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?'

Oh I forgot the largest indicator of my firm placing within the ranks of lumpen proletariat.

I have five children.

That's right, five!

So... messy houses, crap cars, second hand clothes, bad hair, no makeup

I have a foot in both camps...

The Working Class bits...

• When an item of clothing is beyond repair, it gets cut up to make dusters
• Eat my dinner on a tray in front of the TV
• Don't go to the GP unless I fear I may actually be dying
• Never had a day out of work, the idea of being out of work horrifies me. I'd do anything to earn money if I had to. I don't consider any paid work 'beneath me' even though I earn six figures. If I lost my job tomorrow, I'd clean toilets before I'd claim benefits
• Grandad worked down th'pits
• Pro-unions
• Anything no longer needed is ensued because every penny counts unfortunately my spending habits are middle class though so I'm a bloody spendthrift
• Had a Staffie growing up
• Unlike my mc friends have been in council houses, family grew up in council housing
• Have a relative with an ASBO

I sometimes sit on the front step with a brew and a fag

I pronounce quinoa QUINN-NOAH and have never tried it.

Anne

You are beautifully spot on which the cakes with photos.

Stumbly, you gave yourself away there.

I eat my dinner on a tray in front of the TV

You mean your tea, surely?

I dont even know what chateaubriand is.
I have noticed Iceland seems to be trying to go more upmarket in the kind of food they are offering.

Yes tea, not dinner. And supper is a slice of toast before bed with your pyjamas on.

Iceland also do quinoa and sea bass, however it's still a WC gastronomic emporium.

WC people are allowed to buy and eat nice food, you know?

Dressing my dc in very expensive clothes

Spotless house

Shopping at home bargains, B and M etc

Going to Asda for food shop

AI holidays to Turkey

Butlins once a year

Making a massive deal of Christmas and birthdays

Colour co-ordinating dd's hair accessories with her clothes

Having several tattoo's

• however, I do have a gardener and a decorator.

I don't think Marks and Sparks is posh and buy the school uniform from there and some food

I have dc with posh sounding names

I say breakfast, lunch and dinner despite living in the NW which confuses a lot of people

I have a regional accent ( one of the most loved or hated depending who you ask )

So maybe the whole class thing is a load of crap, or maybe I'm secretly hankering to be a middle class yummy mummy

That's nice, not naice before anybody clutches any pearls, ok?

Your ham shops are thankfully safe, we get ours from Heron.

I think I'm working class, although I live in a rather naice area. My gps were miners and my parents went to grammar school, as I did.

I think I'm WC because:

I'm houseproud.
I do my own cleaning.
I don't have my child tutored.
My house is clean, tidy and nicely and regularly decorated.
I wear lots of make-up and I'm vain.
I'm horrified by kids in mismatched clothes.
I dislike wanky coffee and food.
I couldn't give a stuff about gender politics.

I'm my experience, MC women tend to be slimmer and dully dressed in White Stuff, Joules and wear little make-up and sludgy colours. They don't care about how their houses look, even if they are expensive. Their children are scruffier and badly dressed, and don't play out. However they have an innate sense of confidence.

Calling home bargains 'home & bargain'

You got me Alabama

Working class people do not wear second hand clothes. You wear the best you can afford - don't want people thinking you're poor. Add lots of jewellery, tan, nails and hair extensions.

When I was a child I had to wear full on party dresses with petticoats while the other kids had jeans.

Spotless homes and children - again, don't want the neighbours thinking you're scruffy.

Aristocrats are the scruffiest of the lot.

Also caravans (anyone else collect the vouchers from the Sun for the £7 caravan holiday years ago?) not Centre Parcs.

Yeah...that's my foot in both camps bit. Working class (it was definitely tea growing up) through and through but then have ended up in a six figure job in the City and living in the Home Counties.

My middle class bits:

• Say lunch and dinner now (because no one in Surrey understood what I meant)
• DC will be dressed mainly in hand me downs
• Holidays are independent never package and never all inclusive and usually to 'gap yah' type destinations
• Never eat English food or go to English/Irish bars on holiday
• Prefer rugby to football (actually I don't like sports but prefer rugby players over football players!)
• Am a champagne liberal
• Have a four hour return commute that costs £5k
• Am not especially houseproud (unlike my proper working class family whose houses sparkle) and have a cleaner and a gardener

Me too Zoflora, scouse by any chance?

YY to supper. Milk and a biscuit.
Dinner, if you must, is at dinner time (i.e. Middle of the day)

We have a huge telly which I think is quite WC.
And 10-year-old cars which get serviced every year (most jobs done on the drive by DH to keep the cost down).
We drink in our local - pints.
My grandmother was called Gran, DHs was Nana.

I think working class actually needs to be subdivided further.
There are upper working class. These are the people that do manual type jobs, but that are actually very well off. Many earn more than lower middle class people.
Then middle working class. These are people doing low paid jobs like nursery nurse, or janitor. But getting by. They are the people who are often the standard signifiers of working class. This was my family. Spend a lot at Christmas, shop in cheap shops like Heron.
Then lower working class. This is what sometimes get called the working class. People often without a job, long term unemployed, and often chaotic lives. These are not simply middle working class people who are unemployed, but families where no one works, either because they can't hold down a job, or because they don't want to work. This was my first serious boyfriends family. Loud drunken parties late into the night was their main form of entertainment.

Shopping in Aldi was very WC back when it first opened.Before the MC discovered it .In fact shopping in Aldi got the piss took out of you if you had a packet of Aldi crisps in your school pack up.And god help you if you took your swimming kit to school in an Aldi carrier bag.

I'm Australian and so confused by this thread. Can anyone explain why spending/buying a lot of gifts at Christmas and birthdays is working class? I grew up not really getting much in the way of presents so I tend to go a bit overboard now.

Also mc people having dirty houses? If I invited any of the very middle class/upper class parents from DC school to my house and it was messy or dirty I can guarantee they'd be judging me.

Also why is breakfast, lunch, tea wc?

wear little make-up and sludgy colours

Yes to the sludgy colours! I thought I was the only one who had noticed that!

Dressing to the nines for a night out, even if it's not a special occasion.

My SIL is from a solid working class background. Only lived in council houses, father worked on shipyards, area of high deprivation etc

She would rather be seen dead than enter a charity shop. She considers bargain hunting by choice and second hand clothes a very MC trait.

bugger Chip on your shoulder much?