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?'

Single mother on benefits living in a housing association 2 bed tenement flat

Actually I think that makes me UNDERclass.

Dad tradesman lower ranks military, mum retail, ex lower ranks military.

Scots (better still native weegie AND from a 'scheme'

Not been on holiday at all for 6 years. That was to Italy for a family wedding. Before that last holiday was Skegness. Which we LOVED.

Breakfast-dinner-tea
Tea is eaten on lap while watching telly. (Not tv)

Dd has ketchup on EVERYTHING

Call my friends Hun.

Have huge hoop earrings and wear my hair in an Essex face lift.

Shop around for bargains (necessity).

Drink lambrini or whatever wine is on offer. Even lager on occasion.

Majority of our clothes are from primark or supermarkets, the ones that aren't were bought in sales!

Rellies who've done time (one had a very long stretch).

No car at all.

Staunch socialist, dad was a union rep.

House proud n do own cleaning.

Self and dd always 'nicely turned out' so as not to be 'judged wanting'

Agree re 'feistiness' being wc, love a good debate/cause.

However

Had dd aged 28 (but had been trying to have a family from 25).

Have mainly worked in senior admin.

Have a degree.

Have a Middle English accent.

All of which is a toe in mc territory.

Friends of ALL backgrounds from Romany to landed gentry.

Agree Teacake5, my Dad though Maggie T was the best thing ever!

I have net curtains and a dangly toy from the mirror of the car.

I volunteer at music festivals and most of the participants come from private schools or state schools in MC areas. All of them have private lessons.

I think you're probably right about WC kids and guitars, but those kids don't seem to figure in the festivals.

I must be WC by the way of biology (being allergic to avocados).

I'm also currently living off takeaways and will chose a pint over wine at any time. And my great grandfather was a train driver.

That having been said, I'm actually so horribly MC that my junior staffer recently told his poor girlfriend she was only to make 'intelligent conversation' with me when he introduced her at the firm's summer do and was utterly horrified when she mentioned that they'd spent their last holiday on Ibiza.

I must be dreadfully common after all, because I found his utter panic immensely amusing.

Driving a big but old BMW or Merc

I know, I know it's offending some MC sensibilities that we've taken to descending upon center parcs

Arf. Is this why everyone I tried to chat to at CP looked horrified

I thought I was fairly working class (For example I'm currently on an all inclusive holiday in Lanzarote), but reading this thread I'm clearly a middle class slattern. My unkempt disheveled appearance and messy cluttered house have obviously turned me into a bit of a social climber. Who knew!

Saying dinner and tea rather than lunch and dinner/supper.

Not knowing how/when to eat a salad served alongside a main meal.

Having an encyclopaedic knowledge of ITV shows and adverts from one's childhood.

Attending a sink school with no sixth form.

Being brought up on a diet of Iceland food/ready meals/10p mixes and fizzy drinks

Being fearsomely envious of friends whose families could afford holidays abroad/Marks & Spencer/Soda Streams.

That's me anyway.

Working?

Agree that charity shops are a very middle class thing - my working class inlaws don't even drop things off in a charity shop in case someone sees them.

Working class to me is:

going out in your pyjamas in the middle of the day
smoking
tattoos
Butlins
Iceland
Matalan
regular diet of waffles and richmond sausages
children called Jayden or anything hyphenated
mountains of plastic tat under your perfectly coordinated christmas tree
Excessive use of "hunz" "lolz" and "babez" on social media.

Working class and 'Underclass' (horrible term) are two very different things.

Working class - traditionally full of pride, care about keeping standards up, what the neighbours think etc. Working class care about how they are viewed by all - whereas middle class only care how they are viewed by one another (competitive parenting etc).

I find the term 'blue' and 'white collar' workers reductionist but helpful in terms of class according to types of job and related lifestyle. Both classes work.

underclass are the terminally unemployed (as featured on Jaywick etc).

When it comes to making policies/laws, working class and middle class have the same interests, both separate from underclass.

I'm an odd one. Having very mc professional parents but I'm living a wc life/job/area/dh. I've tried to take the good bits from both. So I might wander about John Lewis but end up buying in Matalan

I'm not sure about these markers.

I grew up in a council estate on the edge of a mining ( now defunct) town.

As a child no one had a car in the street.
We had no fridge
No phone
No central heating.
No one in the state had these things.
No holidays except visiting relatives.
Only one person in my primary school class ( of 35) went to University.
People had low aspirations.
Food was crap I never saw yogurt or a grapefruit ( except in a tin)
Hardship was everywhere, grinding and grim.
Domestic violence was everywhere, women were beaten and no one cared.
My family did their best, but stepping outside the home was like a war zone.
I don't have good memories of my roots.

I'm currently on an all inclusive holiday in Lanzarote

So am I , where are you?

How/when are you supposed to eat your salad?!

I do have a few MC pretentious.
Eg. I wanted a sofa from John Lewis so for every birthday and Christmas I asked for JL vouchers until I could afford to add to and buy it.
Another year I was skint (single Mum) but had been given a £50 M&S voucher for my birthday mid December. That year our Christmas dinner came from Marks's.
However, I suspect my use of vouchers affirms my WC ness...

Also calling m&s Marks's 😳

I put salad cream on my salad. I eat it with my main. I might be leading you down a dark path...

I remember a friend saying, "you really like those hoop earrings don't you?"

It was one of those odd things out of nowhere as we didn't talk clothes.

She was a very alternative/ tasteful hippy type. You needed money to pull that look off and I was in jeans, trainers and my gold hoops from Argos. I could only afford one pair of earrings back then!

My DP loves salad cream. I served with tea yesterday some nice mayonnaise. DP said he liked his tea except the mayonnaise. He has working class tastes in food and hates anything poncy.

Most of my furniture is from Argos. Except the JL voucher sofa.

Is saving up for things WC? MC people seem to just get what they want and pay for it whenever.

I think saving up used to be a wc thing but a lot of my friends don't have a penny saved. Everything is on credit. Dh says my saving obsession is mc. The wc have a Can't Take It With You attitude which I quite like. Yer a long time deed as we say in wc Scotland.

Was brought up working class. Still working class because I can't afford not to be.

I've never been near a Centre Parks. We had caravan holidays once a year at Haven or Robin Hood camp.
My nan didn't have an inside toilet until I was about 5.
Never been in a Waitrose.
Marks And Spencer's and Sainsbury's are the posh supermarkets.
"Having a 'do" (Someone renting out a hall/club and putting on a buffet)
Your nan/mum having a glass cabinet full of ornaments and photos that nobody's allowed to go in.

I care a lot about "gender politics/rights though. Maybe because I'm part of the LGBT community.

Sure am Alabama!