is she still "working class" or gone upwardly mobile

She's still working class mums

Good! as that won't please her in the slightest, she has a touch of the Hyacinth Bucket's about her (grin).

Thanks Catgirl.

Only by a very rigid and narrow definition catgirl.

At the start of the thread someone says class is proportional to the amt if £ you have. What utter rubbish? How do you explain Wayne Rooney who has no class at all. You can have class and be poor by behaving well and setting an example to others!!

Well I don't know to be honest = it sounds to me like her DH might be middle but marrying someone doesnt change who you are so I would stick with working :) especially if she is a bit hyacinth

I'm working class.

I sell my labour for money as does dh in professional jobs but we will never inherit money.

That's working class. Too many confuse unattractive underclass with the real working class. You don't have to be manual labour to be working class - dh is a teacher and I'm a counsellor.

vickibee the thread is not about having class it is about defining different social classes - they are not the same thing