Working class wannabes in the News

[Oileo]

It’s been reported in a few papers that ‘47 per cent of those in middle-class professional and managerial occupations identify as working class’ and 24 per cent of people doing middle-class jobs whose parents also did middle class jobs identified as working class too. The gist is that it’s now cool to pretend you rose to your position/ wealth on merit- rather than pretend to be posh.

It got me wondering (again!) about the class system. When do you change class?Can you easily in a generation? I had a middle-class job, yet I don’t know how I’d reply in that survey. I still personally feel a gulf between those who grew up wealth and a middle class background. Even in my 40s I have a bigger mortgage (no inheritance), my interests often don’t match (can’t play an instrument, I don’t know many ballets or plays in conversation for example, no ‘hobbies’ or skills outside education). I feel sometimes it’s obvious networking at work or in my dress (I wear hoop earrings, a number of colleagues over the years have made snide comments as a small example, but it’s more than that in presentation of yourself).

Part the reason for my fascination with class is that I don’t really fit as an immigrant. My parents were a cleaner and a security guard, but I/ they had access to a good education and the Soviet Union was a system that simply can’t be applied here. I have certainly earned here on merit money wise, but have also had better educational opportunities that many British working class. So I don’t really fit.

So
Yabu- your job defines your class
Yanbu-class is far more complex, and somebody may identify as working class if those are their roots.

@peasoup8

I agree *@LilMidge01*, £40k is a very good salary!

Haha there are people on here who will argue 100k isn't a good salary if your in London / SE let alone 40

It’s tricky. I grew up middle class (dad in solid civil service role, SAHM until I was older, own house, holidays abroad, etc). However, due to a mix of bad choices and bad luck, my life now is very much working class. (Teen pregnancy, dropped out of school, benefits / low paid part time jobs, now disabled and living in a council house.) I sometimes feel I’m neither fish nor fowl!
Ds once he graduates will likely have a high paid traditional MC job, but still identifies as WC, as I am(?) and his dad too.

I've not read the entire thread so I'm sorry if this has been answered a lot but:
If class is a defined thing (and a lot of people here seem very definite about what they are) but it's not your job or your income or your education or your interests... What is it?

@NavyFlask

My grandparents were born in the 19th Century (on one side) - I think you'll find there have been a fair few changes in Britain in the intervening period too!

There were many posters on the thread that said they came to Britain from former Soviet areas- surely some are from countries that hadn't been successively taken over within two generations?

I am one of those posters. It is quite hard to explain the curious structure of the Soviet society to a person who hasn't experienced it first hand.

In my "soviet diaspora" friendship circles in London, at my age (late 30s - early 40s) I have women who work as cleaners, women who are illegal immigrants, as well as successful businesswomen, professionals and even daughters / wives of small oligarchs. We all share roughly the same background - we understand the same in-jokes, we had very similar childhood toys, games and trips to summer camps, our grandmothers had exactly the same faience tea sets and china figurines on their shelves, everyone had attended very similar art and music schools, read the same books, lived in very similar flats etc. One of the most famous Soviet Christmas movies is about a guy who gets drunk, accidentally boards a wrong flight, comes to someone else's flat in a different city (his key fits) and does not recognise it as not his own - as everything was so uniform, so similar.

Some families had a little more money, some a little less, but that was pretty much all the difference. It did not matter at all that two generations ago one family were peasants growing potatoes with little more than their bare hands, and another were titled nobility and had lands and estates to their name, never mind that many people had both in their family trees.

When I compare this to British women I know from the same generation, it feels to me like they could have grown in different countries - their experiences were so massively different. That is why many of us are fascinated by the system that produce these differences. I had an amazingly clever young trainee once, who was one of the brightest people I have ever worked with - but she was so embarrassed of her accent (somewhere from the North / Midlands, can't place more precisely) that she would only speak aloud in the meetings when there were no RP-spoken British people in there, otherwise she got paralysed by a really bad attack of an impostor syndrome. And she KNEW she was good and very able - not otherwise shy as a person, very outspoken in the meetings where the audience was made up predominantly of immigrants with a wide range of accents. It is something that baffles me even today.

Thank you for responding @emptydreamer
I have two friends the same age as you (both turned 40 in the last year) that are from the same formerly-soviet state, who came from strikingly different family backgrounds before secondary age, but attended the same (extremely competitive entry) school, followed by an excellent university. Their paths in life since have been markedly different, with the person from the more cosmopolitan, 'old money' family being more successful in most aspects of their life (outwardly successful, one can never know how people genuinely achieve things, and at what personal cost). However, both are considered yokels by another acquaintance from a different former-soviet nation. They're both extremely intelligent, hard working people.
There's definitely still an hierarchy of former Soviets.

@MissingLinker cultural and social capital

@NavyFlask

Thank you for responding *@emptydreamer* I have two friends the same age as you (both turned 40 in the last year) that are from the same formerly-soviet state, who came from strikingly different family backgrounds before secondary age, but attended the same (extremely competitive entry) school, followed by an excellent university. Their paths in life since have been markedly different, with the person from the more cosmopolitan, 'old money' family being more successful in most aspects of their life (outwardly successful, one can never know how people genuinely achieve things, and at what personal cost). However, both are considered yokels by another acquaintance from a different former-soviet nation. They're both extremely intelligent, hard working people. There's definitely still an hierarchy of former Soviets.

My point was that there were no "old money" families in the British sense in the Soviet Union. It was just impossible due to the structure of the society, there was almost no private property - a car was the largest possession one could own personally (and even that was restricted), all real estate was state owned and effectively social housing, all income came from state-funded salaries. There was social division to an extent, that's true, but (probably, with the exception of the party elite, literally a couple hundred families), the family you were born into was quite a weak predictor of your future path in life. I am not saying it had absolutely zero significance, but for the majority it wasn't close to the top of the list. Threads about class on MN (which I admit to be one of my guilty pleasures to read ) often feature a friend or a poster herself who was born into very modest circumstances and became a lawyer / doctor / etc..., as a complete outlier. And I always think - well, that describes about a half of my class from my, very average, secondary school... with the other half in prison or in highly manual / min wage work. My own sibling, close in age to me, is an unqualified manual worker, and I have postgrad qualifications and (until recently) a very lucrative career.

I am not saying there was no hierarchy - god, there's even a strict hierarchy between identical triplets in a family I know - but for some reason it did not lead to the class segregation to the extent that I see in the British society. There were other hierarchical frameworks, many openly racist, by the way, and still very much alive.

The above reads like I am some kind of a USSR fan, which I am actually not, quite the opposite. And again, I can speak only about my generation and experiences. Things were obviously very different, say, in the times where kolkhoz workers could not move without permission, and were not entitled to have any ID documents - cannot vouch for that.

Thank you to all of you sharing stories- I’ve been reading through and it’s really interesting!

The same-flat/ similar lives side of the Soviet Union I relate to less. I grew up rurally, houses were still built by families so varied (though there were rules like they could only have one story, we had a second Semi basement level to get round this that could only be accessed by going outside and through a door at the side and down steps. My parents now have internal stairs to this level. We also still have allocated strips of land, not next to each other, from when the collective farm was divided). Reflecting, the church was the overriding influence for my family. There was some hints at previous money, like the size of older houses, but the only power I saw when young was brought your position. The manager of the commune farm for example could refuse to allow you to travel for study outside the village, my Dad was always resentful of having done lots of extra unrewarded labour to earn his travel. We were though near a border with additional travel rules and radio nets etc. Maybe I’m interested as my world was pretty small, based around a village. Our radios were wired, rather than using an aerial to receive, and looking back l’ve always been fascinated by all the information that seemed to suddenly explode into my life as a teen beyond what I was familiar with. Tbh the changes maybe came a bit later for us- beyond getting a can of coke brought home in 1990 it was a bit of a slow dawn.

@user1497207191 football is considered not just a WC hobby and hasn't been considered just WC since the late 1980s. Much of it is to do with the actors, TV personalities and other media types, who are clearly MC, who love the sport. I have a friend who is MC, whose brother played for England school boys in the early 1990s and he was not unique with his background.

Likewise there are other sports that have class connotations e.g. rugby union, rugby league, cricket, rowing, tennis but due to the wanting the best athletes they have widened participation to attract children of any background. (It helps that cricket and rugby union is very popular in Commonwealth countries that the immigrant ancestors of some British children come from regardless of their ancestors class.)

The only sports I can think of that still have class connotations are equestrianism ones and that is more due to cost. Even then I grew up near a stables in a WC area of London where there was definitely no room to do horse racing.

Apparently there are actually 7 different types of middle class!! I'm sure that you could find one to slot into. Grayson Perry did an interesting programme on the middle classes. Was fascinating.

I came from Sweden and though I'd definitely wouldn't say it was a classless society even in its Socialdemocrat heydays, there were some surprises for me in terms of what is considered a class-marker in the UK and not in Sweden.

Cooking was one of them. I had never, ever heard it suggested that neighbours who happened to be labourers or fishermen or factory workers would be less skilled when it came to providing nutritious and tasty meals from scratch.

Parenting was another. There seems to be a general assumption here that w/c parents will know less about child development and be generally less patient and less clued-up. Again, a new one to me.

As for the "hobbies and interests are not for the working class"- idea mentioned in the OPs first post, I wonder when that thought became prevalent in the UK. Working class clubs and unions used to be heavily into self-improvement. Obviously, there are certain hobbies that by their nature would more usually be upper/middle class. Opera is expensive and you can't get round that. But things like learning a foreign language, or studying history, or taking up knitting or oil painting do not require either a fortune or a mansion.

I think we always need to make a distinction between background and current socio-economic circumstance and I think this is where people (who aren't deliberately dissembling) tend to get stuck when asking questions.

I am most definitely from a working class background. Raised in a terrace in a poor area by two parents who left school at 15 and have worked in semi-skilled and skill labour all their lives and I attended the local comp.

I am, however, (lower) middle class in that I am highly educated and have a relatively well-paid professional/managerial position.

I think the class system is totally arbitrary and subjective.

I would class myself as working class because I have to work for a living. But I have far more disposable income than someone who works as a cleaner. I think it's something that you define yourself and has no real meaning except "I think I'm better than these people bit not those people. " so I dont really care what class lawyers think they are, but they work for a living dont they?

Haha there are people on here who will argue 100k isn't a good salary if your in London / SE let alone 40

It’s all relative I suppose, but if I was earning that kind of money (£40K) I’d be very happy!

“ Working class brits don’t easily escape generations of being in unskilled roles.”

@ShastaBeast this is SO true.

Many of us who are now lower middle class are stuck on a “sticky floor” in middle management jobs, despite being quite bright, because there’s only so far you can go with a mediocre education and well meaning but fairly unworldly working class or lower middle class parents.

I disagree that football is no longer a working class sport. It still generally isn’t played in private schools or grammar schools and at a school boy level most of middle class peers would very much not be sending their sons to football on a Saturday but to rugby.
There is nothing wrong with it being working class by the way but to say it isn’t still predominantly associated with the working classes is nonsense

MissMarks

I disagree that football is no longer a working class sport. It still generally isn’t played in private schools or grammar schools and at a school boy level most of middle class peers would very much not be sending their sons to football on a Saturday but to rugby.

Agree. When I was ab young grad I had to babysit my boss's friend's 13 year old son who was sent into the office for "work experience" for two weeks but of course couldn't do anything because of child labour laws and data protection.

One conversation stuck with me: he and his friends hated rugby and wanted to play football. They petitioned the private, natch school to change their sport. The headmaster's response was "No. Rugby makes a man".

I was baffled at the time, being a Soviet immigrant myself, but it all started to fall into place when I read Watching the English. It clarified a lot for me, and ended my frustration with small talk about the weather etc.

Incidentally, never trust any English person who purports to not care about class. They're all obsessed. They interrogate you about who you are, where you're from and what you do, listen to your accent and scrutinise your lexicon, judge you on your clothes, grooming levels and decide whether you're an insider or an outsider. I always fall between the cracks, despite living in London from the age of 6. My accent veers wildly between RP and East London for some reason and WC people write me off as posh and weird, and MC people exclude me for not fitting in as well. I might just be an odd person though . My friends are mainly other immigrants. I have two English friends; one from East London and one who spent 1/3 of her life in Australia.

They're all obsessed. They interrogate you about who you are, where you're from and what you do, listen to your accent and scrutinise your lexicon, judge you on your clothes, grooming levels and decide whether you're an insider or an outsider

That might just be the people you know

I think ive only had a conversation with one person about class in general...ever

Rufust maybe you have always just been people the same class as yourself. I agree- there is a general obsession in the UK with being able to ‘place’ people. It may be subtle but it does exist.

I grew up working class but say I'm more middle class now. If I had to do a survey that's what I'd choose.

My husband is very middle class, I'd say upper. He once made a comment that his family were working class which I easily crushed, his grandma went to Oxford. Working class people didn't get to Oxford in the 20s. They also ammased a fair amount of wealth, even if tied up in property. There was never a question that anyone would not go to university and not just any university. It had to be Russell group and an acceptable course and profession after.

I'd say I'm more middle class because I'm part of that world now. The options and opportunities my husband has given me mean that I have choices in life, even if we divorced I have a good job and a degree etc and the confidence that comes with being middle class.

I really can't stand it when middle class people claim working class roots. On my mums side my family were all miners, I'm the first generation to not go near one. On my dad's side I'm the only one to go to uni. My dad was a skilled worker, my grandad an immigrant. My family have always been in interested in education, politics, the arts but they didn't have options or opportunities. You did what you needed to do to put food on the table and that was that.

@MissMarks a colleague made me laugh at Christmas. He's older than me but his kids went to the school my kids go to, he knows I live in a nice area and is trying to size me up. He's a nice guy and obviously middle class. Anyway he asked me if my kids open all their presents at once on Christmas day or if it's staggered, there we go..in my experience a real differentiator! I outed myself.

You need to be landed gentry to be upper class. Big land owners with links to the Royals.

@thebeesknee I get the same although it was my grandad that was the immigrant, even generations down not having the influence of the white British male in the family seems to get me into trouble, especially with my father in law.

Even now I'd describe myself as middle class and fairly wealthy, I do get annoyed with people checking I can afford things. Sometimes I ask my husband why people assume I'm hard up, as much as I'd like to think I have some middle class polish I'm clearly lacking.

@missinglinker I reckon choices. Working class people don't generally have any significant inheritance/parents to fall back on or fund uni with so choices are more limited. Or you might be able to get to uni but more likely near home or less likely somewhere like Oxbridge. You might need to work at uni (I had housemates that refused to work in the pub I did because it only paid minimum wage and they could hold out for more) and afterwards take a call centre job to pay the bills.

Middle class young people have more options open, can try a riskier avenue (arts, a business) know that they'll be able to buy a house one day whatever or that if all goes wrong can ask parents for financial help, more likely to wait for a better paid job and then always be a step ahead.

Coming from a working class background to a middle class background I'd say that's the difference in my life anyway.

There was a thread on a facebook group recently where the OP was moving to an area of Edinburgh and asked advice about the local catchment school, the first 10 responses were recommending private and not even answering the question

Is that because if you're in the position to be able to choose where you live to the extent of buying a house in the catchment for the best state school in Edinburgh, they thought you might as well save some money and just go for private and a slightly less eye watering mortgage?