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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Affluence and Class - Linked?

160 replies

deviladvocate · 17/10/2011 14:06

Prompted by thread in chat regarding being middle class, I was startled at how many posters were offended by the suggestion that being middle class was defined by income.

AIBU to think that affluence and class are inextricably linked? Doesn't being able to move beyond simply providing food and shelter for your family mean that you become middle class - by virtue of being able to focus on the nice-to haves and not just on the essentials?

OP posts:
marriedinwhite · 19/10/2011 19:38

Who cares. DH will always be working class - his mother was a teacher, his father an engineer and they both grew up in absolute poverty. DH went to the local comp - but then O or C - don't want to blow cover - is a very successful professional and earns midway into six figures nowadays. He wears the stuff he needs to wear to work, has a massive book collection, adores fine wine and good music (but prefers my cooking to fine dining), reads the FT.

In his eyes he will never ever be middle class because his grandad went down the mine on his 14th birthday and he never mixed with the nobs back home. He is liked by everyone and never tries to be anything he isn't but still never feels completely at ease with what he calls posh people - except me.

DH has provided our family with its affluence and its middle class life style but my, probably upper middle class upbringing and support (and a few bob in the early days to get him on his way) have probably helped him with the confidence he needed to hob nob with clients and partners etc., in the earlier days, because I can "work" a room and natter with ease about little or nothing - or at least without giving an opinion (oh the private joy of mumsnet!) - because that's what I watched my mother and grandmother do.

Left to my earning power we would live the life of a senior manager probably, scraping for school fees and holidays and keeping up appearances on a crust. With DH we live the same lifestyle but don't feel the need to keep up appearances and for years I happily drove an old banger, the furniture's falling apart, the carpets could do with a clean, the cats are moggies, but when there's a stash in the bank and you have paid all the school fees in advance and can look the Head Teacher in the eye, you really don't have to flaunt it.

I even splashed out on a £70.00 suit from M&S at the weekend Grin !

PigletJohn · 19/10/2011 20:23

"his mother was a teacher, his father an engineer"

I'd call those MC professions.

northcountrygirl · 19/10/2011 21:03

They may well be MC professions but it's more than that. I would say it's more to do with attitude.

My own parents had MC professions - mother was an accountant and father was in the police. But, my mum was brought up in a council house and my Dad in a 2 up 2 down. I also have an MC profession but i'm still working class. In fact, to be fair, I'm probably even more working class than my parents. I think it's to do with having "class" - something of which I have none Grin

Pendeen · 04/11/2011 11:21

pigletjohn
Teacher maybe, engineer probably not as anyone can call themselves an engineer.

northcountrygirl
Police is a most certainly not a "middle class career."

Thehusbandsatcricketagain · 04/11/2011 11:32

oh deary me,I was raised in a very middle class family but now me & dh both work to provide extras for dc but we do not live in one of the big houses but teeny little terrace on the wrong side of town,both sets of parents still live in the big houses we both grew up in but we are paupers so what does that make us middle class who slid down the class ladder into poverty

& neither of our parents will give us money (though they can both afford it & do mountains of stuff with their money)so we remain poor financially yet we teach our children the way we were bought up,to play musical instruments & get involved in all sorts of stuff

so to sum up my ramblings no class & affluence are not one & the same

fluffy123 · 04/11/2011 11:37

I grew up working class, dad was a painter and decorator , lived on massive council estate . Now a sahm married to a banker living 6 figure lifestyle. Love trashy T.v but also read the times. Went to uni, have loads of massive tv's and gadgets. Live in a middle class area but feel I don't quite fit in with the other mums. Have the wrong accent for the middle class mums and really different lifestyle and house and financial situation than some of the working class people I know.

aquashiv · 04/11/2011 12:09

Its all just bullshit.

notcitrus · 04/11/2011 13:15

I think it was clearer back when my dad was at school - his family were clear working class, no education after 14, mostly manual jobs, council house, etc. He then got into the grammar school which saw its remit partly as making the bright working class boys into middle-class ones: banning local dialect words, ensuring they valued education, aspired to home ownership, white-collar jobs, and university and to their children 'doing better than them' rather than 'good enough for me, it's good enough for them'

Of course they didn't completely believe a working-class boy could become middle-class by 18 as shown when they refused to let my dad apply for Oxbridge as 'it's not for the likes of you', but that was clearly the idea.

Result is my immediate family are clearly middle-class by any definitions but I'd never tell my dad that, whereas my dad's brother (sec mod, left school at 14, etc) is every working-class stereotype and confused by his children doing non-working-class things like considering degrees and moving away from their home town. My dad was an impoverished academic for many years while Uncle had more money, but education later paid off for my dad and he's a lot better off than my uncle in the long term.

seeker · 04/11/2011 13:20

Nope. Class and wealth a completely different things.

SinicalSal · 04/11/2011 14:58

understatement* is the mark of the mc, I think. Clothes, gadgets, cars, paint on living room walls.

Also, attitude to reading. No need to do much of it yourself, as long as you appreciate the value of it.

  • understatement, except when it comes to DC's education.
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