To think its not undesirable to be working class?

[HotSince82]

And that actually you can live a perfectly nice life and be quite content, with no aspirations towards upwards social mobility?

I have been noticing in the news at present that WC children are being termed 'disadvantaged' with regards to homeschooling.
Presumably this is in relation to a supposed lack of laptops/ipads etc to aid online learning and/or lack of parental engagement/education level.
From personal experience I don't believe this to be the case. My children and their peers almost without exception have access to these things and parents are motivated and educated sufficiently to support their children's learning.
I am however in no way denying the very real experiences of the children who are living in economically and socially disadvantaged circumstances. I fundamentally believe that every possible scrap of governmental/educational support and assistance available should be provided to them throughout the covid crisis and beyond. I simply don't believe that such disadvantage is a reality within the very vast majority of WC households.

Surely WC isn't synonymous with disadvantage? I feel as though my family has a perfectly nice lifestyle as do those of my acquaintances who are all, broadly speaking very much WC.

I would go so far as to say that I would be content if any of my children replicated a standard of living which is similar to how they have been brought up. Yes, if they become extremely high earners that would I'm certain be rather lovely, but it is in no way a prerequisite to an enjoyable, contented life.

I'm pretty sure that I am correct in this assumption but if I'm missing anything I know that you will all point me in the right direction.

Class properly speaking as a definition is mostly about what type of employment relationship you have - not always income level though that tends to follow somewhat.

The line between working and middle class is fuzzy, because both usually work for wages - they are employees of someone else. Typically working class would have bene more trades and manual work while middle class jobs would be more office type work, civil service, that kind of thing.

Arguably these days a a lot of the traditional trades jobs are better off with fairly strong unions, and the more precarious risky employment tends to be in the service industry.

ArriettyJones only if you’re paying for tech up front. You can get an iPad from Currys on credit for £12 per month.

@SomeoneElseEntirelyNow many WC families in this area will be earning in the region of that amount. Lots of nurses, plumbers, civil servants around here.

We all have regional accents and don't work in 'the professions' which denotes the fact that we aren't MC.

It seems to me that when WC families have decent incomes/standards of living we are presumed to then be MC. It doesn't work in that way. The very fact that we aren't scarabbling around for pennies at the end of the month doesn't erase our upbringing, social culture and class consciousness.

WC people can be doing ok for themselves. It doesn't make them MC.

I would say you are definitely not working class, around here an average family income after tax is £30kish with 2 parents working full time, in factories/ retail/ manual labour. But in reality most families I know have one parent working full time, one working part time or staying home either as a carer or because childcare for more than 1 child costs more than their wage does. People with no savings, who don't have a pc or laptop at home, and only have a mobile phone or tablet available now for kids to do work on. That's 'working class', in my opinion. Around here, you would definitely be counted as middle class

@Mrsemcgregor

ArriettyJones only if you’re paying for tech up front. You can get an iPad from Currys on credit for £12 per month.

I suppose it depends how many children you have who need devices, and whether the cooker, TV and fridge are already on instalments.

Plumbers yes, working class, but if you're a nurse or in the civil service i don't think you're working class tbh, those are generally positions that require higher education and further training.

Nurses these days are generally considered a profession I think - it requires a university degree and they have professional organisations in some cases.

The need to access some sort of higher education probably marks an important line, and many traditional trades do require that.

Another factor is access to things like pensions and other benefits.

Then anyone who is running their own business, as many tradespersons do, is really in a whole different group, as they are woking for themselves rather than selling their labour. do,

Both DH and I have undergraduate degrees but I think that its probably slightly disingenous to presume that that in itself marks you as MC.

Most of my cousins etc have degrees, none of them, well perhaps with the exception of one, would describe themselves as MC.

You can be working class but live to a standard of life that use to be only available to the middle class. I am working class but my children have had schooling that would be deemed middle class. I have had options because of money. My eldest children will go to university the difference though is the school they go to they just have to be average, the school we moved away from they would have needed to be exceptional.

I agree. Working class does not equate to disadvantaged for many people. I haven’t really heard that to describe families living in poverty, I would say they’re described as disadvantaged rather than working class.

Yeah, sorry OP if you went to uni you're not working class. You might come from a working class background, but you've made the jump up.

Oh good grief OP, you are NOT working class. You have degrees and an income way over the National average.

Is this thread some sort of joke?

Your household earns almost 3 times as much as mine. Nothing working class about it.

I’m working class, but I think there are different levels of working class. I would say like OP I’m content with my life, have what I need. Both me and DH earn an average wage doing jobs we quite like. Manage to go on holiday at least once a year. Have cars; nothing posh. Can afford to eat out at least once a week. DCs are grown up now, but didn’t really miss out on anything growing up. So if I wanted to categorise myself I would say, if it existed, I’m upper working class. But then you can get working class whereby life is a struggle. You cope, but only because you have to and just manage to muddle along. But even then, people in this bracket can still be content.

There's nothing wrong with being working class. But WC people are not what people are referring to when they talk about disadvantaged. Disadvantaged means something very different.

I was brought up in a very middle class home (parents both university educated and working in recognised professions, naice holidays abroad etc) but these old fashioned definitions just aren't relevant any more. I still consider myself to be middle class (due to my upbringing plus I'm university educated and with professional qualifications) but I'm a single parent, working part time and get tax credits (no free school meals etc, my income is actually v good for p/t). Are my kids being brought up working class? I don't think so. I think it's as much about attitude, education and expectations as spare cash for laptops. Plus laptops and tablets are standard in the majority of UK homes now. The families that have no access to tech at all are rare. Or maybe they have a switch/PS4 but nothing to study on? Anyway, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being working class but traditional working class families aren't the ones being discussed who are unable to homeschool due to resources or education. Those are families, as a PP said, who are below the bread line and have other, more pressing issues than access to TT rockstars and BBC bitesize.

It's ridiculous to put people in classes IMO. For one thing, what if someone born to rural parents with low paid jobs ended up working as a solicitor? What if that solicitor then married a postman and lived in a terraced house but had enough money to send their children to a private school?

I just don't understand why so many people are eager to put people in boxes. There are a lot of people that are in a difficult financial situation right now and the BBC and other news programmes lazily label them as 'working class'.

Lots of WC people have degrees and earn circa the national average income.

WC does not equal poverty or disadvantage, that is the point which I was making in the OP.

Most of my colleagues have degrees/dipHE etc. They would scoff if you called them MC.
The WC is now much more diverse than it ever used to be.

MN can be quite focused on class.
I dont generally day to day go around thinking about my social class, but it's discussed a lot on here.

I am WC. I rent. I didn't get to go to Uni. I have a NMW job.
I'm often made to feel bad about these things, but I dont feel bad about my background. I didn't choose my parents, and neither did MC people.

I am looking to do an online degree in the future. I've been going back and forth on it. While nobody has said anything directly I almost feel like a degree isn't for people like me.

So what makes you working class? My life is almost exactly the same as yours,.except i make less money, and I'm definitely middle class.

@Meggie2008 would you mind telling me how many children you have?

@HotSince82

Lots of WC people have degrees and earn circa the national average income.

WC does not equal poverty or disadvantage, that is the point which I was making in the OP.

Most of my colleagues have degrees/dipHE etc. They would scoff if you called them MC.
The WC is now much more diverse than it ever used to be.

The problem is that journalists, sociologists and policy wonks COMPLETELY disagree with you.

They would scoff if you called them MC

So is being middle class something to be ashamed of now? These class definitions and identities are so irrelevant its untrue. Especially when we look at the mobility in both directions and classification such as "disadvantaged" which is what you are actually referring to.

I think class is much more complicated than it used to be. I'm v. low income, 16 year old car, can't even afford to rent near my work (London) so living with parents. But I'm studying for a doctorate, Oxbridge graduate, frequent visits to theatre & museums (when open!), have studied abroad in Europe. Qualified as a teacher but left the profession and now working in a sector which often attracts skilled people but doesn't actually require it. I could do my job with just GCSE level education.

My parents were both definitely brought up in full-on WC households and now live much closer to a MC lifestyle (plenty of minibreaks to European cities, meals out in naice restaurants, good sized house in a reasonable area of outer London - not super-posh but not run down either), but with lots of elements that might be seen as WC: season ticket holder at football, two nights a week down the local pub regular as clockwork, reluctance to spend on certain things (e.g. run an old car, won't replace the kitchen while it still functions). Dad is degree educated and in a professional role, Mum is not.

If pushed, I would describe all of us as WC, but we certainly don't fit anyone's idea of disadvantaged. I love my life and I would be very happy if dc had similar as long as they earned enough to run their own household (which I can't see me being able to do).

@SomeoneElseEntirelyNow
Well I suppose its my upbringing which has informed my attitude to many things, my regional accent, my political persuasions and the experiences of friends and acquaintances which have coloured my world view.

I would hazard a guess that they would differ quite markedly from yours or anybody else who would describe themselves as MC.

I don't on the whole think class is entirely or even mainly dependent on income, unless the higher income level has been sustained over generations.