Ascribing class & being different to family

[FairytalesAreBullshit]

This is a weird one I know.

I'm nothing like any other member of my family, not only health wise, but eye/hair colour, interests, academic ability, how I see the world. I joke about being swapped at birth, some poor family are in turmoil as they have a child that would fit in my family perfect

I was academic, I love things none of them have interests in like cultural stuff, the arts, classical music.

I'm also the only one who got a fairly decent job. I've said elsewhere, they're miffed I had to pack it in as I was ill.

I was wondering if you believe in class, some say and believe it's a social construct, those people have totally valid arguments.

I wondered is class something you can achieve with hard work and status, or something that is ascribed from birth?

I know I'm quite creative, so I often ponder life as an upper class person. Not the celeb crap like MIC, but old style life where you'd live in a big house, have a library that you could die for. No pressures to work, although if I could I'd jump at the chance, but it's the same with reading and pursuing interests, I can't even do that. There's one activity that suits someone supine, it's not my cup of tea at all.

I know some dream about Downton Abbey etc, I love history anyway. I'd like it all apart from servants, if I was ever in such a situation I'd be all bigger social protocols, I see you as my equal not my slave.

I wondered what class you think you are? Also are there any benefits apart from social ones in being from a different class?

Do you think interests help define things, or is it your career, family you were born into.

Dreamily I used to joke when I was a little child and a bit obnoxious at times, I used to scream I'm adopted.

The more I think about it, the more I think class isn't that important, I can't see the benefits, unless you had an amazing social life. Even those from poor / working class backgrounds can have different interests. It doesn't mean you have to fit a stereotype.

I work in a supermarket, dh is a 'white van man', we live in an ex council house but guess what? We appreciate art, visit museums, are educated etc etc. I hate these boxes people put each other in.

you sound like you want to assert yourself as better than your own flesh and blood???

That is definitely how you come across, OP. Do your family work?

Oh I forgot yabu.

You sound like Walter Mitty.

Trans financial

Class is something that does exist and it is fluid. I was born into a very working class family and my fiance an upper middle class. We both work, have well paid jobs and enjoy some of the finer things in life. I'd say we are lower middle class. That being said I have friends from all classes and creeds it would not stop me being friends with someone.

hellejuice. You are working class and always will be. Obviously you aspire to be middle class, you are not. Your DH is.

Sorry your fiancé, you haven't married into his family yet.

The class system is some strange British poison. Elitism / classism or whatever you want to call it still dictates how our government and industry is run. It's got bugger all to do with having a big house and a library. It's about one group of people taking all the resources in society and perpetuating myths in order to control the masses and keep the advantage.

Absolutely. There is no British, self-sorting volksgeist.

Dh came from a tiny village in India. Parents raised 3 kids on the equivalent of $2 a day. Dh and his brother somehow managed to get top marks at school and both got full scholarships to top Indian universities. Dh is now over here as a top engineering consultant. His brother is on the board of a FTSE 100 oil and gas company (but based in India). Their lives are unrecognisable now.

Similarly me and my siblings grew up on benefits. Immigrant parents. At 16 I was working part time but somehow managed to get top GCSEs (10 As and A stars). Left school anyway, worked in warehouses, then ended up in a bank got promoted a dozen times and I'm now in a VP role.

I disagree that the class of the family you are born into is the class you remain.

Class still exists but it is much more fluid these days.

DM was a young single mother, we lived in a terraced house in Stoke and she sold double glazing and also did shifts in a corner shop. From a working class background: GPs worked in factories, lived in council house. DF was Ex-RAF officer on his way to down and out via alcoholism = I am working class.

DM then married DSF who owned a decent sized engineering business. DM carried on working as a steel salesperson and saved up enough money to go back to uni (and still pay half the bills) and got a degree, masters, Ph.D and then became a university lecturer. We moved into a detached house, had nice cars, dined in good restaurants and mixed with millionaires.

I then did Law at uni and worked my way up to a six figure salary in The City, live in the Home Counties, other than my regional accent I would say the things I say, way I act, etc is middle class.

TBH I don't consider myself as belonging to either working or middle class. I see myself as fluid between the two. I'm as comfortable in a working man's club as I am in The Savoy. Why feel the need to define yourself in terms of class?

Personally I think it is best to be able to move between classes - being able to talk to a wide range of people and just accept them as people without bringing ideas of class into it is a great advantage. You don't have to be one or the other. You don't have to accept and live by this class nonsense.

And YY to PP who have pointed out the silliness of thinking being intelligent, creative and liking cultural things means you aren't working class. Why play into these outdated stereotypes?

I'm trans-financial and class fluid

Don't most people dream of a different life. It's sad that yours heavily relies upon wealth and a naive view of the historic role of class (and possibly gender roles).
Try to appreciate your family more, find out where your skills are from (or just come out with it and accuse your mother of infidelity). Nice.

I also hate this assumption that if you are wc but well off you have 'made it' or are now 'better'. Personality and how you treat others is how I judge, if I'm judging people at all. Which I try not too.

I know I'm quite creative, so I often ponder life as an upper class person

Genius

Have a gluten-free artisan

My dad was born in to a middle class family. Brilliant education, beautiful home, father was high up in the army and later was a Tory MP.

He became a mechanic, married my mum young, lived in a council house, holidayed in caravans and drove boy racer type cars.

He certainly didn't fit the class he was born into

I'd say OP is class questioning rather than trans. She hasn't yet worked out if having a fancy for watching Downton Abbey and reading Antonia Fraser makes her actual Upper Middle or not, but she's holding tight to that National Trust card while she works it out

I know I'm quite creative, so I often ponder life as an upper class person

Most of the UC people I know - including extended family - regard excessive reading with a certain amount of suspicion, even though they've been educated at some of the best schools in the land. It's mostly horses, dogs, skiing, and general hearty fun with old schoolfriends called Tubby and Chinstraps.

Good luck

My dad was born in to a middle class family. Brilliant education, beautiful home, father was high up in the army and later was a Tory MP.

He became a mechanic, married my mum young, lived in a council house, holidayed in caravans and drove boy racer type cars.

He certainly didn't fit the class he was born into

But that's a classic mode of rebellion against your upbringing the brother of a friend of mine matches it exactly. Upper-middle-class upbringing by senior academic/intelligentsia parents in a series of beautiful old houses, public school education, trust fund, Cambridge-educated elder sister who's in a cognate field and famous but he refused to take A-levels or go to university, invariably spoke Estuary, became a secondhand car salesman, and married at 22 an actual (!) working-class woman with several children.

It was the most thorough possible way of sticking two fingers up at his parents, by 'becoming' working-class.

I'll have a gluten-free artisan if there's one left.

OP, you sound confused, I don't think i am getting the gist of your post.

Either way if you know you are talented and creative, utilise your skills, educate yourself further, contribute to the world with your inherent and acquired gifts.

Most importantly don't look back to where you come from but where you wan to go. Whilst doing all this remain humble and grateful and don't be snobbish toward your family.

If you must judge people, judge them by how they treat tose less fortunate than them, how selfless and generous they are and how they contribute to making the world a nice, kinder more happy place to live for all.

Anyway, the OP seems to have drifted off - maybe through a field waist-deep in daisies. Or maybe she's curled up dreamily on a windowseat. I'm pretending to work whilst MNetting and watching Dance Moms

I'd go back and have another look at that box set. The Earl of Grantham intelligent and creative? His raison-d'etre in the early series is to lose the family income on dodgy speculations. His family appreciative of the arts? Did you see that hilarious scene in series 6 where they have to give a house tour and reveal that they have never actually looked at their own pictures and don't give a shit what they're about?

Julian Fellowes may be a sentimental hanger-on of the upper classes, but he is also capable of some quite acute observation. Unlike the OP.

Depends do you pop to the loo or go to the toilet op?

Maybe the OP has realised that liking Downton Abbey means only that you have a high tolerance for shit TV.

(Is that the guy who played Tragic Cousin Matthew wearing a hairy beast suit in the new Beauty and the Beast? Would you say that Hollywood's working out for him, or will the much touted DA film involve him getting out of a very long shower, like Bobby Ewing, saying 'Mary, I had the oddest dream!'?)