Lower working class???

[primitivemom]

Following on from the class threads? Can anyone tell me what constitutes lower working class? Is this benefit street class lol? staffies and job centers ?

A lot of insecure middle class use mumsnet they like to know that they are above other people and are in the "right place" so post for clarification of that. Harsh but true in my personal experience nobody talks about class

I was bought up 'lower working class'. My mum ended up a single parent with kids, I was 10 years and 4 years older than my brothers. Me and my mother regularly went without food to make sure the kids ate. We couldn't afford hot water most of the time, and putting the fire on was a luxury. I never had new clothes, I was 15 (when I started working) before I had a pair of never worn before knickers.

We werent trashy like these benefit shows. My mum taught us good morals, we were polite and honest kids and even now all of us would do anything for anybody.

Having no money doesn't make you lose all moral judgement and take everything you want from society. It doesn't turn you into Jeremy Kyle fodder either.

That's not "lower" anything @BlahBlahBlahEtc . That's a heroine.

Not being sorted into a class in the host nation is one of the advantages of being foreign. If I do something off-class it's called "cultural". DH, being native, is not so lucky. Although men are judged less harshly on class, at least for little things like food and dress. Right school, right college and all is well.

I would count my up-bringing as lower working class.

We lived in a council house in an incredibly rough area. I was the only person among my friend's who had two parents. Very few people where I lived worked. Pretty much everyone smoked. There was a lot of domestic violence around. Most of my friends had social services involved at one point or another. Most of my friends had their first child before we left school.

My mum fiddled benefits for a few years before she got a job as a care worker. My dad did manual work for a company but also cash-in-hand work at evenings and weekends. My dad was in an out of prison when I was very young.

We had no money at all. Our council house still had an outside toilet until I was 14.

It's not just about money, it's about culture.

The only people who care about class are those who need someone to look down on

Against this backdrop of poverty and deprivation, there was a culture which everyone just innately understood.

Being clean was prized above almost everything. Most other sins like the drinking, the violence etc. were forgiven but you were the subject of gossip if your kids went to school grubby or your nets weren't whiter then white.
As I've found myself in an increasingly middle class world, I've really tried hard to unlearn this. It shocks me every time posh people let their kids go out in mismatched clothes or play in the mud and then don't immediately hose them down. I try not to judge but I find it very hard because of the way I was brought up

I was homeless during my teens and sold the Big Issue.
I remember chatting to a friend of mine, also selling the paper, and remarking that the best areas to sell were "affluent working class"
He was looked confused so I said "You know, places like Barking where Taxi drivers and Plasterers and those kind of people live"

He said "Well I suppose they must exist. I've never really thought about it. No one I knew growing up had any kind of job"
He came from Dublin I believe.

Yes if your kids and house were clean then nobody looked into your life I know that is deep but it was like that nobody was allowed to be dirty when i was growing up,more affluent children plod about in their wellies and shorts happy as larry if somebody in my street over 4 yrs old was out like that there would be busom hoiking and tutting

Well the cleanliness thing can't still be relevant then can it? I doubt the cleanliness obsessives on here that Zoflora everything in sight 50 times a day are lower working class?

I don't think I know anyone in real life who knows or cares what class they are or has been affected in their life by it. But I am interested why it seems to generate such discussion on here and why people seem to think that it matters so much.

BIL is high up in banking and his parents were immigrants who came to drive buses, clean, work on building sites etc.

I am a degree educated professional despite apparently not knowing how to hold a knife correctly. Many of my colleagues certainly present the image of middle class professionals with big houses in nice areas with university educated DCs even if they didn't go themselves (for a long time you could become an expert 'on the job' without a degree).

Well the cleanliness thing can't still be relevant then can it? I doubt the cleanliness obsessives on here that Zoflora everything in sight 50 times a day are lower working class?

Why?

Maybe zoflora is the new donkey stone?

I don't really know what "class" I am, nor do I give a shit, but I live on a council estate, am a SAHM, DP is a sparkie and I zoflora the shit out of my kitchen and bathroom daily. Oh and I've got a staff x

So exactly how do you work out what class you're in?!

Staffs are a working class breed and always have been. I don't think they are "lower working class", just working class.

The whole class thing bamboozles me tbh, I don't get it.

Oh God yeah the cleanliness.
If you think of "Raised by Wolves" that was basically my upbringing.
Plus I am just a naturally messy person. I really struggle with housekeeping. I'm not proud of that but there it is.
I often joke that its bloody lucky for me that I managed to claw my way into the lower middle class.
Because in a million years I will never be respectable enough to be respectable working class.

Lower working class are families with lots of people long term unemployed, often multiple generations. Chaotic families, and often issues of drug and alcohol abuse, but sometimes mental health issues. My first serious boyfriends family were like this.

That's the underclass @brasty

And spitting.

Ah, the English obsession with class. It still baffles me. As an Irish person, we are far less concerned about putting people in their place class. Also, accents don't denote class here. Lots of different accents but they are not class indicators.

I just wanted to comment on the role of class in other countries. The US is notoriously class based but generally, many americans are unwilling to admit it, and lump almost everybody in this broad category of "middle class".

I've married into the Dutch Upper middle class - there, I have heard people on several occasions talk of "ons soort mensen" (our sort of people), and someone was disparaged as being "petty bourgeoisie". It happens in the liberal Netherlands. No doubt, France, Germany, etc are the same

Lower Working Class means unskilled workers. The unemployed are a step below that.

Does the fact that I have lived in this country for more than half a century and still have no idea what people mean by 'social class' mark me out as a member of the 'uneducated underclass'? Finally, why is it that of all the forums upon which I lurk, MN seems to be the most obsessed by this thing called 'class'?

Mumsnet has a demographic who are most likely to be downwardly mobile and those who are downwardly mobile are the most obsessed by class.

The later in the last century a person was born, the more likely they are to find themselves with a reduced social standing compared to their parents. The added cost of children and lost earnings due to the childcare compound the issue of downward mobility.

It's hard to give exact definitions because there are examples of good and bad people at every level, but in general:

Lower Working class - does fuck all, lives mostly on benefits and feels perfectly entitled to rip off the system.
Working class - works for a living, claims some benefits, but (mostly) honest.
Middle class - works for a living, doesn't rely on the state.
Upper class - wealthy, earns a fortune skimming money off the working and middle classes.

As you can see, the top and bottom of society basically sponge off those in the middle. The difference is how they go about doing it!