middle class

[southeastastra]

why is it so important for them to all conform to a certain standard

the right playschool, the right school, university, job

the right clothes, politically correct opinions, cars. does it not get suffocating to conform?

My dh and I emigrated to Canada partly to get away from class. He comes from a very working class background and I come from a very middle class background. Sometimes the differences between our families are very stark!

I've started to watch that Greyson Perry documentary and I'm feeling a bit confused. The people he is interviewing don't feel familiar to me at all, I've never seen being middle class as aspirational surely if you are aspiring to be imiddle class you probably aren't? None of my family are at all appearance conscious, and my mother regards brands and spending money as frightfully vulgar.

Oh dear, the Tunbridge Wells couple are horribly familiar!

I would say I am firmly middle middle class.

My kids go to the achools they do because they are close by, they went to the preschool they did, because it was attached to the local school.

I have clothes from primark and all different places. If I see it and I like it and I can afford it I will get it. I spend most of my week in cheap sports wear as I run my own business and find that suits best for what I do.

Fwiw I know loads of working class people (God I hate that term) who have moved houses, and fought hard to get their kids into the better schools in the area. They have played their part in raising house prices in those areas. Near the best school in the area house go up and sell with in days. Usually above asking price as often people will try and give a better offer to secure the house.

Because people choose to classify people as a certain class it does not mean they have to act in a certain way. I don't find that they do.

I certainly won't apologise for setting up my own business and it doing well, not will I apologise for putting myself through further education.

I find the hatred of people based on their class quite odd.

The traditional middle classes are naturally conservative.

Historically, their place in society was secured by doing certain things that set them apart from the working classes; gain a education, provide goods and services (as opposed to their labour) to the upper classes, save and invest money etc

Not only was it important to mark themselves as different from the working classes for reasons of pride, more importantly it was for reasons of commerce. The upper classes expected their doctors, lawyers, merchants etc to look, speak and behave in certain ways.

Over generations the values of the middle classes have remained very rigid, which has had both positive and negative effects upon them. Even now, when much of the middle class have little advantage over the working classes, they remain very invested in their signifiers of class. More so, actually.

I do a very mc class job and live in a posh area but there my middle-classness end I hope! I squirm at the thought of being mc!!

I'm middle class. I live in Herts.

My children went to the closest playschool and go to local state schools.

My opinions are my opinions, they are what I believe. I would still have the same opinions even if everyone around me thought differently.

I wear whatever fits and is comfortable, because I am overweight and have sensory issues.

I drive an automatic because I'm dyspraxic and find it difficult to drive a manual.

We do go to Costco and we do eat houmous though.

Whole swathes of the population enjoy a level of material comfort that was reserved for a much smaller minority (and in less relative comfort) only a few decades ago. That's a good thing.

But material comfort and external signifiers of wealth are not endlessly satisfying. People who are well-off but uneducated can get very stuck, developmentally, and have as only means of social progress ever larger cars/houses or new status symbol consumer goods. That state is not part of the English concept of MC.

Because only the middle classes want what is best for their children of course...the rest of us are feckless tossers who don't give a shit.....

You can buy hummus in Iceland. Middle class it is not.

Erm first of all ^^ what MrsMorton said, you don't normally post such nonsense South

Secondly, I'm as middle class as middle class can be. (On anyone's scale). I don't do any of the things you've listed in your OP.

As it happens most of my friends are MC too. Some of them do some Of the things you've listed but I'm struggling to think of anyone who does them all.

Perhaps your stereotype needs adjusting

Maybe whether you're middle class or not depends on whether you spell it hummus or houmous?

You need to make your own houmous...

... Preferably from the recipe your aunt's Lebanese cook passed on, when your aunt and uncle were posted to the Middle East...

Ah yes! Failing that, any Ottolenghi recipe will do

Surely cook books are inherently aspirational, though? If you are properly MC your recipes will have been passed down through the family, informed by your travels and exchanged with friends?

I've just made pumpkin and olive oil cookies so I'll see your Ottolenghi and your hand wrought artisan hummous and raise you THAT!
I also think CookieDoughKid sounds fabulous.

Hmmm, I'm now having to rethink my social based on my ownership of Delia Smith...

*social class

Which is the middle class way to spell houmous/hummus? This is very important to me for my street cred.

My father suffered from this sort of stigma. He came from a poor background and would have described himself as working class. He spent his whole life aspiring to be middle class while sneering at it. My mother's family were what he perceived as middle class and I remember comments at home such as "Well of course your mother's family had a bathroom"
I think the point made above by people's social rise often being limited by material possessions is a good one nut I think obsession with class is dying out. I certainly don't see it being based on "politically correct" opinion. My opinions have been formed by my path in life. My sister's are very different to mine as her path is very different, regardless of background.

Oh actually, I'm a middle class Jew, so I should spell it hummus.

Delia was the original supplier of MC recipes to those aspiring to MC family food.

I wonder where you get the idea that being middle class involves wearing "the right clothes" and having the "right politically correct opinions". There is one sector of the middle class that wears Boden and wouldn't dream of wearing M&S, let alone supermarket clothes, but it's a pretty small subset and they would probably describe themselves as upper middle class. However the vast majority will wear whatever they please, often the scruffier the better.

As for political correctness - my mother is the epitome of middle class, but her opinions, particularly on race, are anything but PC. And there are only too many like her.

Constance Spry made recipes available to women who were brought up with cooks and had never anticipated needing to use their own kitchens.

I don't think it matters whether you eat hummus or houmous, but you definitely shouldn't eat humus. Unless you are an earthworm.