Not to know what is middle class

[Goldchilled7up]

Inspired by another thread in chat, what does middle class mean to you?

I seriously don't know. Aibu?

Surely you can become Middle Class though?

It has everything to do with money imo.

Surely you can become Middle Class though?

So it is something to aspire to then ? It really means zilch to anybody how much your house is or if your children go to private school or if you eat organic meat It doesn't mean anything it just shows that somebody has worked to get where they are,

They live in fear of everything.

They live in fear of everything.

That is just daily mail readers

There class doesn't change does it?

nope,

A sign that defining class is difficult for most of us lot in the middle is that I fit most of Margery's working class list and most of LTS' middle class list. Although much of the middle class list is about money. I can buy stuff till the cows come home .

Meant to say that I can buy stuff until the cows come home but I still would not be middle class

What on earth is supermarket fiction?

Yes I was wondering that Bonnie - hope someone can clarify!

books you can buy in the supermarket I am guess love stories or grim real life abused children stories that sort of thing you know normal books that a lot of people read,

Guessing*

Xpost mrsjay

oh so we did

Oh ok. Supermarkets also sell normal books too.

mrsjay I would say most of the people I know whom I would consider to be MC haven't worked hard to get there at all - quite the opposite. They were born to wealthy parents.

Poor people work hard to y'know!

I do think it is to do with the way you are bought up.

My DH and I are lucky to be able to afford all the m/c trappings . However we are both aware that we are both very fortunate to have them and therefore there is always a sense that we don't quite fit in with the people who have the same as us.

However our children have grown up in the detached house, with rooms full of books, holidays in the South of France, poncey food etc. They think it is normal and therefore I suspect they would refer to themselves as middle class.

Politicians from the 1980s onwards tried to convince us all that there's no such thing as class so that working class people would strive to escape their class into the middle class rather than bother about trying to improve life for those in the working class on the lowest wages with the lowest level of control over their own working conditions and with the lowest number of options regarding housing, education and healthcare.

Thatcher, New Labour and now the Coalition all do this, they divide the working class into those who aspire to be middle class and those who are 'feral' or 'broken britain' due to being left behind in areas of deprivation and low employment prospects for those who want to do a manual or menial job.

Not everybody in society can do managerial or professional work, and there isn't jobs for them, we need cleaners, shelf-stackers, care workers in the same way we used to need miners and factory workers, but by dismantling the idea that these people belong to a group who can stand together to improve the conditions of their entire group the politicians have succeeded in removing all their power, it's every man and woman for themselves now.

And to answer the OP - middle class to me means a range of things such as degree-level education, home ownership and paid a salary rather than an hourly rate in managerial or professional work.. not all of those conditions are required to be mc and not all people with them are mc but it's a rough guide.

i think i know all i need to about the class system from downton abbey...
upper class; dame glorious maggie, lord and lady granthem, lady mary, sybil and the other one...
middle class; mathew crawley (hes a doctor) and his mum

working class; maids,footmen,butlers,cooks and valets

i think thats about the long and short of it.