To think that going comprehensive is an exit from the middle class?

[VolvoMo]

There may be a few minor exceptions (due to wealth or ideology) but doesn't going comp take away your middle class badge and worse, give your kids the chance to carry a big chip on their shoulder for their adult life.

loud shouty yobbish behaviour isn't a class indicator. Plenty of posh kids do it - go down to Newquay any summer. Some mate of Prince Harry's has just had his late night licence taken away for his club down in Fulham - a favoured hang out for the ex-public school champers louts who rather irritated the neighbours. Plenty of working class people are NOT yobs and plenty of posh people are.

No, exotic, but vair' vair' lower mid!

I agree edam- and the worst is that they are arrogant with it.

Totally agree edam

Exactly seeker- especially by those who want to feel superior, but even they don't say working class.

No you're right, though I suppose middle class do yobbish in a slightly different way. The ones that do. I can't describe it, but seriously neighbours are as rough as a badgers arse.

wasn't aimed at you, marriedinwhite

Oh, god, posh yob is awful. Give me the badgers arse every time.

Well, actually, keep me a million miles from either. But if I had to choose..........

Depends on what you think the middle class is really OP

I think only about 8% of kids go to private schools so that makes 92% of us working class by your definition.

In my own opinion I woud say that 92% of us are in reality working class wage slaves I certainly am despite/due to having attended a v expensive public school. My dd goes to a comprehensive.

OP I can think of no end of middle class children who went to comps and working class northerners who went to comps, did the Oxbridge route and have very middle class lifestyles/careers.

I think you are being a bit derogatory about comprehensives. In a lot of GB, out of huge cities, the comprehensive will be inclusive of most of the socio-economic demographic!

I live in an extremely middle class place- 92% at least are in the comprehensives and they do extremely well.

You would think from this that every middle class parent could afford school fees and that grammar schools were in every town! Not true on either count.

Lol at all the lather about class. Surely only demonstrates that no-one actually knows where class divisions lie. There are only subjective decisions about it; some people believe it is about behaviour, some about education, some about work and some about money. The op is called "Volvomo" I can't take the post seriously...

It does seem rather complicated. I'm an advocate for the badge system. I live in Wales and I have never in my whole life heard anyone ever talk about class. I find it rather fascinating though I have to say.

The problem about threads like this is that probably no two posters have the same definition of 'middle class', even if they think they do.

Personally I prefer Scout's definition in To Kill A Mockingbird of 'fine folks' as 'those who did the best they could with the sense they had'

I like that busty.

cory I would definitely decribe myself as nouveau riche, in that all the money DH and I have made we have most certainly made ourselves. Our skill, our talent, our intelligence, our graft.

I find it hilarious that poeple think this is A Bad Thing. And that becuae they weren't born in a council house that they are superior. I mean really? Really?

As I say folk love the working classes as long as they remain poor...

I regard myself as middle class as i own a house worth more than average and my income is also above average and I have never watch x factor or BGT

Haven't read the whole thread, but OP you sound utterly vile. I'm so glad I live nowhere near you and your horrid "private school" gang.

We could easily afford to send our children to private school, but choose not to because they'll probably turn out to be smug, materialistic wankers. Obviously that's great if you want to be Prime Minister, but not if you want to be a decent human being.

PS In this house we define class by which newspaper you read. Nuff said.

absolutely agree wordfactory

what I don't get is the attitude of some people that money in the hands of people with less education is somehow funny or incongruous or borderline offensive

not that I have ever made any money myself (and my grammar is pretty good)

I still don't get it: why would I feel the need to poke fun at people who have done better than myself with fewer advantages?

are people really that insecure?

I think the op is a bit anxious about her own class status and the spectre of the comprehensive reminds her of where she's come from.

The genuinely middle class wouldn't be insecure or give a single gram of fuck about how school choices impacted on their status.

I once worked in a very class conscious environment and the genuinely posh were fine, but it was the aspirant buggers that you really had to look out for. We at the bottom of the food chain were a living breathing reminder of where they'd come from. As such they treated us appallingly.

I think that it is sad in 21st century that we are still so class conscious.

I think that it is sad in 21st century that we are still so class conscious.

Meh. I couldn't give a stuff about class.