To ask, if you grew up working class or not well-off and have done well for yourself?

[TheHouseOnTheLane]

Do you ever get a weird longing for the past and the way it was even though you know the reality wouldn't please you?

Do you ever feel a sort of guilt if you left your home town?

DH and I have done ok...we're not rich but have a lovely house in a very lovely town. Blah blah...DH is from a middle class family but I grew up in a steel town during the 70s in the UK...my memories are probably tainted but I sometimes hanker for the close community that was my home town...I feel guilt for leaving....or something...what IS it?

(Also, to the poster who wrote about crying with cold at night, yes I remember that too, so sorry )

Alastrante

I've cried with the cold at night. I had flu, and such a sore throat, and the cold air hurt it so much. There was ice on the inside of the windows too.

It was late 2010, and I was an adult. Due to illness - for which there was/is no NHS treatment available, and lack of oppotunities for work post-recession, I was living in dire poverty.

So it does grate a bit to see posters talking about their big houses/multiple properties, how they've "made good" and so on - without consideration that people can only have lots if someone else is missing out somewhere, in our unequal society. People who have come from poor beginnings basically contributing to the idea that poor people just cant be bothered, or at least peddling the lie that everyone can succeed if only they try. No inclination to change things to make a more equal society at all.

Oh yes, the cold! Awful, laying in bed with thin blankets (pre duvets) and coats. Then waiting for the fire to be lit and getting "corned beef" legs by standing too close.

And tripe. Tripe. Euch.

"So it does grate a bit to see posters talking about their big houses/multiple properties, how they've "made good" and so on - without consideration that people can only have lots if someone else is missing out somewhere, in our unequal society. People who have come from poor beginnings basically contributing to the idea that poor people just cant be bothered, or at least peddling the lie that everyone can succeed if only they try. No inclination to change things to make a more equal society at all."

I can see that would hurt (and I'm sorry for your situation) but I don't think that's what people are saying. The idea that either you work and "do well" (whatever that means) or you can't be bothered to has only really gone mainstream quite recently and it's not one that I believe - I'm sure many people don't. It's politically expedient for this to be rehashed on tv and in certain newspapers but most people work and want the best for their families still - whatever that is for them.

From my own life, my WC family ALL worked, and were lucky politically too in that each of the past three generations has benefitted from a certain amount of freedom to choose what they work at (because of free education). I didn't do some sort of superior work to my grandparents, I chose certain options at a certain time in society. (I don't stumble on them by accident, I desperately needed to get away and if you're going to get away and have no family safety net, you need money.)

Got interrupted...anyway, how does people being happy with their choices and their good fortune mean that 'the poor can't be bothered' - it doesn't. Everyone's talking about the people they knew in a certain place at a given time. And not to be harsh but you don't know about anybody's commitment to a fair(er) society from this thread.

I've done really well for myself. But, I live in a street where I don't 'fit in' and feel like I'm playing at being a proper grown up.

I think the responses from those upset at those who have admitted feeling grateful to have 'got out' sums up perfectly the type of reception they get from those 'left behind'. Which is fine on a forum but when it's your family, it hurts to feel pushed away or 'changed'

The comments here were like water off a duck's back for it was that reason toohard.

I also don't think comments on current financial security should be interpreted as boasting or be taken as indicative of not caring about others. I am taken with the notion of splitting your life into a worldly phase of business followed by a dotage of giving it away. Who knows what people do or plan to do.

I ended up with too many words there!

" for that reason toohard"

Grew up with no money with a violent alcoholic father; lived in a council house, didn't go on holidays, have birthday parties etc, everyone smoked liked chimneys.

First on either side of my extended family to do GSCEs - went to Oxbridge and am now a partner in an international professional services firm in the city living in a nice house in the Home Counties.

I don't belong anywhere - my family don't understand me (and I don't understand them to be honest) but I feel like a fraud amongst the people I work with. I remember once being at a closing dinner and bring asked by the young posh banker sitting next to me what school I went to. Incredibly, he hadn't heard of my local comprehensive. Twat.

Catching up on the rest of the thread. Yes, I was lucky I had brains and drive, but I still had to work bloody hard (and constantly argue with my dad who couldn't understand that I needed to spend so much time working/revising) . I tried so hard to help my little sister with revision etc but frankly she wasn't prepared to put the time or effort in.

The other thing that makes me laugh are all the hand wringing liberals I come across through work who talk about "the poor" and "the working class", how they think and feel and what can be done to help them. They don't have a frigging clue, it is ignorant and patronising.

There weren't really any benefit scroungers when I was growing up. I don't think it was a thing. Every single one of my friend's Dads worked, (mostly in the colliery)

Do you want me to spell out the bleeding obvious? Has it occurred to you that far from 'scrounging' it might be that the industrial base in this country has been systematically eroded and the jobs like your father and his mates had simply don't exist anymore?

Compos
Of course you don't need to spell out the bleeding obvious to me. I'm a miner's daughter. I know all about the erosion of the industrial base. "Benefits scrounger" was not a concept when I was growing up.

Actually I didn't assume anyone needed it spelling out. Maybe try and be a bit less patronising, (and aggressive) in future.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22000973

Apparently I am 'Established middle class'. Lots of people in this group 'enjoy a diverse range of cultural activities, went to university and are comfortably off, secure and established'.

What a load of bollocks.

Neither dh or I went to Uni and when you talk about being 'secure and established' you think of old/family money. If dh or I were made redundant tomorrow it would all piss away to nothing. Ten years ago we were eating pasta and beans for dinner every night, with cheese if we were flush. Not very 'established' in the scheme of things.

Based on the questions asked (the professions of your social group - never mind yours - and the activities you enjoy) it seems that class is mainly a state of mind. You could conceivably 'make' yourself middle class, if you have a decent income, by joining a book club with a couple of solicitors and browsing a few museums

I grew up in a working class part of London. My Dad worked in a manual job and Mum stayed at home. They had a mortgage and a car and I certainly didn't feel poor, although we did live quite frugally and tended to holiday in a tent.

I don't know if I've changed class. I went to uni and work in a 'profession', have a mortgage on my own home and can afford to holiday abroad (although we also have a tent, old habits die hard). I haven't really moved town either, about a mile from where I grew up and literally around the corner from where my maternal grandparents used to live.

Tbh, perhaps I'm probably not 'working class' enough or 'middle class' enough but I couldn't really care less whether I'm perceived to 'fit in' or not. I also think me having a profession is no better or worse than my Dad's manual job, particularly as he has no qualifications and earns the same as me (and could well surpass my earnings with overtime if he wanted to).

I don't feel like I don't belong now, I feel like I didn't belong THEN. Parent with alcohol issues, on an awful estate, everyone around us was down and out. We were very very poor after a family bereavement.

As soon as I could work, I did. I haven't repeated any of the mistakes of my parents and now live in the same town but in a much better area. Funnily enough I have married a man from the same area I grew up in and our families are similar, so we have very common ground. Both of us strive to have better lives than we had and it works for us. We have great survival skills when things go wrong as a result I think. It was character building!

My DF grew up in a very, very poor family of 13 children. Parents weren't married and his (abusive) father had another family 3 streets away. They drank out of jam jars and dried dishes on clothes. He has done really well for himself, he isn't rich but has a good job and owns his own house. He mixes with every type of person and my DB and I have been raised well. I think! All his brothers have done VERY well for themselves.

I think he struggles with feeling of inadequacy around a certain type and class of person. He feels more at home among people of his own class, which creates a slight rift between us as I am surrounded with the type of person he struggles with! All lovely, but all have a certain accent.

This sounds really daft but when I was growing up poor, I had a well off childless aunt who would take us out for meals at chinese restaurants.
I didn't even eat chinese food, I'd just have chips, but she taught me to use chopsticks even to pick up a chip.
As an adult whenever I'm eating chinese/thai or let's face it wagamamas I ALWAYS use chopsticks. I'm so glad that for one thing I had someone who taught me what to do.
Sadly I never picked up the habit on my gap year travelling through Vietnam as I didn't have a gap year because I was working to earn money to live.
Sometimes it's bad enough that you're the only person who didn't build an orphanage for your DoE (like we had DoE! We had saturday jobs) without being able to use the cutlery in the right order or chopsticks or you're not supposed to put bread in your soup or something.

Interesting thread, I grew up in a family who were much better off than many here but where mum budgeted to the pennies every month (with nothing for herself in that!). We lived in a niceish area but I certainly wasn't going on the school ski trip! I was fortunate that I did well academically (1st in the family to do a-levels, went to Oxbridge) and landed a highly paid job. DH in the same industry, similar pay now but from a very different background.
I am in a different situation to many posters that my family are incredibly proud of me. I feel guilty that I just got lucky, I happen to have enjoyed doing something that pays well. My sister has a public service job that I couldn't do in a million years and yet gets half my salary - although she's comfortable it's still totally unfair (I treat her when I can get away with it!).
I also am acutely aware that it's incredibly fragile, I've spent most of the last year not sure if I'd have a job in Jan, now the uncertainty has moved back to the summer, DH similar. We aren't in a position where we could buy a house outright and raise a family so it could all be over in a year or two. DH just can't imagine this happening, I live in fear of it and want to plan our mortgage etc. with disaster scenarios in mind, he thinks I'm paranoid.
I do feel I've missed out on the tight night community I've left where half my friends are married to other folks from school but then I remember school and why I wanted to escape! I'm still friends with the people who were truly friends. Bloody lucky it seems from this thread.

Tiredbutfine - that to me shows a difference in class. My mum would never even go in to a wagamamma. She wouldn't know what it was and think Thai is "weird food". I didn't even eat a Chinese until I was 20. The only take away we ever got was a 40p bag of chips to share among 3!

I said the word "crudité" the other day. My mum asked wtf I was on about, she'd never even heard the word and laughed at how different I was to the rest of "us". But yet I always was and felt so misplaced as a kid. I'm far happier now.

Tired and Cerse me too! We never ate out...or got takeaway even. When I moved to London aged 20 to go to drama school, I was so impressed to be going to trendy coffee bars and restaurants.....I managed to pick up the How-To along the way.

DH is middle class and it's been very interesting to compare childhoods. His family ate out a few times a week and traveled abroad around 3 times a year....we both had happy childhoods though.

Like many on here I'm from a mining background, worked hard at school at got into a very good university and have had an interesting and varied career since.

Many of my school friends were married young and stayed local, a lot had their lives blighted by the closing of the colliaries and the deindustrialisation of the North East.

There are divides between myself and those who stayed at home, cultural more than financial, because we don't talk about money.I don't "miss" living in a community because having been in the same area of London for 25 years, and worked at it, I do live in an active community.

I think one of the issues that some may have with posts on here is the idea that those who have moved on are "better" than those that they left behind. IT does come across in some posts. I look at women like me in my home town, whose lives have been very different, and think "There but for the grace of god." The idea that "hardwork" is the difference between you and someone more unfortunate is patronising and not particularly true, luck plays a large element too.

It's odd because my mum does not seen working class she is more middle class in terms of attitudes, way she speaks etc, but we were brought up in a really poor area one of the most deprived in London and the country, didn't go abroad (apart from a couple of times when I was v young). We had no money (though my mum had professional career and things got better when we were older), no car, no stuff, we had to watch every penny, alcoholic dad, dodgy area, you get the picture.

Dp on the other hand says his parents are working class and they do have the more working class attitudes to things and way of speaking, more working class type jobs. But they had the middle class lifestyle. Massive house in leafy part of London, shopped in m&s, waitrose, went on loads of holidays, had 2 cars, lots of possessions. I find it strange as I never thought of us as 'poor' growing up but we were, dp thought his family were poor but doesn't since hearing about mine. Odd how perceptions can differ so much.

I went to uni, as did dp, both have well paid jobs though now I look after DD. We have a nice house and don't have to think hard about how we spend our money. And I feel guilty all the time.

What I find odd is that apparently my parents are now middle class. My Dad had worked in the same factory since he was 16. My Mum has been a SAHM, a barmaid, a counter worker at the PO and finally got into a career she loves when we kids were early teens. But due to the economy and stuff they own a nice semi, two cars and go on two holidays a year. They are still beyond a doubt working class, its just different. I accept that I am middle class due to what I do (lawyer) but I'll still always feel much happier at a family party with a cheese and pickle melon than at a fancy do. Stays with you.

Longtime I agree...but I thought you said you were from a MIMING background and not a MINING one.

I imagined you back home, up north...Mum and Dad in their striped tops and berets...doing the "invisible box" mime....:D