To wonder why MN is obsessed with class?

[Moknicker]

Having read yet another class related thread here, I confess to being puzzled by it. I am a foreigner but have lived in the UK for 15 years and am married to an Englishman. I can honestly say that in all my social interactions here "social class" has never been a factor that has determined anything in my life - be it finding friends, getting a job, etc. Of course lots of other things have been factors - my foreignness, education levels, income levels but never whether I say "napkin" or "serviette" or where I buy my groceries etc.

Is it different for the posters in the "class" threads? Has it ever made it difference to your day to day lives as to what class you were. Or are these just academic discussions (albeit interesting ones) to while away some time? But if so, then why do they crop up again and again?

I thought that was bling nails, now I'm less sure of the answer.

Online, though, what comes across is mostly a poster's intelligence and personality - which are of course not decided by class

So in RL are you saying that class often supersedes intelligence and personality particularly if you are not MC or upper?

Sorry bling nails was to Frida.

Aha - a duel! Well, my siblings were born into slums with one room and no bathroom, loo was shared with the whole building (homebirths an all). I missed it by months and was born into the genteel surroundings of a new council house with loo - which I never let the slum siblings forget (especially when they were beating me up). No private housing, no father who went to grammar school, no mother or mother's family who were fallen on hard times middle class. Hate to break it to you LeQueen but i think you are MC, definitely not WC as i know it.

Sorry Mo but yes it does.

Is it?
I've mostly seen threads where people are confused because they don't know what middle class is. Probably because they are middle class.

No mo but people will make judgements on another person opinion based on their class (amongst other things!) People will make [subconscious] assumptions about intelligence and educatione etc based on class {accents etc) and therefore place more or less importance on their opinion

so, in some circumstances and with some people I suppose ...yes mo

I?ve had to go to court to get us a more level playing field.

Mainly over children?s education, and SS perceptions of people like us. (Thanks to judges generally being well educated upper m/c, and liking to go on evidence not assumption, we?ve won :))

But also over the ?naice residents? association trying to get a car owning ban on the small number of public housing tenants to create more spaces for their 2/3 car families and contractors to park, and again to end an attempt to prevent p/h tenants owning vans. (yep, those are similar vans to the one?s they call out for plumbing, building, gardening work, that they need our parking spaces for!)

LEA?s, teachers, HV?s, Social workers, Judges, even Dr?s make screaming assumptions about everything based on their class and others. It?s sad and funny in equal measures.

I didn't there is anything wrong with being clean & organised, certainly the opposite is not preferable, just being OTT about it or going on about it all the time. When people do that I start wondering what they have got to hide, and find it very dull & LMC. I seem to give people the idea I'm organised at least... I suppose I tend to gravitate to people who are honest about their defects in household management or who don't mention it at all.

No mo but people will make judgements on another person opinion based on their class (amongst other things!) People will make [subconscious] assumptions about intelligence and educatione etc based on class {accents etc) and therefore place more or less importance on their opinion

That's it.

Anyway I was middle class and they were working class. Talk about a chip on thr shoulder. One of them was Nicola McClain or however you spell it.
Fond memories

There are constant references to class on MN and I am utterly baffled by it.

I mean, if class exists what class am I?

My parents have owned all their homes (and also have a second home in France), were born in 1935/40 and grew up on rented estates in SW London. DH was born in a council house where his parents still live. DH and I own our house, both work in middling managerial office jobs, neither of us is a graduate (we have four O Levels between us) but my sister is.

also---values you make assumptions about peoples values based on class, often.. And therefore assess whether their opinion is relevant to your own situation i.e. are their values the same?

frid chip on their shoulder because they couldnt grow their nails?

Quenelle - you sound WC to me. I'm spending way too much time on this thread but it is interesting.

Ah thanks Begonia. At least I know my place now

I would go as far to say it an English obsession rather than a British one.

Here in Scotland we're all jock tamson's bairns.

LaQueen, it isn't just the middle classes who are happy for their children to go to school with muddy boots and unbrushed hair. I suggested to ds1 that he might like to brush his hair the other day, he picked up the brush and asked what he was supposed to do with it! I'm pleased that I don't have girls because I fear my slovenly ways would become more noticeable.

It's a myth that the working classes scrub their doorsteps every day. Unless of course we are all pretending to be middle class these days

Hang on, I've just checked the criteria on the What is Middle Class thread - I have a small TV and I don't know what class I am - therefore I think I must be MC.

Surely based on what people are saying here everyone wants to be MC - unless they really are MC in which case they try to say they have working class origins to get some street cred.

I think Ive got it now.

mok how did you arrive at that conclusion??

i, nor any of my family, have any desire to be MC

the judgement goes both ways noknickers- WC judge MC also, based on their class. I know I do

A chip on their shoulder because based on bugger all interaction between us, they decided that because of the way I spoke and acted, that I must be a snob-basically they had pre-conceived notions of what someone like me was like and decided to air their prejuduces before the whole bloody form group.
The reason I had long nails is because I used to have a real phobia of having them cut so when I was eleven I asked my mum if I could start growing them, my finger nails anyway.

Oops - sorry Imon - patently Ive got nothing.

I think only the middle class actually worry about class.

I grew up very working class, I suppose, and no-one ever bothered much about thinking about it. Nowdays, quite weirdly, I seem to know a fair few proper upper class people, titles and whatnot, who do not give a toss about class. I've only ever seen class angst amoung the middles. It makes sense in a way, I suppose. They do not wish to be thought lower class so they try and distance themselves with what they say, do, eat, drink, wear etc, whereas the uppers have the confidence of a castle or two to secure their social position

I think Mn is generally quite middle class, so that's probably why you see the angst here.