Do you know anyone middle class?

[angelos02]

I don't. But my definition of middle class is those that go to work but don't need to.

[pearlylum]

"Every time somebody claims to be upper class and writes about breeding and pedigree"

Don't the upper classes have strange genetic diseases due to inbreeding. Funny teeth and kennel cough?

[zoemaguire]

Navy, since the op made up a total random definition of middle class that bears no relation whatsoever to any accepted definition, I thought I'd include my own equally sensible version. But maybe the thread has moved on!

[RipeningApples]

DH was born working class. Went to Oxford. Workaholic. Sitting in lovely house typing this, private road, all houses worth seven figures, have a home in France, DC went to private schools, full wine cellar, friends of ROH, etc. DH still believes himself to be working class. I don't think anyone meeting him for the first time would.

[JemimaMuddledUp]

What a strange OP!
Yes, I know lots of middle class people, although not by the OP's definition. Despite being born to a working class family I'm pretty middle class these days: degree in Economics from a redbrick university, work in a related field, listen to R4 and R3, read the guardian, go to the theatre (looking forward to the live broadcast of Romeo and Juliet from the Garrick this week), support the local museum and the county music service through regular donations. Financially we aren't well off, but we can afford the music lessons, riding lessons, orchestra trips etc for or DC that would have been out of reach for me as a child. We run 2 cars, but holiday in the UK usually (camping or cottage by the sea - visiting NT properties etc). I certainly have to work!

[CodewordRochambeau]

I don't think OP is coming back, folks.

[SeriousCreativeBlock]

That is not the definition of middle class I'd use. I come from a middle class background: privately educated, daughter of highly paid professionals, and yet my family have still always had to work to maintain the standard of living to which we'd become accustomed. Now living with my working class partner but still consider myself middle class because of my background.

[WallisSimpson11]

NavyAndWhite- Exactly. Also they don't really have/need to 'flash' money around.

[BarbaraofSeville]

JemimaMuddledUp degree in Economics from a redbrick university, work in a related field, listen to R4 and R3, read the guardian, go to the theatre (looking forward to the live broadcast of Romeo and Juliet from the Garrick this week), support the local museum and the county music service through regular donations. Financially we aren't well off, but we can afford the music lessons, riding lessons, orchestra trips etc for or DC that would have been out of reach for me as a child. We run 2 cars, but holiday in the UK usually (camping or cottage by the sea - visiting NT properties etc). I certainly have to work

Now I can't see how any of those things would make a person middle class or that a working class person couldn't or wouldn't be able to or want to do them.

Even though people say there is little class mobility, there probably is and there is a huge blurring of the boundaries probably to a degree that working/middle class is effectively meaningless.

I have a degree and professional job. I listen to Radio 4 and shop in Aldi and M&S for food. I read The Times and books. I don't watch much TV and never anything like the X Factor etc. But my parents were a miner and a housewife/shop assistant. I have a strong northern accent. We mostly holiday in Spain, but Spanish Spain not Benidorm/Magaluf etc.

DP is definitely more working class than I am (GCSE education, manual worker, working class parents, but he is a gifted musician and got as far as Grade 8 as a child. He also reads a lot and we go to the Opera and museums/castles/monuments rather than theme parks. But he fixes his car and anything round the house himself where he can rather than paying someone to do it.

One way to place someone as either WC or MC might be whether they do their own decorating. It would never occur to either of us to pay a decorator - that seems a posh/MC thing to do. Possibly attitude to John Lewis too - I see it as quite a posh shop, that I would never shop in, but a lot of MC people just see it as ordinary.

So a strong class marker might be - where do you buy your household items?

WC - Asda, Wilkinsons, Ikea
MC - John Lewis
UC - inherited, Antiques, Harrods?

But I don't fit nicely into either working class or middle class, I don't think.

[Karlakitten1]

Class is about where you buy household items?!!!!!! There is social mobility - someone can work their way out of poverty due to a good education. I come from a really rough council estate; but now own my own home, have a professional and disposable income at the end of the month. I moved class, but see myself as having working class roots. I suppose I see class from a sociologist's point of view. People on this thread are basing it on completely random things!

[Karlakitten1]

Professional job..

[MrsHathaway]

DH was born working class. Went to Oxford. Workaholic. Sitting in lovely house typing this, private road, all houses worth seven figures, have a home in France, DC went to private schools, full wine cellar, friends of ROH, etc. DH still believes himself to be working class. I don't think anyone meeting him for the first time would.

A friend of mine was the first in his family to do A-Levels, and the first in his school to go to Oxbridge, where he eventually left MA MB PhD and is a brain surgeon. He reckons he's working class. I doubt his patients would agree!

[RipeningApples]

What they might have in common MrsHathaway is that neither DH nor your friend give two hoots about class. Well DH still feels a bit inferior sometimes and I remind him how good he is

[MrsHathaway]

Possible, but my friend got quite heated when challenged we may all have been drunk mind you.

What matters, of course, is that when someone labels you with a class, you don't care if they're right or not. Middle class? probably, we do eat hummus after all. Upper class? are you basing that on the state of my car? Working class? Always Bloody Working Class, more like.

[EightNoineTen]

I don't understand how class works. I've learnt a lot about it since joining mn but am unsure what class I am. How do you work it out?

[zoemaguire]

"One way to place someone as either WC or MC might be whether they do their own decorating. It would never occur to either of us to pay a decorator - that seems a posh/MC thing to do. Possibly attitude to John Lewis too - I see it as quite a posh shop, that I would never shop in, but a lot of MC people just see it as ordinary."

Nonsense, sorry! DH is solidly upper middle class and I guess so am I, though my dad was not. We do all our own decorating and so do the vast majority of people we know, and we live in about as muesli-belt-upper-middle class area as you can imagine. As for Ikea, it's classless - that's its whole appeal.

Sure, there are consumption and lifestyle markers of class, but trying to pare it down to individual ones is doomed to failure imo, as this thread shows.

[RipeningApples]

My DH was/is working class and looks at practcal things like they are from another planet. MIL has been known to say it' a good job lad were clever because he's good at nowt with his ands.

[MrsJayy]

We paid a decorator cos my dh cant hang wallpaper and im not steady enough to climb a ladder im middle class woohooo 😂

[PrincessIrene]

I go to work. I don't need to.

Did I win?

[MrsJayy]

Op meant to say David Cameron would love us to think he is an ordinary person like us he wants the country to think he is everyman he isnt

[IJustLostTheGame]

My great auntie was a right hon.
She shopped at poundworld and bought nearly all her clothes in charity shops.
I think she would have said it's vulgar to discuss class.
She also had a teeny tiny fiat panda and drove it like a bat out of hell.

I miss her. She was batshit, but in a good way.

[Schwabischeweihnachtskanne]

Thinking about it, an awful lot of couples with several children under 5 are actually paying for one of them to work (as in they'd be better off short term if one parent stayed at home instead of paying for childcare). I think they probably win.

I'm always shocked at the occasional post where people are outraged not to be better off working and paying for 2 or 3 kids in childcare than they would be as a sahp with just their partner working even though they admit that working while the children are young will help them climb the career ladder and leave them better off long term. It is normal to make that choice if you have children and most people do it, yet some people think that it shouldn't apply to them personally.

Most people who have children within a conventional 2 parent family set up have phases of their lives where one parent is going to work even though they are only breaking even, or in fact slightly worse off by doing so than they would be if one parent sah. So a vast number of people are going to work when they do not absolutely have to (because they could manage as a family on one income, plus possibly tax credits they might get with a lower family income)... So the OP's definition probably technically makes huge numbers of people middle class...

[maggiethemagpie]

John Lewis is my spiritual home, I'm probably in there at least once a week (there is one very near mind), so I guess I'm bona fide middle class.

It's nice to have somewhere to hang out with all the other middle class people. Especially when you can get free cake.

[EllenDegenerate]

Harvey Nichols Beauty Bazaar is my spiritual home.

I too visit at least weekly.

It's nice to be in the company of all the other over dressed, expensively made up and curly blow dried scouse women.

And sometimes we get gratuitous products (and our make up done for free at one of the counters)

I'm sorry but JL just doesn't measure up. The MC can quite happily keep it.