To think working class people are cleaner than middle class

[LardLizard]

Perhaps the mc people don’t feel they have anything to prove
But bloody heck some of them are scruffy buggers !!

This thread is making me feel like I should do some tidying up

AnnabellaH

So let's say someone grew up on a council estate but did well at school but is out of work as a single sahm and eats smoked salmon for lunch every few days. What does that make her?

Everyone is different. Stop categorizing people based on the way they behave or what they do with their lives.

What is the actually point in social class anyway? Its a social hierarchy isn't it? Puttimg people on a scale of their worth.

Puttimg people's worth on a scale that should say.

I don't know but I have been into the homes of a few Upper Class people and they don't seem to give a crap about cobwebs, dust and dirt.

Bodicea Well as someone in a clinical job my smelliest patients ( discounting dementia/ elderly patients) are from working class backgrounds.

I've always associated a greater likelihood of poor hygeine/housekeeping with being working class... but that's the thing, isn't it? It's not so much a class divide - ie. working class people are messier - but that dysfunctional people who aren't really looking after themsleves/their home are presumaly more likely to be working class by default due to their issues also affecting employment.

What I wonder is whether there is a generational divide in housekeeping, or whether people just eventually learn as they get older. I spent my 20s astounded at peers lack of effort/care in this realm - will they learn or will they be a filthy generation, aganst whom their children rebel by keeing spotless houses?

(If anyone's keeping a spreadsheeet I'm underclass, having fallen from grace and middle-classness, but very clean/tidy.)

OMG somehow managed to miss 4 pages there...

@Aliosa

Obviously. However, our helpers Mon-Fri and sometimes I'm a little embarrassed by the state of the house on a Monday morning.

Its very easy to be bohemian and laid back about cleanliness when you live in a big house that marks your status clearly to others. You are still " rich and posh" despite your clapped out car and scruffy curtains. You are secure in your social place.

It's also quite easy to not have a big house and still be laid back about cleaniness and not give a stuff about one's social place or marking it out to others.

Not everyone cares what others think about them or worries about 'looking poor'.

In my experience people from every background poor rich or middle class can be very dirty full stop and on the flip side can be very clean sometimes it’s down to having no shame

How not to look common curtesy of my nan 😁

1. Clean nets
2. Red potatoes
3. Clean kitchen
4. Garden maintained
5. NEVER walk while smoking always sit.

Youre welcome.

It is indeed Barbara, just saying is all.

Totally agree OP.

Ooh I was taught that too Gowgirl; never smoke in the street. I did not know about red potatoes though!

I think that the shabbiness thing is partly that if you are middle class, a lot of your most precious/ valuable things will be a bit shabby because they've been passed down through the family, so you associate shabbiness with luxury and good quality.

I am very working class and agree I definitely feel the need to keep the house immaculate! Possibly there is more judgment of the working class that the middle class just don't feel