Germphobia is a class thing, isn't it?

[tenbob]

Full disclosure: I'm slightly fascinated by the posters here who won't wash their hands on a towel at someone else's house, buy cakes at a school fair or use a public toilet for fear of germs, and admit to being the sort of person who eats stuff past the sell-by date if it passes the sniff test

But I've just spent a couple of days working at a food fair type thing and noticed a definite class divide in germ tolerance

There was no end of stereotypical posh families who would share their ice cream with the Labrador, eat food that had fallen on the floor etc

And the mums (it was always the mums) who were obsessively wet wiping everything were non-posh

Can you prove or debunk my theory?
And if I'm right, why are the upper classes so relaxed about dirt?

It’s not a class thing particularly.
There’s a touch of town and country - most city dwellers (except those with weekend retreats) would be horrified to find a brace of pheasant hanging on their front door and would fret about very wet muddy dog entering house. Country dwellers are usually very happy to find the pheasant, happily pick the bugs off a homegrown lettuce and know a flagstone floor can be washed much easier than cream carpets.
There’s a touch of neurosis versus chilled attitude. Class is irrelevant here - people have bought in to supermarket profiteering from ‘use by’ and ‘ best before’ dates. Add onto that Daily Mail hysteria around certain microbes - MRSA ( which is generally harmless) and a total lack of inherited inter generational knowledge as a consequence of divided families living remotely from previous generation.
Then the notion that parents have to make their children’s life perfect - no illness, no sadness, ever happy and joyful and it’s obvious why we have become a risk averse society to the detriment of the next generation.
My mother (very working class) would say “ You have to eat so much dirt before you die”. My MIL (Inherited wealth, Debutante) would say “Just scrape the mould off darling, it will be fine inside”. It’s not a class thing. Both had festering dogs that had few rules.

I agree , well at least this is my experience too. Class yes but also wealth (which I don't think is always related to class).
I'm not posh by any stretch but I do come from a quite well off family. My mum and dad aren't half as bothered about hygeine as other people I know who are much less well off. My DP is often astounded at things I'll find acceptable (eating something after I've dropped it on the floor, accepting food items friends don't want, not being bothered if something is a bit mucked up, not freaking out if the dog has moulted some fur on my clothes etc). DP grew up in poverty, it was all about looking the best you could to be respectable. It makes sense.

I’m glad I read this thread, my house is an absolute tip so that must mean I’m almost royalty!!!

I have noticed that one of my friends is a bit obsessed with cleaning and is very proud of how clean her house is and always talks about how much things cost and she comes from a working class background, whereas I come from a more middle class background and have more of a “a bit of dirt won’t harm anyone” mentality and I’d much rather have expensive clothes and furniture and keep them till they wear out.

I am laughing at shoes.

We don't usually take our shoes off and would never ever expect a guest to take theirs off. My in laws think that is because I am very upper middle class but I have always laughed it off before- maybe there is something in it.

I used to belong to an extras agency in Uddingston. They supplied extras for Blackadder Back and Forth, the producer stayed a night in their house. He was woken in the morning by one of the dogs running in, crapping on his bed and running out again! 😂

Yes some social workers are rather obsessed with ‘housing conditions’.

By definition they are a lower middle class profession therefore one of the most germphobic social classes.

I think it’s partially due to house size.

In a small house with small rooms you have to keep it more clutter free to get from one end to the other. In a big house it can hold lots of stuff before it becomes hazardous.

My maternal grandmother was very much of the old "got to eat a peck of dirt before you die" persuasion; not sure where she fitted in as GGP was an orphanage boy who ended up with his own tailor business and daughters educated to be schoolmistresses. Mum noted that European children out in what was then Persia (where DB was born) and then in the Gulf (where I grew up) only took sensible precautions with local produce (washing hands, fruit and veg under the tap) and were rarely ill, while oil company children ate imported food doused in disinfectant and were always pale and ill. She wasn't overly fussed about stuff.

Dad was upper working class with a mother who was neurotic about cleaning, then he went to sea where he was an officer doing white glove checks of the cleanliness of the ship, and in an era where crew members who didn't wash were scrubbed down with a deck broom by their mess mates. He was a total pain in the arse about cleanliness and I suspect I rebounded. I ended up at an English public school in a redundant stately home where I learned all sorts of useful stuff like curtsying and getting in and out of cars without showing yer knicks.

My towels are often damp because we don't have heating but get changed before they get to the smelly stage. The dogs and cats sleep on my bed (isn't that normal?) and one sleeps in it which is better than a hot water bottle. I tend to keep the loo clean but not much else but I do pick up the tumbleweeds of fur in passing. Totally mixed family background but I take after my mother whose attitude was "I want to live in a home, not an Ideal Homes Exhibition!".

I do want to live in an ideal homes exhibition

I'm from the most working class background imaginable and love fresh, clean, organised houses. It's not that things need to be sterile- not too fussy about germs- but it's just so much more comfortable when everywhere is tidy and things smell good! You can keep your sticky, grubby but posh homes 😉

I do want to live in an ideal homes exhibition

That's my dream....once my dc are grown up!

isn't that normal

Maybe? My cat used to sneak under my blankets when I was little.

But now, as an adult...? Idk, maybe it's because I've just been on the sex noise thread. ;)

But my first thought was that this would surely kill the mood that you can't have sex morning sex (e.g.) when there are pets on the bed...?

(Ok, you could get up, take them outside and come back. But idk... It doesn't seem to encourage a particularly active sex life. Which obviously isn't necessarily problem.)

I think there's a really interesting point about living in old houses making you more tolerant of dirt. We live in a (very) old house by the sea, and quite honestly even if I do clean it makes very little difference when you add the sand blown in/carried in off the dog & cats - you could hoover/dust everywhere and half an hour later it would look exactly the same as if you haven't bothered. My DM lives 2 mins walk away in a new, double glazed house and it's pretty much immaculate all the time - cleaner once a week.

But my first thought was that this would surely kill the mood that you can't have sex morning sex (e.g.) when there are pets on the bed...?

I don't have cats but TenDog gets ordered off the bed in the morning for a multitude of reasons (including her snoring, her farting and me noticing a glint in MrTen's eye)

A quick command of 'kitchen' gets her away from us...

including her snoring, her farting and me noticing a glint in MrTen's eye

Very understandable reasons imo. ;)

doesn't really work with cats ime, btw ;)

They may very well follow you into the kitchen (especially if they're expecting to be fed) but I'd be surprised if a simple "kitchen" was enough for most cats... ;)

(Well, maybe for particularly glutinous beasty? Mine would come running if she heard someone open the wet food...)

Still. I prefer to have humans (=DH) in our bed. Also, there's no way I'd want to have an additional heat source near me in summer...

I agree OP. My ex was a removals man and said the huge mansions were always filthy dirty. Him and his colleagues called them the "too posh to wash" brigade.

I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that healthcare hasn't always been free/accessible for everyone. If you had money you didn't have to worry about the doctors bills I suppose.

Whereas those without the means to afford treatment would have to protect against infections etc to avoid incurring costs so were very germ conscious.

I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that healthcare hasn't always been free/accessible for everyone. If you had money you didn't have to worry about the doctors bills I suppose. I think this is a very acute observation!
But also I find it funny that one of the posters below referred to footballers as if they universally had poor taste because they were working class - really?? And posh people have taste because it has been breed into them??? Being a new money family with taste means you don't exhibit you wealth in public and therefore the few who do chose to present their lifestyles publicly become the unintentional symbol of new money - and the stereotypes persist in a very unpleasant snobby manner.
Being classy and feeling you belong to a perceived class ranking are very different

I totally lay the blame of germophobia at the door of domestos and their decades of cinematic adverts with talking germs. Dettol too. Its now morphed into the zoflora craze where people are now actually using it as a room freshner.

Here in the states it’s

Lowest economic class: filthy

Lower middle class :germaphobes who like home decorating and take pride in appearances even if viewed as “cheap and tacky” by upper class.

Upper middle class and upper class who have beautiful historic mansions by the sea and let their effing dogs who smell of fresh vomit and butthole roam around on the white carpeting

The exception being nurses who were always highly germaphobic when I was growing up, for obvious reasons

Interesting thread. I am working class and have long had this theory. I've always figured it was to do with not having much, so taking pride in looking after what you did have. When I went to a posh uni I was shocked by people's hygiene.

I have a friend who is from a gyspy background and her house is always spotless. She says that it's a point if honour to keep your home immaculate. I often wonder what she thinks if my house

On the subject of horses indoors; I remember as a child seeing a woman in full hunting rig, riding up the stairs at their house, calling out to her husband that he was "keeping her waiting".
I did not think this at all odd, as that was the background that I came from. These days, although I do housework, I have decided that what I need is some "handmaidens" because nobody in their right mind actually likes housework. Go on. Admit it. You don't do you?

no, i dont agree with your theory. clean or dirty people can have income, ok?

ahem, i meant any income

@belinda . I love that story?

Do you live in a Jilly Cooper novel? I’m envious! Total town mouse here.