To ask what makes you working class? (Lighthearted)

[MissAlabamaWhitman]

So, the whole 'what makes you middle class' has been done to death hasn't it?

We're all pretty au fair with avocados, elephants sodding breath, the ubiquity of joules et cetera.
And lovely as it is to have such knowledge of the middle classes, none of it applies to me.

I'm working class and I'll explIn to you that which denotes this in just a minute.

Incidentally I heard that there's a few of us about so perhaps we can make our own list of our very own class signifiers.

Who's in?

I shall go first.....

Love of charity shops, this week I picked up a leather Hobbs bag for 3.99 and a couple of Abercrombie & Fitch tops for DD1 1.49 each!

Love of Iceland/Heron foods/Home bargains/B&M. Yes I know I could get everything I need in Sainsbury's but I actually prefer scrabbling around for bargains and topping up at Lidl.

Chardonnay. I love it, tastes fab. I can't be arsed to pretend that I prefer a Beaujolais or Cab Sav. I don't.

One bathroom/toilet in a five bed house.

Regional accent which I take pleasure in.

Children who play football and wear replica kits whilst doing so

Girls who wear pinkI draw the line at bloody Jojo bows though

Getting drunk at barbecues and performing impromptu Karaoke.

Allowing my children to 'play out' in the cul de sac from age seven.

Cleaning my own house.

Holidays at Center Parcs rather than overseas.

Owning a Huskita

Letting my children watch TV and eat crisps in full view of other parents.

Having a 'pop man'

Listening to LBC rather than R4

Not really giving a fuck about trans, one way or the other.

I'm sure there's lots more besides which I'll try to remember.
How about you?
What makes you sit back at the end of a hard day and think 'yep I'm a fully paid up member of the old working classes?'

Whereas if you are MC, a nice pair of White Company pjs, a high quality toy or book and one box of Lego at Christmas is fine as you are not making up for anything. There is no urge to splurge

I'm working class, in my opinion. DS will always get round about that. Can't stand tat - Thats why

A Huskita is a dog/bitch whose parents were a Siberian husky and a Japanese Akita.

I have it on good authority that to be in possession of such a creature is unspeakably common,

yet somebody decided to voice such an opinion, which somewhat negates it's 'unspeakably common' status

Even the lowly WC eschew the contemporary Sodom and Gammorah which is Asda

Sniffiness about Asda is something I can never understand. I get that some people wrongly equate Aldi and Lidl's cheap simplicity with low quality food and equally Waitrose's ethics and higher prices as being 'posh' but to me, Asda, Tesco and Morrisons really do seem to be much of a muchness, but you almost never see the same sneeriness towards Tesco and Morrisons as you do about Asda .

Forgot to say, what is 'common'? Is that the same as working class, or something else?

I'm unsure Barb
It's not a term which I often use to describe things and/or people.

Having said that I do suspect that to some people at least it is synonymous with the working classes.

If you reduce it to semantics is merely means popular, I suppose liking popular things isn't desirable if you consider your personal taste to run towards the refined...

As for Tesco and Morrisons I have no higher praise for either of them than I do for Asda.

I've never been to Waitrose so I can't comment either way.

I'm not a fan of Aldi more recently either, it has lost some really good products in its efforts to anglicise itself.
I'm pretty loyal to good old Lidl/Iceland/Heron/B&M.

I've got tattoos and holiday in a caravan.

Interesting thread!

I think it's my background that makes me wc. My mum a nurse, dad a mechanic and spent a lot of years working as a taxi driver too. Both of them left school young.

Grew up in quite a run down, small northern town. Remember hiding behind sofa when the milk man came because sometimes we couldn't afford to pay him. Really fun holidays in Butlins.

But ... I have a 'posh' (for Up North) voice - I think because I upwardly converged to the accents of my middle class friends at grammar school, and was involved with amateur dramatics. Plus my dad has a mancunian accent and mum's Liverpool accent very mild.

Sometimes I think my voice gives people a false impression and it makes me feel inauthentic.

People have got a bit annoyed with me in the past for describing myself as wc - mainly because I have a few degrees in literature and feminist theory, and now teach in higher education. Have a book published and quite a nice house and, in some ways, a mc lifestyle. My best friends all come from wc backgrounds though - even if they're all Guardian reading, home owning, professionals now. I generally don't feel as comfortable with 'real' mc people (apart from one or two) and I'm sure that's my issue. In fact it will be.

Like some have said, I feel I straddle the two. But my heart is wc.

Stereotypical Cultural Bits I still 'do':

Cheddar on spag bol
Say 'front room'
tea is my evening meal
I have been known to eat crisp sandwiches
Extended family gatherings often seem to be at Harvester's
Go way over board at Christmas and always worry about having enough presents
Buy expensive children's clothes
Always thinking about decorating and things being clean - although I'm often too knackered to follow through!
Still think M&S is quite posh. Fills me with glee to buy furniture from there.
I can't bring myself to get that angsty about what my kids eat as long as there's balance and they eat fruit and veg every day - my 'proper' mc mum friends spend an amazing amount of time stressing about this.

I don't like Asda. I don't know why, I've never given much thought to it. I like Tesco and Aldi. Waitrose is another one. I never knew it was classed as a mc supermarket. I used to shop there when I was a student (it was either that or Iceland) My local Scotmid is actually more expensive than Waitrose! But it's 5 mins away and I like the convenience.

Interesting. I think M&S furniture is dire. If you look carefully the seams and mitres are never straight. My upholsterer has said the chair frames are the poorest quality. Yet they charge John Lewis prices.

That may be some of it. I can walk through TKMax, feel the cloth, look at the cut, judge the swish.

It's about knowing what is quality and what is tat and that transcends class, it is taste, an eye for detail and design.

Confidence and self assurance = class. It isn't about where people shop, it's knowing how to shop.

I'm not really sure what class I am? I would say my parents are middle class - Dad was a bank manager, Mum was a middle manager in an office, live on a naice estate, 2 cars, 2 holidays a year, retired early, etc.

I dropped out of uni, had 2 DC. Now I'm a single mum living in private rented on an ok estate. Middle management job, ok money
(45k) but no savings or property. Shop in Lidl, go to the gym, don't watch much TV, no tattoos!

So am I middle class because of my parents or working class because of where I now?

Not that it really matters, just find it interesting.

Violet 45K is a very good salary, assuming you're living/working outside of the capital

Blue it sounds good, but factor in private rent in the SE, two teens and ex who has never paid a penny in maintenance, then it doesn't go far!!

Violet I know what you're saying. SE rents are a killer and financing two teens must be quite difficult at times. Sorry about the ex

Thank you

Funnily enough when my mum's neighbour walked in announced last week (they have been neighbours for 56 years), my snobby auntie told my mum "That must be a council house thing! This from a woman who was brought up in a miners row with an ootside lavvy!! To me our council house neighbours were decent hard working folk who would do anything for each other and still so!!

All very simple. Middle Class use lavatories not toilets. They have breakfast lunch tea and supper, they say I beg your pardon,not pardon. They stand up when a lady enters a room, say how do you do, rather than hi, men do not wear hats indoors.Much more !

Ummmm

That may all be very true but the OP was discussing that which makes you working class, so to list a load of supposedly middle class behaviours is, well, odd

Unless of course the working class are defined primarily by their lack of middle class behaviours and don't actually have an identity or behaviours of their own.

What about those who use the term "bog"?

Ok im very working class. Used to go to butlins every year. There were two familes that went. One family would get a three bedroomed chalet and my family would buy a day ticket but then stay in the chalet "hiding" for the week. We had breakfast, dinner and tea and a "sweet " (desert) for afters. Always had fish on wed and Friday. We didnt have a phone till I was 12 and my da never owned a car. We had a motor bike instead. We had a great childhood though!!

If say they're possibly rather well acquainted with a stretch of marshland.

Isn't breakfast, lunch, dinner vs breakfast, dinner, tea more north vs south than class based?

What would a plumber or builder in London or a doctor or solicitor in Yorkshire say?

Using the back door

MIL is both working class, southern and married to a northerner. Lives in Yorkshire.

She calls lunch dinner. Once asked me if my parents had their dinner in the day or evening and got arsy when I said they had their lunch at lunch time and their dinner in the evening. She counts food as well. Is that working class or just fecking rude?

Counts food?

As in 'three chicken breasts, four kiwi fruits, one box of shredded wheat'
Said out loud?
For what purpose?

I don't know that it's rude, it's definitely slightly bizarre though.
Even by MIL standards

No I mean when you put a bowl of potatoes on the table and six people are at the table. She will count the potatoes in the bowl and if there are 18 in the bowl will announce there are three for everyone.

There is always enough food on my table it doesn't have to be counted. You take what you think will fill you up without being greedy.

It isn't funny it's just I'll manner.