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.

RufustheSniggeringReindeer

That might just be the people you know

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

Well, no. Generally no one talks about class in real life because it's seen as crass and embarrassing, but you're still sense-checked against a set of class markers with your answers.

Greenygrape

Ooooh do tell which is which! I've never thought about appropriate present opening timeframes

And does your husband ever tell you what you did "wrong"?

true.

Makes me think of Susan Boyle, who, despite now being worth $40 Million, refuses to leave her family home, which is a tiny council house in Blackburn.
Bookmark

Yes believe me, it’s the rough of the rough where she lives, I pass there most days. She owns 40 million. She’s happy there.

@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. 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

Football supporters have to be very well off nowadays. Season tickets for big clubs have a waiting list and cost an absolute fortune. www.imdb.com/list/ls009004369/ It's fashionable now for celebrities to support a football team.

I think you can change class in a generation.

I’m solidly MC - parents both products of boarding school and university educated, I grew up in big house, second homes, boats and ponies.

DH is solidly WC or even what some would term the “underclass”, parents did casual manual work supplemented with some dodgy side hustles, grew up in flat on notorious London council estate Siblings in and out of prison.

Now DH is very successful. Runs his own fairly large architect firm. I also have solid middle class job and sold a very successful business.

So DH has money, educational history and social status. If he claimed to be WC now he’s be laughed at.

I have lots of friends who work in badly paid jobs in the third sector but wouldn't put them as working class. They have family wealth and wealthy husbands and can 'afford' to have a passion project job because they are not relying on it for money. My job is better paid (about 40k) but I absolutely have to work and couldn't afford for my income to drop so I don't think that your job role necessarily defines your class. I would say I'm middle class but it's complex. My parents were definitely working class (both left school at 15 from small terraced houses in the North) but they were bright and got clerical jobs in the job centre and worked their way up. I think they broke the class divide and their children all went to university and are middle class. I think it also depends if you define middle class on income or cultural things.

but you're still sense-checked against a set of class markers with your answers

Well i dont do that! 😳

But to be fair i have been told many times that i have no sense 😀

@MissMarks

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.

Sorry i missed this

No i dont think so....

But I honestly dont think everyone does this

Some people definitely, I’d even be happy to say many but not everyone. I’d also agree that its more likely in certain circles

I dont know what my friends parents did, what degrees they have (with a couple of obvious exceptions) or what money they earn (again with a few exceptions) etc

BUT

A lot of my friends are from having children so you make friends at the school gate so that sort of stuff is less likely to come up to start with

But I’ll stop now otherwise it’ll turn into one of those ‘the lady doth protest too much’ things 😀

Consumer credit has changed the indicators of social class as people can borrow to fund their lifestyle. Income used to be a much stronger marker when lots of the research into social class was done.
I’d say most modern indicators of social class are cultural and usually the inverse of what you would think. Eg working class families driving expensive cars in designer clothes.
There are so many more class stratas now including the underclass and aspirational middle class (aka nouveau riche middle class).

@emptydreamer that’s really interesting about the soviet class system.

@PegasusReturns

I think you can change class in a generation.

I’m solidly MC - parents both products of boarding school and university educated, I grew up in big house, second homes, boats and ponies.

DH is solidly WC or even what some would term the “underclass”, parents did casual manual work supplemented with some dodgy side hustles, grew up in flat on notorious London council estate Siblings in and out of prison.

Now DH is very successful. Runs his own fairly large architect firm. I also have solid middle class job and sold a very successful business.

So DH has money, educational history and social status. If he claimed to be WC now he’s be laughed at.

This. I, like your DH, grew up working/underclass. If I claimed it now, I'd be laughed at. For all the people here claiming that you're the class you're born until you die, I reckon that, if I were interviewed about my life and my home and my job and my interests and then referred to "working class people like me"... If that interview was posted on here, I think I'd be torn to fucking shreds over that. I can't imagine there'd be many posters pontificating over "Maybe she had a poorer childhood, maybe she grew up on a council estate to an unemployed single mother, so she's entitled to call herself working class." I'd be called privileged, out of touch, ivory tower etc.

Obviously, my background has an effect on me but I don't think it's even possible to say "X has a working class background so, even if she gets a good job and makes a lot of money, she'll have y attitude to money/cultural activities/education."

My parents were shit with money. Even on rare occasions where they had quite a bit of it, it was spent almost immediately on stuff they didn't need. So there often wasn't money for bills or paying back loans. Due to this, I'm very careful with money and generally very frugal. Overly anxious, likely. My sister's husband has a fairly well paid job and a not dissimilar upbringing to ours. Their attitude to money is like that of my parents. And so a similar upbringing has produced people with contrasting attitudes towards money.
There isn't one "working class" attitude to money. I know that my attitude towards it is different to that of my OH, who had a VERY comfortable upbringing. But her attitude towards it is different to that of each of her siblings.

If you used to use the above words but now use 'napkin, loo', etc you are aspiring MC. To the bred in the bone MC, this is much much more heinous than being WC

So DH has money, educational history and social status. If he claimed to be WC now he’s be laughed at.

So there lies the contradictions we face. If like me you grew up working class, using all those words etc and now live a more stereotypical middle class life, you aren’t claimed by either tribe. You can’t say you’re WC because you look like a tourist trying to get kudos and you can’t say you’re MC, because you look like you are desperately pretending to be in a group you will ever be accepted into.

You have overlooked something really important about the use of words being a class marker though. Suppose you have parents from different social strata (but the mother is from the lower one). It's likely you will have been more influenced by her (as women generally do most of the childcare, even with jobs) growing up, therefore more likely to use 'speak' that reflects her origins more than the much more middle class milieu you've growing up in. And the same would probably be true if you have a mother who doesn't speak English as a first language?

I always thought 'loo' was accepted middle class parlance? Surely very few people nowadays say 'lav(atory)'? I know using 'toilet' is very frowned upon though!

Someone who has been working class will always be working class. We live in a snobby, hierarchical society that is obsessed with class. Your own class won’t have you either because ‘who do you think you are?’ Or they want to borrow money from you. That is my experience. More of a no man’s land.

Probably sixty years ago or so it was entirely and almost 100% possible to determined people's class. Nowadays much less so. The boundaries are definitely getting blurred with the passage of time, with better education and more opportunities (and yes, credit, as mentioned above).

Agreed about credit. Almost anyone can have an expensive car now due to the proliferation of finance. It’s more about the subtleties of what you choose to buy. There are very different connotations between even ostensibly similar things like Range Rover vs Land Rover.

@MissingLinker

I'd be called privileged, out of touch, ivory tower etc

Exactly and the opprobrium would be swift and plentiful.

Derxa- yes rich (predominately) working class people have seasons ticket.
Class isn’t dependent on wealth!

@NewModelArmyMayhem18

You have overlooked something really important about the use of words being a class marker though. Suppose you have parents from different social strata (but the mother is from the lower one). It's likely you will have been more influenced by her (as women generally do most of the childcare, even with jobs) growing up, therefore more likely to use 'speak' that reflects her origins more than the much more middle class milieu you've growing up in. And the same would probably be true if you have a mother who doesn't speak English as a first language?

I always thought 'loo' was accepted middle class parlance? Surely very few people nowadays say 'lav(atory)'? I know using 'toilet' is very frowned upon though!

I always thought 'loo' was accepted middle class parlance?

That’s the point, if you used to use ‘toilet’ and now use ‘loo’ you will be considered aspiring middle class. If you have always used ‘loo’, you’re solidly middle class

Sorry, that's what comes of thread jumping when you're supposed to be working.

Do people really consciously change using different terms though?

As various PP have said, pretty sad that in 2021 we’re still defining ourselves by outdated labels! Just one look at the Schools section tells you a great deal about the Mumsnet population and the large number of posts debating which Private school - or take a look at any Private v State thread.

DH would (and does) define himself as WC - he grew up in a Council House in South London in a single parent household. I’m privately educated and my family generationally have been pretty well established. We’re both Grads, have an income in excess of £100k and live in a well off area in the South East. If you were to stick a class label on us, I’m sure we’re both (and I’d include DH) screamingly middle class liberal left. For DH and others of our friends, it’s not income but about where you grew up and what you see now as a privilege as well as the values you in-still in your children. I personally think it pigeon holes to think in those terms - values, ambition etc transcend background (though obviously ambition are more easily realised when you have money behind you!).

Do people really consciously change using different terms though?

Yes, my parents use the words serviettes, toilet, lounge and settee. I don’t. I grew up in an upper middle area though from the age of 18mo. (We moved from Harlesden to Chiswick) and I have a Chiswick accent and use the words my peers did. I say napkin, sitting room and sofa although I probably use loo, lavvy and toilet interchangeably as did all my friends growing up. I suppose it wasn’t consciously though, just happened. The only word I consciously stopped myself from using was ‘pardon’ after being pulled up on it a lot by people.

I remember laughing at friends who were angst ridden about what to put on the signs for the portaloos at their wedding. They didn’t want to put toilets because it’s ‘so non- U’ but couldn’t decide on what was best. I suggested bogs or shitters, but apparently that was too vulgar. 😂

@MissMarks

Derxa- yes rich (predominately) working class people have seasons ticket. Class isn’t dependent on wealth!

Where is your evidence? www.theguardian.com/football/2008/aug/14/premierleague

Can’t you be a working class person living a middle class lifestyle?

@justanotherneighinparadise

Can’t you be a working class person living a middle class lifestyle?

Well yes, I’d say there are lots of people doing that. But my point was you won’t be embraced by either tribe.

What is a middle class job, though? People's perceptions differ. I, personally, would say Dr, Solicitor/Barrister etc. In fact, what is middle class these days? There are no set rules.

I earn fairly good money but do a job that doesn't require a professional qualification. I'm RG uni educated, played an instrument as a child, have some 'middle class' interests (theatre, classics, plays, ballets) and am, au fait with a good deal of classics in literature, but I think of myself as working class. My parents are working class. Intelligence and interests aren't dictated by class, but I don't believe money can change your class either. Would a lottery jackpot winner become a different class overnight?

I'm happy to be me, doing the things I enjoy. Class doesn't really bother me - I've certainly never felt restricted by it but I don't strive to climb the social ladder or compete with other people.