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?

It's on the Channel 4 variety of iPlayer - it's really worth watching, although quite cringe-worthy to recognise yourself and your tastes so clearly (if you do...) Basically you recognise that you have no individuality at all, and that instead you are Inextricably Linked to Your Cultural Milieu (but that your half-formed realisation of this drives you in a perpetual unattainable search for self-expression).

Scarlett it doesn't offend as I do not aspire to be middle class.

But is that really all they have in common? Not all homeowners? All working/worked in professional occupations? Take an interest in similar styles of music/art/literature?

I have professional qualifications (Chartered accountant, MBA and now studying for another prof qual) but no "first" degree. My DH went to a RG uni.
As we have the financial means, my DCs will most probably go to uni. Will they and my DH be middle class but I am doomed to be forever the working class odd-one-out?

grendel whats it called, i cant find it

My DM didn't go to university but her father was a high ranking army officer and her mother of the jam-making, flower-arranging, book-club WI type of lady what lunches. She's middle class I would say-in that she's not aristocracy and she's always worked in professional fields (ie education). If there's any definition I'd say it's that the middle class is everyone who's not landed gentry or in an unskilled job...I think?!

What do you class as unskilled though?

Here is the Grayson Perry programme on class and how we decorate our homes and ourselves

There must be an element of your background involved . I have two degrees one of which is from Oxbridge, further qualifications including professional ones, a management position in a professional career and yet I think most people would agree that I am closer to working class than middle class because of my background .

I don't really fit any class but am certainly not m/c

Ceebeebee, they do have other things in common- book club, work in fields related to education, children all attended same prep school. But no one in their little group of obvious middle class doesn't have a degree.

I am watching the Grayson perry programme- the people in kingshill are nothing like what I would define as traditional middle class. They think they look the part but as soon as they open their mouths you know that they didn't grow up in traditional middle class homes.

Wait till you get to the other tribes of the middle class, Scarlett's Mummy - there's a fascinating contrast!

The next couple are exactly what I would describe as middle class- and not a NEXT lamp or range rover sport in sight!

I've watched it now too and have to say the first "tribe" are not middle class at all in my view - most definately upper working class with a bit of cash. Wasn't sure what they all did for a living other than the "recruitment consultant" ie glorified salesperson but suspect very few were in professional occupations.
I thought the blonde woman he interviewed in a cafe at the start of the Tunbridge Wells piece summed it up well - its not about how much money one has, but more about behaviours, tastes and speech/language.

You only have to earn something like £39k per year to be in the top 5% earners in the country

And you don't have to go to university to get a degree to earn that or more at all.
Don't think class can be about education or about earnings.

It's probably more about elocution

This is what was reported to be middle class by a Statician in 1911:

''Stevenson identified the middle class as that falling between the upper class and the working class. Included as belonging to the middle class are professionals, managers, and senior civil servants. The chief defining characteristic of membership in the middle class is possession of significant human capital.''

But scarlettsmummy called her child scarlett

I am obviously a complete chav!!

Was going to go for courtney mae but changed my mind at the last minute.

Oh fine, sorry scarlettsmummy. It's a lovely name, I'm just saying it's no Persephone

Lol. My other child is Florence Ottilie. Much more suitably middle class.

I don't think you're quite hitting the mark, scarlettsmummy (and shoot me; I did think the same about your user name! )

The whole point of the nuanced, British class system is that there simply is no one, single indicator either way about any one of the classes, nor sub-classes.

You simply can't say that because someone didn't go to university, that cancels out all their other - possibly ingrained and generational - middle-class inherent-ness and indicators.

Middle class people are far more likely to go to university, but it is just one indicator amongst an infinite number of others - many invisible to the naked eye - that marks out a person's class.

I am working class living in a middle class house.

I have 2 degrees but own a 47" flat screen and shop at asda

And I don't give a shit.

Quite impressive to go straight from prep school to university, Scarletts!