To wonder if middle class children appear more ‘scruffy’

[Workingclass]

Went to a Childs party today for an old school friends DD (they are incredibly middle class) and her group of mum friends (who are equally as middle class)

I admit I don’t usually socialise in many middle class circles but I couldn’t help but notice that all of the children looked... scruffy, for want of a better word.

None of them had brushed their hair, they were all in mismatched clothes with muck on their faces. Didn’t look bathed..

I feel awful saying it, but I notice this also with the MC children at the DC school, has anyone else noticed it? I’m just curious as to why this seems to be a thing? Does my dds plaits and dresses ‘out’ her as having a working class family?

Is it more of a privilege thing? We don’t have much money so am weary of being judged as lazy by not doing her hair, I also make an effort to dress her nicely so she doesn’t look like ‘the poor kid’ is it that if your middle class you don’t have that fear?

Absolutely happy to be told IABU and judgemental but I am genuinely curious on the subject.

Lmao at posters who think members of the working class can’t appreciate fine wines and cultural pursuits such as ballet and opera. Didn’t know this was exclusively a middle class domain.

I don’t think that so hope not referring to me- that was someone else!

TOTALLY AGREE.

I’m probably classed as middle class now but grew up working class. I’m much more flexible than my mum was regarding DD. My DD has to wear her hair up for school but hates doing so. At the weekend it goes unbrushed and she probably sometimes does look scruffy. My view is that she is just a little girl having fun and I absolutely do not give a shit about what anyone else thinks of her. I dont know if that confidence is middle class or not. Likewise it wouldnt enter my head to judge a little girl (or her parents) who had beautiful braids and lovely dresses. Each to their own

Sorry flossie if I confused a post of yours with someone else’s. Noted.

Kate Middleton for example has obviously moved into the royal family and as such is part of the aristocracy, but she will always herself be middle class.

and william's posh friends never lose an occasion to remind it - one of the reason why Pippa didn't marry into that world but went for money and is the one bringing the "royal connections". She chose well.

In fact im on two bizarrely similar threads and think I may even have confused the threads. Bloody hell !

Middle-class American here - I was always a bit put off by the way the British dress their children, like a rummage through the laundry basket.

I always had a very rigid view of how I wanted my children to look - no crocs, no cargo shorts. Always a sucker for embroidery (dogs, whales, nautical flags) and they've never successfully held onto a pair of sweatpants.

Americans don't pride themselves on letting their kids walk around looking like they've been dragged through a hedge.

Liking those things on its own doesn't define your class- it's mainly your level of education and professional job. Pps were saying you could still be working class with these so my point was that if you have an Oxbridge degree, professional job and exclusivelymiddle class cultural reference points means it's a stretch to say you are still working class, even if that is your background. It's all a lot of hooey in one sense as no one fits a demographic exactly, but there is a middle class culture as well as traditionally middle class jobs.

Generation- and the press!

I know a fair few Americans who do have a similar love of scruffiness and devil may care re labels and ‘good clothes’ for kids. Most of my American relatives are like English middle class in that respect (not in others !).

I wouldn’t say I’ve noticed this amongst the middle class per se but I have noticed it with ‘posher’ families for want of a better word. They do tend to have the dragged through bush backwards hair and maybe not dirty clothes but certainly weird ones...

But your reference points wouldn’t be exclusively middle class- your childhood would also have a hugely significant part. My mother, whilst grammar and university educated and in a very senior professional position with pretty much all middle class friends now, grew up in an upper working class home- traits that she developed there still shine through- she had an absolute fit yesterday I hadn’t mopped my floors- something my working class grandmother was obsessed with.

I know a fair few Americans who do have a similar love of scruffiness and devil may care re labels and ‘good clothes’ for kids. Most of my American relatives are like English middle class in that respect (not in others !).

Sure, but it's not a weird inverted class indicator in the US - not caring is not synonymous with the middle classes.

Of course they can. But they are still stereotypically middle class interests. I do quite a lot of work trying to improve social mobility in the law and people frequently tell me they didn't grow up with these middle class reference points so find the culture a bit alien. I don't think it's totally ridiculous to acknowledge cultural differences, while recognising they are not rigid.

If you were to summer in Nantucket, for example, the children will all be wearing pretty cute stuff. Quite possibly handed down from older siblings.

Alaskan - slightly agree. Still a ‘thing’ but nowhere near as much as here.

Well to me it's where the balance of your references now fall.

Would you guys say that someone like MICHELLE OBAMA is working class just because her parents were? And so is Barack Obama?

Interesting at the risk of this turning very us centric I agree with Nantucket but many of those I was thinking about would rarely go there. A bit like do you go to Rock or West Penwith. God we are going down worm holes here !!

Great thread - this is so going to end up on Loose Women next week!

Your childhood ones will always remain the strongest- that’s just the way it is. And I say that as someone who has worked with a lot of damaged kids, including fostering.

and when a worm goes down they leave casts behind

Interesting at the risk of this turning very us centric

My fault, sorry.

Of course Michelle Obama is not working class, but do remember that she went to Yale and if I recall and excerpt from her book correctly she was from a fairly intellectual, if perhaps not well off (no idea) background.

She crossed paths with B. Obama because of Yale.

My DH's family is middle class.

The reason they can wear hand me downs is because their children have SO many clothes, that the clothes are only worn a few times. Whereas I'm WC, and only but a few clothes for my DC, that get used alot and are completely worn out by the end of the year.

The other thing I noticed was DH's family would rather buy a second hand 'expensive brand' car seat than a new one at the same price. How they are perceived really matters to them so it's not always about high end labels, but more boden/polan o pyret type clothes. That frankly look a bit crap but they prefer to dress kids in that as thats what people around them are doing.