To think social class plays a part in making friends

[Jadefeather7]

I know a lot of people will likely find this obnoxious etc but as I’ve become a mum and seeking to make mum friends I feel like I didn’t realise before how much background impacts on friendships. Most of my friends come from a similar background i.e. we are professionals who live pretty comfortably. I was at a coffee morning today and I found myself having to really think about what I was saying. I felt a bit odd talking about my job and lifestyle. I thought about just sticking to baby topics as that’s what we all have in common but there were things that I couldn’t say for example when the mums were talking about babies not sleeping I couldn’t say that we managed to sort out our baby’s sleep with a sleep consultant. I even felt embarrassed about the way I speak English and felt that people would judge me for being ‘posh’.

I do appreciate everything I have had and I don’t look down on people who don’t have those things but I couldn't help feeling like the odd one out today and feeling that I couldn’t really be myself. I’ve read threads complaining about it being the other way around i.e. mums feeling that NCT groups are too “middle class” but I’m finding the reverse. Has anyone else experienced this? Do I need to try to find friends who are more like me or am I just sheltered and needing exposure to different people? If the latter do I just talk freely and risk coming off like a show off/snob or do I need to constantly be aware off how I come across and keep things to myself?

What does a sleep consultant do? (nosy)

Your issues is maybe not about class itself, but about having a chip on your shoulder.

The sleep consultant thing, you could gave easily talked around that. Maybe the sleep consultant suggested controlled crying, snd you tried that, and that worked. So you could have just said that controlled crying worked for you (without mentioning the £££ you spent on the sleep consultant)

You are imagining perceived sleights as well

Maybe you come across as a bit stuck up?

I have friends who take the mickey out of my “poshness” so what

Find things in common, instead of differences

Have you tried being yourself and seeing what happens? I probably wouldn't pay out for a sleep consultant but would appreciate you sharing any useful nuggets they bestowed upon you, and without a shred of jealousy.

Personally I use my excuse of being a foreigner to 'infiltrate' every social class/group and pretend that I don't quite get it. There are nice people everywhere, in every class, and whichever 'class' people think they are in has never, ever bothered me.

All I know is that 1) the amount of money you have doesn't define which class you are in 2) you can be working class and well educated and very nice and great fun, and 3) you can be rich and be great to be around, or you can be a complete arshole about it. I will stay away from anyone who is constantly telling me about how rich they are. It's very easy.

I really don't feel like this at all. My upbringing and profession are tediously middle class but I will talk to anyone! My friends from baby groups and classes and the school run range right across the social spectrum. And most people have quite mixed /uncategorisable backgrounds anyway. I make friends with people who make me laugh, or share a common approach or interest. I've never felt that social background was particularly relevant at all.

When I was a teen I moved from my home counties all girls grammar school to an inner city London college and was terrified. There I met one of my best friends. Being the son of a Somalian taxi driver who grew up on a Hendon council house, his experience couldn't have been more different from mine but he is just such a lovely soul. We ended up both going to the same Uni where he ended up outstripping me education-wise (PhD in Physics!)

Now I by far out-earn him because he decided that he couldn't be doing with leveraging his Russell Group degree and sitting in an office for the rest of his life. Instead he models(!), is a climbing instructor and videographer and is very happy, albeit a little impoverished. Our lives have again diverged completely but I still care about him loads and have such a laugh when we meet for a pint. I'm happy for him when he tells me he's dropping everything to go backpacking for a few weeks (ok, maybe a bit jealous), and he seems genuinely happy that I'm content and comfortable and will ask questions about my work, house move etc. I think that's what friendship is, being able to share your lives and having similar values, not having absolutely everything in common.

I don't think it's about class as just how much money you have. Nobody cares whether you are a cousin of the Queen, but they certainly judge on what sort of house you have, whether the kids are at private schools, and what sort of car you drive and then whether they want to be friends with you or not. The aspirational type will suck up to those with a bit more money than they've got. And ignore those who've got less. Totally depends on what sort of area you live in though. Not everyone is like that.

Whether it works the other way? Not so sure. There may be a bit of reluctance to be too close to someone who's obviously much wealthier but on the other hand you don't have to do expensive activities together.

I don't think it's about class OR money. I think people can have friends from different backgroudns or different financial situations as long as both parties don't judge the other one on these things.

So, for example, we have friends who are both significantly richer and significantly poorer than us. It doesn't matter because our core values and beliefs are similar. And we're respectful of each other. So my richer friends are senstive to the fact that I do not, in fact, eat in michelin starred restaurants every week and will happily meet up somewhere much more low brow. Ditto, I'm sensitive to the fact that my poorer friends may struggle to get the cash together for a pizza and am sensitive to that.

Ditto education, background etc. I couldn't care less about actual levels of education. I personally DO care about being friends with people who are thoughtful and interested in the world.

I don't care about background, but I AM a hospitable person and like people who are also hospitable. eg, I struggle to become friends with the kind of people who never invite you in before/after playdates for a coffee or turn down invitations to come to mine. I completely understand that there may well be very good reasons those people choose to do these things, but it means they're not my kind of people because sitting around at home with friends and a glass of wine is something I enjoy.

I do think wealth rather than class as such is a big factor. There can be embarrassment on both sides when there is a big difference in how much you can afford to spend.

I have a professional job though I am not as well off as I think some people assume. I just mainly found the difference in attitudes to going back to work. Most of the women I met wanted to go back as little as possible, whereas I was going back full time and quite conscious of the impact on my career of having to leave bang on time every day. I felt ashamed of quite looking forward to going back to work and not being a stay at home mum.

It's not a great comparison, the childhood and university friends vs those that you make as an adult.

It's normal to have a diverse set of the former, whereas motherhood will really throw you into one tribe or another with the continuous stream of horrible social settings where you know no one.

Over time, as my children have grown, the (mainly) women who have become good friends, but first got to know through my children are those who I have things in common with; whether that's our level of education or our interests.

I think it's just how it's evolved and not something I really thought about.

I’ve never consciously thought about seeking out friends who are of a similar background. I think I just ended up with friends from similar backgrounds because of the environments I made friends in.

I just find the idea of having to think carefully about what I can say and how I should say it or downplay it a bit exhausting.

Do you think that people from working class backgrounds are not put off by people from middle class or what they might call “posh” backgrounds?

I'm working class, as are all my family. I'm from a single parent family. None of us have been to university, we all live within 20 miles of each other in the same Midlands city. All the men do manual jobs (factory work and the like).

I don't have any middle class friends as the only middle class people I know are my boss and his family! But then I've lived in the same area my whole life so I have friends that I've known since school and making new ones wasn't that important to me.

I wouldn't be put off by middle class backgrounds or accents at all OP. But it might be harder to find common ground - the idea of a sleep consultant would bemuse me as it's not something I'm used to in my social circle! But I wouldn't be judgey about it if you were a nice person which I'm sure you are.

Mumsnetters really are obsessed with social class, aren't they? My friends are my friends, I couldn't be arsed what class they are or be able to pigeonhole them that way.

Exactly how I feel.

hello SilverCrushed, may I ask you a very personal question, ignore if it's impertinent; do you by any chance, oh horrors, here it comes, do you ever,
hold your knife like a pen !!
there, i've said it. perhaps you are shocked by the suggestion. if so, humble apologies. but I just hoped maybe, you might by one of us.
perhaps those who do could adopt a secret masonic-like sign on meeting, to recognise each other, maybe casually tapping right fore-finger onto tip of thumb.
for some unfathomable reason those who do not hold a knife like a pen, I never even knew that's what it's called, just seemed like eating to me. but to some it enrages/outrages them so much, that they should only mix with their own type, in order to keep calm and resist looking down on people.
but remember, the pen is mightier than the sword... to say nothing of the fork, spoon, and grape-cutters.
perhaps there are 2 main classes of people, those who look down on other people, and those who do not.
sort yourselves out, form 2 groups, and live as well as you can.

I am very suprised to hear that. I always adore the person when I see someone use their language in a lovely kind way (posh, snob, doesn’t matter). Sorry to hear you have this kind of experienc. I am a middle class housewife who lives in Thames Ditton (and in London for 16 years, used to work in the city), with good backround, education and as soon as I open my mouth with my Turkish accent I see other mummies goes to their high school corner :). I do have lovely friends but this my experience and be honest sometimes it is not pkesanr. I am who I am with my accent 16 years later. I am proud and happy who I am today, I am not charge of others so just need to accept some people are not kind, humanistic or well behave and some has fobia with different ethnic backrounds.

Yanbu. I used to think being foreign and open-minded I fit in everywhere. I once took dd to a baby group where the (very friendly, welcoming) ladies started a discussion amongst themselves about how they’d like more children but the benefit cap was stopping them. I sat there feeling totally lost - not sure whether to nod sympathetically, say that babies are lovely, curse the government, what? Our household income is in the high six figures. I felt like I didn’t belong there and I was making it apparent with every word I said.

I can't claim to understand this British class system (being not British myself), but noticed that my young children are started to be referred to as "working class" as they picked their English accents from the nursery workers (who are presumably working class, I cannot tell myself).
To be honest, it does bother me a little bit. Maybe I need to find out which cartoons are voiced by "posh" voice actors and hook them on to those.

For example, we recently drove to Glasgow to visit his mum. It got to 1am and there had been no mention of food, just people getting drunker and drunker. I had had enough and went to bed. I had to ask where to find a sleeping bag from the cupboard and just slept on some cushions.

In my family my mum would have made a nice welcoming meal and made up a bed for us to sleep on.

I don’t know whether you realise this, but the way you’ve worded your post makes it sound like you believe that all working class people are inhospitable drunkards, based on the behaviour of your in-laws. I’m sure that’s not how you meant it, as nobody could really be that stupid.

Do you think that people from working class backgrounds are not put off by people from middle class or what they might call “posh” backgrounds?

Are you serious?

I just find the idea of having to think carefully about what I can say and how I should say it or downplay it a bit exhausting.

This is what an awful lot of people don't have a choice about. Anyone who is an immigrant for a start, or whose parents were immigrants. Anyone whose job does not match their social background: academics with a working class background or a deckhand who is the child of academics. Anyone with a child with SN and/or unusually gifted.

You have probably never noticed how much thinking goes on around you because the friends that you think are exactly on your level are doing some invisible adapting.

The good part is that learning to be sensitive to other people's feeling can actually be very rewarding. And good friends are a good thing.

Hmmm Alex that has confused the hell out of me. Maybe I am too common to understand?! But no, I do not hold my knife like a pen 🤔

I wondered about that one too Snot.

I've only skimmed the thread, but I've had the same thoughts that I always have on 'class' threads, such as:

Just because one person that you perceive to be working class, whether they are or they aren't, behaves in a particular way, doesn't mean that everyone does. Correlation does not equal causation.

Similarly, what evidence does someone use to decide what someone's class is? Most traits that people cite apply to many people, and not consistently. There's so much overlap these days, that in many cases, you can't definitively place anyone in a particular class.

Spidey66

👏👏👏👏

The sleep consultant thing, you could gave easily talked around that. Maybe the sleep consultant suggested controlled crying, snd you tried that, and that worked. So you could have just said that controlled crying worked for you (without mentioning the £££ you spent on the sleep consultant)

You are imagining perceived sleights as well
Maybe you come across as a bit stuck up?
I was thinking that. There are ways to discuss things that draw attention to wealth and ways that are relevant to the conversation.
The "I tried controlled crying" which may have been suggested by the consultant, Vs telling a group of mum friends "I'm so glad I got a sleep consultant in because id never have managed without them" would give very different impressions.

I get the impression the OP views herself as being very different from everyone else and somehow thinks everyone else will be judging etc eg having to watch what I say is exhausting, I talk in quite a well spoken way etc. I would imagine someone thinking those things could come across as a bit snobby to others.