AIBU to have not known this...

[FlibbertigibbetArmadillo]

I was chatting to some people at the pub this afternoon, when someone mentioned that when they were a kid they realised someone they knew was middle class because they went about barefoot in their house.
Is this some 'class' determiner I'm not aware of?

Never heard of that. Is it not more likely they just couldn't be arsed to put socks or slippers on? It is in my case.

This was specifically barefoot no socks. Rather than a shoes off shoes on thing

it seemed to me to be when I was a (working-class) kid in my part of the northwest (1970s) but maybe it had something to do with people like my family not having central heating - we didn't get it until the 80s.

I would never ask anyone to take their shoes off in my house (would be embarrassed that they may get their socks dirty).

Could it have been because they could afford to put the heating on, while poorer people would have had socks and slippers on because it was colder?

But then class doesn't equal income anyway? My childhood home was toasty warm because my miner father used to get a free tonne of coal a month or something. It was a lot more than we could use and effectively free heating for years. We used to give it away to others with coal fires and store some in a cellar under the house. It lasted for years after he stopped being a miner.

Not something I have heard before either.

I'm a shoes and socks off kinda person cos I get sweaty feet (to go with sweaty boobs from threads passim) if they are too enclosed and it helps me to regulate my temperature. I'll wear wooly slippers in winter though. And have to wear socks with shoes (I'd wear them with sandals too if I didn't care what others thought..... Sadly I clearly do. - isn't that the definition of middle class though?)

I didn't know this.

My family was very much a shoes off, slippers on kind of family. I suppose my parents were middle-class although my grand parents were working class and definitely slipper-people as well.

I wouldn't consider myself middle class but I do walk around barefoot. I find it more comfortable

Tbh, I think it's more a case of what flooring people have...IME experience tiles/wood/laminate is slippers or shoes and carpet is socks.

Proper upper middle class = you keep your out door shoes on though.

My family background is solid middle-middle and I always go about barefoot as do my kids. I remember walking through the streets barefoot on occasion and certainly in the garden. Although I grew up in the 70s so maybe I was just a hippie.

My MIL is from a working class background and she can't stand seeing my children with no socks on, despite the fact we have tiled floors so they slip over everywhere if they wear socks (except the expensive gap/Jojomaman bebe ones of course).

t1mum : I used to walk about London barefoot, can scarcely believe now that I did!

No shoes was a sign of poverty so WC people wore shoes if they had them, in public or not. I'm from the north east and the older people I knew in mining villages would never have gone barefoot at home.

Some people have some very funny ideas about class......this is another of them LOL

Typical Sunday in the pub talking crap scenario.

Not crap, it is our history.

People used to only wear their shoes for church on Sunday and then pawn them in the week to buy food, pay the rent etc.

Definitely working class here and I'm alway barefoot at home, we had no central heating when growing up and even in the depths of winter I went barefoot, my dad is the same and most likely where I get it from as my mother always has shoes on and my brother always wore socks.

This is my experience: a middle-class friend asks me to remove my shoes in her house (though her carpets aren't necessarily clean) and she always insists on hopping about on one foot as she takes hers off at mine (I'm working class) despite my saying not to bother, unless she's just walked through a ploughed field.
Two posh friends (loaded) look at me askance if I suggest removing my shoes at theirs, both have cleaning ladies to do the housework for them.

Solidly working class upbringing here. We were compelled to keep our shoes on by our Mum for fear our Dad had tracked in sharp little metal shavings from the factory where he worked.

Though why our Dad didn't just change out of his work boots I honestly don't know.

I keep my wellies on a lot at home, it's all wooden floors apart from the sitting room. We're in the countryside so everywhere is muddy, even in blooming June and I'm in and out all day, walking the dog, gardening etc.

I wonder what that makes me

Typical Sunday in the pub talking crap scenario

Isnt that the whole point of going to the pub on a Sunday afternoon?

Poor kids didn't have socks because they were an expensive extra. Some had them just for sunday.
We were told to put them on as kids, otherwise it looked like you couldn't afford them.
I am from wc background but parents civil dignitary type.

I wear cosy socks until I stand in water dog has spilled from his bowl / baby sick / dog sick etc etc kind of person. Then I take the socks off. Sometimes I clean up the sick.