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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Do (upper) middle class people brag more?

126 replies

MuseumofInnocence · 28/12/2018 09:07

I've spent some time with extended family (I'm from a fairly ordinary background - upper working / lower middle). Anyway, much of the extended family is quite posh (doctors, lawyers, etc), and I noticed a few times that there was what I thought what I thought a bit of "signalling going on".

I was chatting to one chap, (doctor), who told me about his sister-in-law, whom I've never met, and he managed to slip in that his sister was a solicitor, and one of their daughters was studying medicine at Oxford and the other daughter was studying Law in London.

My next friend sidles up, and tells me about his promotion, and his new house, and literally manages to squeeze in (indirectly) the size, by telling me what the area of the ceiling he has to decorate!

It just seems to me with my friends from a similar background, we talk less about our work (and whatever successes we had) and more about general life.

AIBU to think it's a middle class thing to signal and brag like this? I don't think it's malicious and I know I can be a bit sensitive, coming from a less posh background.

OP posts:
SmokeGetsInYourEye · 28/12/2018 11:34

Agree Dapply but you get a lot of people on here who speak of the upper classes as if they are saints - speak to everyone, never know they were wealthy - funny thing is everyone knows they are Upper class - somehow that signallng always gets sent out! Wink

TinklyLittleLaugh · 28/12/2018 11:44

Proper posh people don't brag at all and downplay their "stuff" they drive old Volvos and have dogs.

But having lots of money because one of your ancestors oppressed a load of peasants is really nothing to brag about is it? Doesn't make you anything special at all.

Along with many of my friends, I am the first person in my family to go to Uni, back in the 80s. We are all much more affluent and worldly than our parents and most of the people we grew up with.

So when we get together there's a certain amount of, "Tom has been offered a place at Oxford, Katie is doing a gap year in Paris, we've just bought a holiday home on the coast, isn't that fucking amazing?" going on. I don't do it outside my circle though. Presumably my mates are the same.

TinklyLittleLaugh · 28/12/2018 11:49

And thinking about it, our grown up kids are a bit eye rolly when all us oldies chatting on. And afterwards they will say things like, "Nice stealth boast mum, you shoehorned little brother's grade 8 in piano in really well".Hmm

But really all this amazing middle class stuff is totally normal and every day for them. Just not so much for us.

katekat383 · 28/12/2018 11:50

echt

Doctors and lawyers aren't posh.

It's crass to brag off about these things. To respond when asked is quite different. No matter what the social class.

Exactly.

katekat383 · 28/12/2018 11:55

When mum was dying and we were all at the house, my godmother brought her new husband, who looked so much like Larry Lamb I had to look twice (he wasn’t) and he started wittering on about the £1 million house they’d bought and how much he was spending on it. My uncles looked horrified, because they don’t talk about money, despite not being short of it in any way. It was a bit embarrassing and I ended up feeling very sorry for the husband, mostly because I guess it all depends on your own circle, and no matter who you are, being out of your own circle is awkwarandembarrassing.

LiveSleepSnore · 28/12/2018 11:56

I think extended family events is not the same as talking to your nearest and dearest. Unless we know these children it's just not relevant to the social situation. If I knew the children or at least of them I' d likely ask after them anyway. In which case of not say they were boasting. ( It's my mil way though to ask questions and then judge you a bit uppity for the answers, I'm sure op doesn't and didn't do this!)

katekat383 · 28/12/2018 11:58

Drat. Posted accidentally whilst trying to sort the formatting. ANYWAY, my point is that it is amusing to tally the number of Hyacinth Buckets right there! Ironic really.

katekat383 · 28/12/2018 12:00

My grandfather was knighted and my grannie hated the title, never used it. Unless she was on the phone to a call centre and needed to use it smile

Oh good grief. Proofreading for cringe factor required!!

ChristmasTwatteryDoesMyHeadIn · 28/12/2018 12:00

I love the word drat! A much underused and very expressive word, a favourite of my lovely late Mum.

ChristmasTwatteryDoesMyHeadIn · 28/12/2018 12:01

katekat383 no reason to cringe, why would there be? It worked! Every single time.

Pa10ma · 28/12/2018 12:02

Why are there so many threads about class stereotypes all of a sudden?
It’s as if somebody has an agenda (or weird obsession)?

ChristmasTwatteryDoesMyHeadIn · 28/12/2018 12:03

Because people who know hee haw about different groups of people have prejudices.

It’s ok to bash people if they’re apparently posh.

Thisnamechanger · 28/12/2018 12:04

I thought UMC was landed without titles?

katekat383 · 28/12/2018 12:05

The lovely scruffy upper class with the dilapidated houses and the rusty estate cars are a myth.

No one is naive enough, surely, to think such people are genuinely unconcerned about status? There are ways of signalling your class and status without bragging in the conventional way, as other posters have said.

ChristmasTwatteryDoesMyHeadIn · 28/12/2018 12:10

The lovely scruffy upper class with the dilapidated houses and the rusty estate cars are a myth

They’re not, they’re really really not. Whether they’re in the majority I have no idea, but I know they’re not a myth.

My only reference point is my family, my uncle still wears his dad’s overcoat from 1969!

You seem pretty angry, why is that do you think?

Thisnamechanger · 28/12/2018 12:12

The lovely scruffy upper class with the dilapidated houses and the rusty estate cars are a myth

Not necessarily. Smartest family I know have a sinking house.

SoupDragon · 28/12/2018 12:13

Is it open season on non working-class people or something?

ChristmasTwatteryDoesMyHeadIn · 28/12/2018 12:13

Apparently Soup

Pa10ma · 28/12/2018 12:16

How many more made up excuses for ridiculous threads will this poster think of?

BirdieInTheHand · 28/12/2018 12:26

It's all relative surely?

If all my friends holiday at Butlins and I talk about my 2 weeks in Barbados then it could be perceived as bragging.

If all my friends charter yachts in the Bahamas for 6 weeks then my 2 weeks virgin holiday isn't going to be a brag is it?

Holidays, jobs, hobbies, what your family/DC are all fairly standard conversational topics.

If you're a consultant who has just got back from the Maldives and is spending next week watching your DD eventing then surely that's just life?

OneStepMoreFun · 28/12/2018 12:31

if he'd told you one of his daughters was studying nursing at Hull and the other was at uni in Newcastle doing French would you have thought he was boasting or making conversation? Because effectively, he's just sharing the same sort of 'what my kids are now up to' chat, but people respond to it differently because those particular unis and courses are seen to be status symbols.

stayathomer · 28/12/2018 12:35

Depends how they were talking, they may just have been making conversation or they could have been bragging. I think all walks of life brag

stayathomer · 28/12/2018 12:38

*SoupDragon

Is it open season on non working-class people or something*

I'm actually shocked at all the mud slinging at all classes on all these threads

LoniceraJaponica · 28/12/2018 13:01

I agree stayathomer.
I never come across discussions about class in real life, but it is very prevalent on here.

AlbertWinestein · 28/12/2018 13:23

MN has always had an element of obsession with class. Some of the guff that gets pedaled out is absolutely fascinating.