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?

I wonder whether you have to be in a position of "security" to go against society's norms? OK to be scruffy or lax in hygiene standards if other parts of your lifestyle show that it's your choice rather than poverty.

I agree. In my previous life I was a social worker and I could understand why some of my clients, young single mothers, didn't want to buy equipment, toys and clothes for their children from charity shops even when sometimes it meant they weren't eating properly themselves.

There are two things here.

I think you can be clean, no matter what class you claim to be - that's different from whether you are well-off or not, as even scruffy second-hand clothes can be clean.

Germphobia is different, though - dare I say it, is is probably more down to paranoia than anything else?

In fact, using anti-bac wipes and gels all day long is actually probably causing more harm than good. Bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics, which, at the current rate of progress, could lose much of their meaningful effectiveness in just a few years.

And when that happens, they won't be effective when we REALLY need them.

So, smothering ourselves and our kids in stuff may be well-meaning, but is not actually a good strategy!

People will always find reasons to look down on the working class. I suppose many working class people are particular about hygiene as it means cleanliness is one less thing that can be used against them.

On the shoes-off-at-the-door thing, my mum (firmly middle class and rather snobby... "We're descended from Scottish aristocracy don't you know!" Yes mum but many generations ago and only because the Laird shagged a maid and I don't think it's ever actually been proven...) always told me that is a working class thing because if you have money you don't care if your carpet gets dirty or worn, you can just replace it. The irony being that my parents don't have money so their old hall/stair carpet is filthy and threadbare. I think they have this idea that they're living in genteel poverty. The house is dirty and falling apart but look! Antique furniture! Heirloom china!

Yes, you are right. But I believe it comes from the same place as lower class wearing name brands.

The lower the class the more you are negatively judged, and cleanliness/clothing was a way that people ‘better’ themselves.

As a working class child, I was utterly horrified when thrown into a school with middle class children. I couldn’t believe they wore pairs of socks days in a row, their parents didn’t iron their shirts, laddered tights, unbrushed hair and big hoops. We had always been told to bin a pair of tights if they had a hole, ironing was important, etc.

I would now probably be considered MC and whilst my children change socks, I am no where near as much as a clean freak as my mother/grandmother and my children aren’t always dressed in name brands.

I dated a guy a long time ago, from a working class background. When I visited his mum I took her a small bunch of flowers I had picked on the way to see her. I placed the on the table (as she was busy sterilizing a knife with boiling water) and a bug crawled out! If I remember rightly she killed the bug, thanked me for the flowers and (possibly) disposed of them later!

My mum was from a working class background, grew up pretty poor, and ironed everything apart from tights. I mean everything - tea towels, pants, the lot! Not sure if ironing is like being a germphob but certainly I don't share her zeal for ironing.

I had a real germ thing but that was OCD! (Yes really).

Not sure if I am proving or disproving your theory!

Tend to agree with @ImperfectTents 'People are people'

Glovepuppet1 I take your point, but I suspect being bought-up to think cleanliness and tidiness are so important less people judge you makes you far more susceptible to the relentless advertising telling you that germs lurk everywhere (they do) & you must be constantly at war with them.

Shoes off at the door is generational too though and becoming a norm amongst very MC people. I think it's some combination of American and Scandinavian influences - Habitat then Ikea, varnished floorboards and simple, carpetless furnishings. Though, I'm confusing myself now because that's a very middle-MC style and also easy to sweep or mop, yet goes with a 'shoes off' modern MC attitude in my experience. Whereas fully fitted carpets are still more WC / lower MC I think.

Yes, I think it's largely (not altogether) ) a class thing, though not necessarily a money thing - it's not at all unknown to be posh, or posh-ish, and hard up.
There used to be quite a funny book about Mr and Mrs Posh-but-Filthy, though I don't recall the title.

And I recently bought a birthday card - an old Punch cartoon from a posh-people series - UC hostess showing looking-askance guest her room:
'It's a little chilly so I've put an extra dog on your bed.'
(Bed littered with half a dozen of them.)

I was just thinking and while I do associate very clean homes with working class in a way people have described, there is also a particular type of germophobe - the opening a public toilet door with a tissue type - that I do associate with a particular type of upper middle class, generally a bit precious and fussy, woman (I've never encountered this in a man). Have I just coincidentally encountered a couple of these or is this a thing?

In my head the person I'm imagining is also 'eating clean' on account of an entirely spurious gluten sensitivity.

MargaretCavendish, sounds like you are describing someone like Liz Jones, who clearly has many problems some of which manifest themselves as germophobia.

Though, I'm confusing myself now because that's a very middle-MC style and also easy to sweep or mop, yet goes with a 'shoes off' modern MC attitude in my experience. Whereas fully fitted carpets are still more WC / lower MC I think.

Nah. Laminate floor is w/c. Shoes off is def lower mid.

Yes, I suppose I am ifailed (and feel rather guilty now as I imagine you're right that this is usually linked to actual mental health issues) - but I do think of that 'type' as stereotypically upper middle class?

Laminate yes, sanded floorboards with rugs though...

Watch a load of typical class obsessed MN members rush to list the many way in which their houses are manky and their kids are filthy to try and show they’re UC

The 'Shoes Off' threads are fertile grounds for this, with posters desperate to shout from the rooftops about how much mud they love having trailed over their floors.

It's usually accompanied by listing how many dogs run joyfully in orf the land as everyone 'throws' themselves into threadbare/ancient sofas in their muddy boots.

I don't fuss about germs at all, incidentally, but most people think I'm fairly posh so I'm fitting the stereotype nicely .

It's a little chilly so I've put an extra dog on your bed

I swear I've heard my MiL say this .

Within reason! Every Monday morning at my mother's school they deloused the 6 year olds's hair in her class. One day they got 40 lice off one girl's head. Those families were filthy and very poor. If you are trying to move beyond that not surprisingly you try to be very clean once you can afford a bar of soap of course. Then once you're pretty secure you are not so bothered about looking perfect all the time, although I am very relaxed about it and eat food dropped on the floor etc (most people these days know your gut bacteria is key to health and children not exposed to some dirt get asthma, babies need mother's vaginal germs in a vaginal delivery or else passed on to them deliberately after a C section etc etc i.e. some dirt is good) but I wouldn't be too unhygienic. I don't use wet wipes but I wash my hands with soap and hot water after I've been dealing with the bins or picked up poo or whatever. I have fully fitted carpets in most of hte house as they were down when it was built around 1990 and I am too mean to replace them.

I agree with you OP. In my experience the posher people are the less they worry about keeping a germ free, neat house.

I'm working class and a germ phobe.

Watch a load of typical class obsessed MN members rush to list the many way in which their houses are manky and their kids are filthy to try and show they’re UC hahahah so true

I have fully fitted carpets because my dog loses about 1/2st of fur everyday and I couldn't cope with the tumbleweed style fur balls that roll across the floor in the kitchen all over the house, vacuuming them up is far easier because I detest housework and do the minimum required so we don't look like we need EH in. We're a shoes off family because we like bare feet. I grew up in a house though where keeping shoes on was totally normal and not frowned upon.

I was brought up middle class but married a working class bloke so have gone down to w/c. I rather like it as people are more open and relaxed where I live and there is less competition and keeping up with the Jones’.

I am still a slattern though. I can’t help it. My neighbours disapprove.

And I have laminate...

I think it’s down to not having to prove yourself if you have money, already stated very well upthread. And how you’re perceived if you are a bit of a scruff will depend on your social class. Poor = dirty. Posh = eccentric.

Not according to statistics. Children from middle and upper class families or more likely to get leukaemia and a connection has been drawn between leakemia, wealth and lack of germs.

I’ve seen the opposite to you; the mums from council estates at playgroup passing their baby around and letting them suck on old playgroup toys, contrasting against the middle class mum who has a packet of dettol wipes in her designer nappy bag and wipes everything down before Theodore touches it