To ask what the social classes are?

[nicea]

Never understood it.

Have only heard of working class, middle class etc and wouldn't know how to identify someone as one.

What are the classes and the stereotypes/generalisations linked to them?

Class is weird. I’m completely and utterly middle class as are my DC. I don’t think it, I just know it.

I also happen to think that DH is now middle class although he was brought up in a working class family. He denies it and is rather horrified by the thought. He has a professional job and the lifestyle that goes with it and his social circle is all MC. He doesn’t feel he fits in and thinks he’s an imposter.

His family think they are now MC but I think they are WC. They don’t have what I would consider MC interests and, for example, this evening, one relative was trying to talk DS out of applying to university next year because uni isn’t for everyone and there are other opportunities. Which I agree with, but DS is possibly aiming to do Maths at Oxbridge (and has just a good a chance as anyone who meets the requirements) so it was a bit odd.

Class is weird.

It says a lot about the British that we are still discussing this in the 21st century!
My in-laws were/are very wealthy but will never be other than lower middle class due to their education and interests. There was BBC survey a few years ago which identified different classifications, but the principle is still the same that it is not just how much money you earn...

One side of my family is MC and the other WC. They are all lovely people who anyone would be lucky to have as relatives- and all enjoy a good laugh and a drink!

If you have a title you're upper class
If you send your children to private schools, or could afford to but choose not too then you're middle class
Everyone else is working class except people whose only income is state benefits who are the underclass
Retired people remain in the class they were in before they retired.

That's how I see it anyway.

@LovelyBranches while I agree with much of what you have written, it is worth remembering that anyone we know superficially may also have had their own struggles that we may not know about from the outside, regardless of perceived wealth, stability and class.

On a minor note, food has changed beyond recognition in this country, even in the last 20 to 30 years. There are plenty of well off, well educated upper / upper middle class people who will not have tried a butternut squash before the end of the 20th century. In the 70s Chicken Kiev was a dinner party recipe for the well to do. Before they became cheap ready meals, they required real skill to make and the melted garlic butter interior was an exotic surprise. There will be plenty of public school educated people in their 30s and older who went on skiing holidays, but grew up on stew followed by chocolate sponge with chocolate custard and never set eyes on an avocado throughout their entire childhoods.

Workless poor
Working poor
Working comfortable
Lower middle
Middle middle
Upper middle
Workless rich
Aristocracy
Oligarch

I made this up myself.

How would mumsnet classify well-to-do farmers, very comfortable wealth, well invested, old farmhouses and furniture and family lands (hence ownership of the means of production) but no university education? Social interests include classical music concerts but also local mens clubs. I would err on the side of wc but not so sure as it doesnt fit quite.

Where do teachers and nurses fit into all this? It’s so confusing, not that it even matters. DH did make a comment about us being aspiring middle class because we are definitely not as working class as our parents in our interests and activities we do with our children. But as the child of a teacher & Nurse what does that mean

How would mumsnet classify well-to-do farmers, very comfortable wealth, well invested, old farmhouses and furniture and family lands (hence ownership of the means of production) but no university education? Social interests include classical music concerts but also local mens clubs. I would err on the side of wc but not so sure as it doesnt fit quite.

IMO they would be traditional upper, upper middle class people who in the past would have been known as landed gentry. I think people like that make the new middle classes a bit uncomfortable because they can’t pigeonhole them.

I’ve known a few people of the type you describe who would be as comfortable leading dignitaries to meet the Queen as they would be at bingo in the local working mens’ club. I think it’s very much a peculiarity of the British class system that those at the very top and very bottom seem to get along quite well while the rest scrabble for position in the middle.

I'd consider myself lower middle class I think.

My parents I'd say are Middle Class. I am university educated and went to grammar school (not fee paying), but I am not in a profession. I'm an admin manager. DH is not u overspray educated and did not attend grammar school. He is from a more traditional WC family. He works in a specialist role in the police (not an officer) and earns average salary (c. 30k). We could not afford to send our children to private school. We live in a 3 bed semi ex-council house which is mortgaged, but in an expensive area as it is one of the only grammar school areas in the north. We own two cars. That about right for lower middle?

*university

Money has nothing to do with it.
The richest WAG will still be working class, despite million in the bank.

An upper class person in a council estate will still be gentry, even without a penny in the bank.

My grandparents are farmers but they own their 1000 acre farm and are not tenant farmers.
My dad was an accountant and my mum was a live out nanny/housekeeper to a wealthy family.
I would say DH and I are lower middle class, we own our own home but don’t privately educate our dc (because the only private school in the area is a grammar school which we didn’t fancy) and we both have professional jobs.

Money has nothing to do with it.
The richest WAG will still be working class, despite million in the bank.

Actually, I don’t think that’s true and I think it says more about your own class and class prejudices than it does the people you’re talking about. If you actually look into it, there are footballers wives who are well educated and do professional jobs. Off the top of my head I can think of several graduates, a successful journalist, a practicing psychologist, qualified nurses and a campaigner for children’s causes in Africa.

If I had to choose who had more class, a WAG or someone who sneered at them, it would be the WAGs who won every time.

How would you categorise an independent student whose only income is a student loan ?

@brizzledrizzle an independent student whose only income is a student loan could be of any class because class is not dependent on income.

If they are studying a vocational degree at a post-1992 university then they could certainly be working class as a lot of jobs now have vocational degrees and doing a degree isn't an automatic class-changer. it would depend what they did next.

if they are from an upper class family but either the family have lost their fortune or have cut off/rejected the student that doesn't affect their class, they will still be upper.

we have a plumber who is clearly upper class. private school and university educated, posh voice. he's lovely but he is not working class.

Absolute bollocks that you have to have had one of four grandparents in a profession to be middle class yourself. Class is only determined by you, not your parents and grandparents. That's your background, not what class you are today. I come from a long line of working class people and am not remotely ashamed of that, nor would wish to pretend I'm anything that I'm not. But now, working in a traditional profession, living where I do, with the interests I have and the level of education I've achieved, I couldn't pretend to be anything other than middle class, and would be laughed out of town if I were to say otherwise.

Funny my family were talking about this not long ago. We are catholics from rural Ireland (north) so classes aren’t as prevalent thankfully.

My Dad jokes that we are a peasants, he was born into absolute poverty in a farm - think 15 cows & 20 sheep sort of farm. My Mum has the same upbringing and they were neighbours. I also was born into poverty but have managed to get a really good education on my own merits - my parents were denied the same chances I got because of their religion & where they live.

My parents now have a rags to ritches story and are millionaires through a successful business. Still live in the same farm house they always have done. This success happened when I was a teenager.

My Dad says he’s still a peasant (lower than working class) because that’s what he was born into - I agree, it is more what you are born into and where. I’m a ‘peasant’ & my kids are too - despite the shift in wealth & education we still are all living on the same farm of land as my parents.

Just to add ...proud to be a peasant 💪🏻

It's how much money you earn, how you earn your money and what you spend your money (and time) on.

I'm also from N Ireland and this whole class thing is a completely alien concept to me. Here you either have money or you don't. I've never heard anyone refer to class in the way that I see it discussed on mumsnet.

It used to be about u and non-u. Now it should be mn and non-mn.

As an Australian living in the UK, I fo find all this bizarre! Dh and I have experienced a lot of social mobility coming from families that are farmers and pipelayers. As kids never went to museums etc, first to go to uni. Our kids are state educated, will go to uni, visit museums etc regularly.

Dh worked in finance earning in top 1%. Due to disabilities with my children, he left and started a business, which subsequently failed and now I’m a TA to work around our dc needs.

The whole notion of class doesn’t really account for these circumstances. We know we have enough money to live a MC existence without having to earn big bucks, and our dc should also be in a position to own their own properties in the future. How does class take in such lifestyle changes?

This is an interesting one. Maternal grandparents were wc but worked hard & were millionaires in 70’s. Educated their children- private schools, uni. Went to to the opera, ballet etc. So mum MC. Paternal grandparents very much wc- dad won scholarship to public school then university so MC.

Me & dh university educated, dcs at private school, one now at university

but we have a toilet brush

I blame the cleaner

Class was absolutely a thing in NI, wrapped up in religion as well. I'm glad to hear it has never been a thing for you though, treacle.

I first became aware of my class (or perhaps, lack of) when I moved to a middle class area aged ten or eleven. Despite only having moved a few miles down the road, kids made fun of my accent. Teachers openly sneered at my previous school (which on the whole was a far better school than theirs) and there seemed to be a whole new set of social conventions to learn. Previously I'd been called "a snob" at times in my old school, for various reasons such as trying hard in lessons, being an only child, and my parents having a different-looking car. In the new place it seemed that being an actual snob - sneering at others - was very much the thing. Having experienced both inverse and direct snobbery, neither are desirable and come from the same root - insecurity.