Why do middle class people have busier social lives?

[swimmingpoolshower]

Feel I may get flamed here but...
I'm WC, maybe a bit MC cos I went to uni. I am also a part time cleaner for MC families and have lots of MC friends. Why do MC people always have so much going on?

Is it money to be able to do things?
Boredom of doing the same things?
Letting off steam from stressful jobs?

No judgement at all but every weekend is house warming, birthday meals, theatre, trips to museums, and that's when you're not 'away for the weekend.' Centre parcs, Rome, Cotswolds, Air BnB in the city. It's January, everywhere is going to be cold.

I think I'm a bit jealous tbh.

I'm definitely middle class and I never go out. No family network nearby, no real circle of lifelong friends. Two full time working parents. I am pretty sure it has been found that people who move away from family networks (likely to be higher earners) have more socially isolated lives and fewer social and support networks.

I'm middle class I would say. Lower rather than upper but still prob mc. My weekends consist of cleaning the house, doing my marking and prep (teacher obs), getting my kids to do theirs, maybe pub, cafe lunch out, children's clubs, maybe walk to the park if I'm feeling a guilty parent. Never host anyone for things at mi e as too tired but might go out for a drink/Di ner with friends maybe o ce a month. The people you describe must be very wealthy as well as mc.

DHs family WC - did loads of going out and socialising and weekends away. Mine MC, we did national trust, visiting old houses with picnic from home and my dad was in the pub quiz team.

PIL had better paid jobs (skilled tradesman vs public sector), didn't fund their kids through university and made them pay rent as soon as they started working (quite rightly!). So just more cash.

We spend quite a bit of our disposable income on days out, eating out etc but are dreadfully unsociable so it's just us. We have memberships like national trust which does cut costs though.

Everywhere isn't cold. Have just come back from Seville. It was 21c.

@TwiddleMuff All cultures arrange themselves along some type of divide. Yours might not be about class, but you can be sure it will have racial, sex based, wealth, age or some other arbitrary divide.

The class system in the UK is damaging, and I'm not suggesting otherwise, but every society does it in some way.

Wc I have no social life but child does. We go out and do something every weekend, during week lots of play groups. If I had more money to spend we'd be out a lot more.

Money linked with sometimes unbelievable social competitiveness/signalling etc.

Jobs and character matter too - we're both teachers and do nothing term-time except work, eat and sleep. When we occasionally get invited out at a weekend, I get a bit twitchy because I so look forward to a Friday and Saturday evening at home - this is literally the highlight of my week because I don't have to work. In the holidays, we tend to be out in the day all day as we have lots of outside hobbies we do, but back in the evenings. I do know what you mean though OP, my friend is a professional babysitter and she is kept in business by a small group of local families who are constantly going out celebrating this, that and the other. Doesn't appeal to me though.

Money

I think a lot of it is on credit cards. Weekends away, etc. They have money to service debt without creating a massive issue.

We would probably be the kind of people you are talking about and our weekends are usually jam packed with parties, birthdays, odd theatre trip, friends over, etc. We've cut back on weekends away as our credit card bill were getting silly but still have one house weekend with friends coming up.

Personally I find spending time with friends is what "fills my cup" and I get a bit morose and anxious if I don't so I do make plans to see people. Once you've invited people to one event you host, you then get invites back, etc.

Also the more you do, the more things you hear about too. We often go to things that are free, cheap or get 2for1 tickets because we've followed certain pages on social media, or friends go and tell us or we get sent offers due to already being on mailing lists, etc

@LoveIsLovely

Well obviously. I didn’t say where I live is perfect. But the UK has a crippling class divide on top of racism, poverty etc.

I think it depends what sort of job you do as well. I'm WC and have one weekday off plus Sundays. I might go out for lunch or something on the weekday but essentially can't do much or go far between the school runs.

Going away for the weekend would mean using annual leave so would be for a pre-arranged event rather than just swanning off on a whim.

My job is mentally very taxing (despite being little above MW) so come Sundays the last thing I feel like doing is attending a dinner party or traipsing rpund a NT house.

I'm very introverted, if I'm not at work I value time spent alone or with my partner and son so even if I had the money to fill all my spare time with activities they wouldn't necessarily be social events.

Money but also personal preference I guess?

I'm from a WC background but am now firmly MC (education and profession wise) and my DH is MC from a very MC (south east) family. We don't have endless trips to the theatre or meals or whatever. We also don't have a cleaner (our house is too messy/untidy and we need to sort it out before we can get a cleaner 😅). We rarely go out and prefer to spend evenings inside chilling with Netflix or playing ps4. We have two young (ish) kids and usually at the weekend will do one day at home chilling, and cleaning/doing diy and one day where we go to the park/softplay or visit family.

My kids have a better social life than us with party invites etc 🤣 but even that is not that frequently.

We have friends, just don't see them that often. We both work full time and would rather just chill at the weekends.

I know lots of other MC families and some of them are super active and always busy and some more like us. So my vote is money and personality.

As people have said it's definitely down to money and social media bragging. People love posting pics at restaurants and drinking with their hundreds of friends.

I also think some couples don't get on very well and struggle to spend time in the home together. I know several couples who plan to be out of the house doing activities or with other families just because they will argue if stuck in the house. I know a couple who have never been on holiday or even out for a meal without other families as they bicker so much.

Also agree that some people are introverts and like being peaceful at home. A weekend full of loud people, activities, non stop talking and other people's kids is my idea of hell. Some people can't stand to be alone, ever.

It is not about being middle class, it is about having a cleaner. When you have your house, tidy, in order, and presentable, it is much much easier to have people around more often.

They have the cash.

Bear in mind that you're only meeting the ones who hire a cleaner. They'll be the ones who feel their time is too precious for hoovering. The ones who pack interesting stuff into their lives. There'll be plenty of others who aren't holidaying every weekend and don't have any friends. You just don't see them because they've got lots of empty time and so they clean their own houses.
You're not looking at a clear subsection of 'the middle class', so you can't make any judgements on the way society is made up or is changing based upon what you see.

If people travel in January, then Its because it’s cheaper!.

Regarding going out to museums and doing things at weekends, then that’s a mindset. You could sit at home and watch tv, or you could go for a walk in the country, visit the local museum (usually free), meet up with friends etc, it doesn’t have to be expensive.

@TheMotherofAllDilemmas Was that a joke? It's not only people with cleaners who have clean tidy houses!

@eckhart That’s an assumption of yours, she is seeing that “pattern” because she is providing a tidy house for her clients.

I play it the other way around, I keep inviting people as that forces me to keep my house reasonably tidy.

It's not just money.

When the kids were little and we didn't have much we'd do picnics out, go to free museums and take our own lunch and bottles of water.

Lots of visits to friends for the weekend and them to us cost no more than what you'd do anyway.

Now we have more cash we do go out for dinner more often and have more expensive pastimes and go more often to the theatre and gigs.
But often as not we will have dinner in and just chat around the table, which is the most fun of all.

Your not middle class just because you went to uni.

Or indeed if your a cleaner.

My kids go to private school and we own a decent business that employees over 30 staff. We go on a few nice abroad holidays a year and have nice cars.

We are not middle class we are just working class people that have done very well. .

If you won the lottery it wouldn’t make you MC overnight.

There isn’t really a MC. It’s only for people who want to distance themselves for the poor working class folk. If you have to work for a living - your working class

No judgement at all but every weekend is house warming, birthday meals, theatre, trips to museums, and that's when you're not 'away for the weekend.' Centre parcs, Rome, Cotswolds, Air BnB in the city. It's January, everywhere is going to be cold.

Why would you not do something if it was cold?

However, what I have noticed (and it’s only my experience) is that, even when we had little money, my friends from ‘middle class’ backgrounds always had that expectation of doing stuff all the time, just a cheaper version. So as a pp said, a dinner party but with spag bol or pizza, backpacking holiday rather than hotel, etc.

It was the mindset because doing things and going places and feeling a part of cultural activities was what they had grown up with and were used to, if you see what I mean.

I completely agree, WahWah. I have very little money at the moment (I'm at the 'cup of Costa coffee = recalculate the week's food bills' stage). However, the teenagers and I are still doing free/cheapo versions of what XH and I did when we were married. Mindset and expectations: I think that's exactly what it boils down to.

I have no truck with class division but my partner and I do have personality types that mean we are always on the go. We run our own business, which is pretty full on at times, yet still fill our weekends with things we love to do and new experiences. However there are times when we don’t look forward to things as much as we thought we would when we planned it and look forward to having a weekend off or a break which just involves staying at home.

We don’t have much in the way of family so treasure our friendships but also love hanging out on our own, which keeps us busy and feeling fulfilled. Whilst we do spend money an some extravagances we don’t necessarily always do things that are expensive. We do have friends who also have their own business and, if that sort of lifestyle were dictated by money, could afford to do exactly what they choose. They choose to have many quiet weekends and not do holidays and they are no less fulfilled than anyone else.

So as many PP have said it is exactly what suits individuals. It may look like other people are having a ball but the grass is always greener....