To not understand they UK class war???

[Notcontent]

Right, so I was just reading the "not fitting in on MN" thread and that got me thinking about something i have thought about many times: why is it that there seems to be a bit of a class war - the whole work class versus middle class thing. I just don't understand it. I have lived in the UK for quite some time, but I just don't get it.

Why, for example, it is seen as a middle class thing for children to eat vegetables?? This is actually very personal to me, because I have just discovered that my dd is being picked on at school about the contents of her lunch box. Now it seems I know why.

[olgaga]

My DD told me recently that at a previous junior school she was often teased when she revealed the green leaves in her sandwich were baby spinach (gasp). Not that it bothered her thankfully, she liked that better than lettuce. But yes there are lots of kids who would go "Bleeeurgh", who would never eat anything like cucumber or cherry toms or even apples and bananas let alone strawberries.

She was also the only one in her class at one point who had never had a tooth filled or extracted either - and I'm talking baby teeth here!

We moved !

[Mrsjay]

So have our class identities now become entangled with, or even replaced by, consumer identities?

erm I dont know really do we have a nice car yes (we have a caravan) do we spend a lot on things and stuff no do I buy things for my children so they are the same as everybody else no,

[Mrsjay]

Middle class parenting is very display focussed.

I am not the brightest bulb what does this mean

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Absolutely.... it's not 'class' so much as a simple matter of snobbery and inverse snobbery reinforced by social bullying. Extended cliques. Who's like us and who isn't like us. Tall Poppy Syndrome and all the rest.

Ten years ago snobbery was the order of the day but the inverse snobbery so much worse at the moment as everyone desperately tries to crack on they are 'in touch'.

[wordfactory]

morris I mean that parenting is now embued with class indicators like never before. It is a way for the middle classes to display their middle class credentials given that education and income are no longer reliable indicators.

[FunBagFreddie]

I'm still confused as to exactly what defines people as MC or WC despite the discussion. It's all very wooly.

I suppose the reason I take the mickey out of being MC is the whole 'aspirational' thing, which for a lot of people seems to involve having a nicer car, bigger house and more expenive clothes than other people you know. Not exactly very noble aspirations are they? Or maybe most of the MC people I know/have met are snobs.

I would describe myself as nouveau pauvre and an invertaed snob due to my parents banging on about how they were better than other people because of their house and jobs - seriously.

[MorrisZapp]

Middle class credentials? This is guff, sorry. If you're talking about stereotypical stuff ie:

MC: call their kids Jocasta and Horatio, eat organic, say loudly on the bus 'ooh darling, look! There's our favourite library!'

WC: call their kids Sigourney and Levi, eat Greggs, say loudly on the bus 'shut yer fucking face'

Then I daresay the behaviour follows on from how the people actually are, rather than because they want to display social class 'credentials'.

[Mrsjay]

'm still confused as to exactly what defines people as MC or WC despite the discussion. It's all very wooly.

and it will continue to be wooly everytime there is a new thread about it

[MorrisZapp]

And I don't agree with funbag either.

I was raised by hippy type, MC intellectuals. I wore jumble sale clothes until I was old enough to work for and buy my own. I was always taught that intelligent people have no interest in outward displays of wealth.

There are many types of MC. Some will be materially aspirational, some will be very anti-consumerist, and many will not be too bothered either way.

[Mrsjay]

but i think you get working class people like that (Just wanted to add my children are not called sigounrey or have even been told to eff off )
anyway you get working class people who are materialistic who are showy and you get working class people who are not, people are people imo

[Alisvolatpropiis]

I thought middle class was based on how many generations of family had attended university basically.

Myself and my cousins are the first of our family to go to university,our families are very much working class prior to that. I went to school with much wealthier children whose great grandparents (at least) had attended.

Middle class is the "professions" isn't it? Doctors,lawyers etc? Stereotypically speaking of course.

[wordfactory]

Don't be ridiculous morris middle class indicators are far more prevalent than those things.

Entire industries are set up to take advanatge of the MC need to display their credentials. None more radically cynical than anything to do with parenting.

[FunBagFreddie]

Then you get the 'anti-consumerist' MC's types who will go on expensive eco holidays and stay in 'earth ships' and stealth boast about their new pellet boiler and the bio-dynamic wine they just bought from a local organic small holding that they discovered while they were at a fermentation workshop.

I love being divisive.

[MorrisZapp]

Wordfactory, how am I being ridiculous?

I'm MC, so understandably a tad touchy about being told that my parenting is display focused.

May I ask which social class you most identify with, and what the accepted parenting style of that class is?

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

"'m still confused as to exactly what defines people as MC or WC despite the discussion. It's all very wooly."

Because it's snobbery and inverse snobbery and not class. People from all walks of life are capable of being either of those or none. IME people who use phrases like 'sold out' or 'class traitor' tend to be inverse snobs....

[Mrsjay]

I have decided I don't really care >.wanders off thread

[MorrisZapp]

My gran belongs to the old school, non consumerist working class.

But the modern working class is highly consumerist. Branded sportswear? Pimped cars? Sky tv? Etc etc. Surely nobody here really thinks that modern WC typically don't care for consumer goods beyond the basic necessities.

[FunBagFreddie]

It's strange, because I'm friends with a couple and she definitely sees the two of them as MC, while he will actually say to her that "We are just normal working class people". Usually when she says she wants to hire a cleaner or buy something expensive.

[takataka]

cogit who on earth uses terms like 'class traitor' or 'sold out'?!

we arent on a picket line!

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

I agree that display is more often a middle than a working class part of parenting, though display of Stuff or holidays generally less so. Then again, there is always at least one amusing bit of performance parenting when I go to Waitrose, BUT it is only ever, IME, other middle class people who comment on that to one another!

Could we not say that people of all backgrounds, if temperamentally disposed to do so, show off, but that there are types of showing off which are more often associated with one class than another?

[FunBagFreddie]

• Could we not say that people of all backgrounds, if temperamentally disposed to do so, show off, but that there are types of showing off which are more often associated with one class than another?
  

That's about right.

[MorrisZapp]

Why all that stuff about organic wine then, Freddy?

[FunBagFreddie]

It's not organic, it's biodynamic darling.

[MorrisZapp]

Don't get your point, darling.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

@takataka..... Well, right now you see a lot of people in politics accusing others of being 'out of touch'. Not quite as colourful as 'class traitor' I grant you but the implication is clear that they have got too big for their boots, lost connection with their roots and aren't as ordinary as the rest of the tribe expects them to be. Then you get the unedifying spectacle of people trying to appear more ordinary.... dropping their aitches, supping beer, eating pasties or making a big deal out of the school they went to or how they grew up in a cardboard box in't middle o't' road!!

Time was when people did the polar opposite. Sent their kids to elocution & deportment lessons or busted a gut getting them into good schools so that they could climb out of the swamp and make something of themselves.

....