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.

Moreover, anyone really Upper Class would most likely not accept her in to their circle.

Sad, but true.

but would the same be true if it was the other way around?

and would the lottery winner want to be included?

would they actually find they they are now not fitting in anywhere? whether we like it or not money is what changes the situation

I grew up WC. I'm degree educated and earn £24k. I would still regard myself as WC.

I sort of feel sorry for teenagers in the south. Nobody wants to be seen as a middle class home counties type at university so they either accept it or adopt a fucking absurd street persona.

Il repeat its always been like this though. Look at the endless fucking banging on about her WC credentials Julie Bindel does/did.

Its the same way people always seem to pretend they were the outsider at school. Everybody cant have been the outsider just because they liked fucking Star Wars or whatever.

It was interesting to hear on Radio 4 (MC) that those who are middle class and identify as working class may want to do so because they want to be seen as getting to where they are on their own merits and not because they have some sort of priviledge of upbringing. It is interesting to see some of this coming out on the "my child is not allowed in school but so and so's child is" threads. Some people have no idea of their priviledge. You see that a lot on here too.

Also I think class is on a spectrum and people have a mix of experiences regarding education, attitudes, disabilities, money, space. The edges between classes are blurred. yes some are firmly in the middle of one or the other and stay there for generations.

The childrens secondary school is in the middle of an inner city area that is a bit run down. They went to a primary in the suburbs (COE) and the attitude of some local parents to the area around the secondary school (COE) and the children who came from there was derogatory. (That would be us then you are slagging off)

We watched both Dallas and Dynasty and I defo didn't grow up WC. However, we rarely watched ITV (a habit that continues to this day). ITV has always seemed tabloid to BBC's 'broadsheet' to me .

I think skiing is an affluence indicator rather than a class one. It was probably different in the 70s/80s.

Me and DH had middle class upbringings. We don't have many qualifications between us and only low paid work. So on paper our circumstances are workung class. Now we've become homeowners thanks to an inheritance so I think we'd now just squeak into middle class again.

The gap we fell into was awful though. To privileged of an upbringing to relate to those in the same position as us. Too poor to keep up to those who we did relate to. I never bought into the class system, till I found myself between classes and saw how it alienated us.

[quote MrDinklesOhSnap]@Graciebobcat that’s taken me back - our mum wouldn’t let us watch either Grange Hill or Byker Grove because she said it would rot out brains! Hence I have absolutely no nostalgia about either for a person of my generation. So funny.[/quote]
We didn't watch any ITV at all

I’m an immigrant, so used to not fitting in 1 particular group. It’s fine to grow up in 1 class and shift - be somewhere in between. Maybe people should just think of it like a scale rather than fixed boxes which you fit into or you don’t.

ID actually be interested in your views OP about the supposed abolition of class in the former USSR. I look at Russia now and think that despite the horror that took place to get there, ultimately the much less defined class system is one of the good things that came out of the communist system. I also think these soviet countries had good attitudes to education and had no problems pushing women into traditionally men's roles.~

When I ask people what they miss about the sovioet system (and a lot of people DO miss it it) they say the education, housing, sports and socialising of which class equality was a big part of. For example you would often all be offered a house for free but it would be the same sort of house.

I think it’s about your underlying assumptions and maybe values as much as job/income. I’m MC and when a friend introduced me to her DP I put my foot in it by asking which university he had been to and he hadn’t - it hadn’t occurred to me that she would go out with someone who didn’t have a degree He probably thought I was a total snob but I was just trying to make conversation and figured that was basic info like ‘what do you do?’ and ‘where are you from?’

Maybe people should just think of it like a scale rather than fixed boxes which you fit into or you don’t.

Definitely we should but the thing with the British class system is that it is all about making sure you stay in your box!

Class is very complicated. It used to be that married women's class was considered to be whatever their husband was, which meant that if a woman with a professional father and a degree herself married a builder, she became working class.
In my day very few people, especially women, went to university - Princess Anne and Princess Diana did not go to university so a degree is not always indicative of being middle class.

@NewModelArmyMayhem18 it’s interesting you say about skiing. DH is not from the UK and grew up both skiing and playing tennis at a club - he is from a very working class background (dad was a welder and his mum was a cleaner) and he was shocked that over here both activities are consider affluent and/or middle class activities. He thinks the whole class things is nuts, but as an immigrant he just ignores/doesn’t think it applies to him - it truly is a very British thing

I think the OP is absolutely ridiculous. If your are born and raised working class then that is how you stay no matter what you earn or achieve. As previous posters have said your children might be middle class due to how and where they are raised, they may discribe themselves as coming from a family with working class roots but would be middle class themselves.

I am working class, I was born and raised in poverty on one of the most depreived schemes in Scotland only leaving at 19 when I went to university. My parents worked as a cleaner (my mum didn't always work) and a labourer. I have a degree, a masters as well as other post graduate qualifications. I have now lived overseas in different countries, I speak other languages, my interests include astronomy, fine art and ballet. I mainly read literary fiction, I play several musical instuments, I own my own rather lovely house with my husband who is also working class (from the same scheme as me) even though he has a very well paid professional career.

Being working class don't mean you can't have intellectual or creative interests. My parents both left school at 14 to work because the had to but my dad could sing, play the guitar and piano beautifully and loved astronomy, we couldn't afford a telescope or even binoculars but he was passionate about it and was always teaching me about the stars and the planets. My mum loved books and the arts and imparted that to me and the scheme was full of people with these sorts of passions. The gas fitter who made stained glass in his spare time, the care worker who made art out of anything and everything and had the most amazing library of books!

We both still have strong (working class) regional accents which mark us out from many of our peers but we've never tried to alter them, why should we?

I'm not a wanna be I am proudly working class and will always be till the day I die.

I agree @user1471565182, inverse snobbery is definitely a thing. It annoys me as much as regular snobbery (which I don’t think you see much of these days. Or at least I hope not).

I am aware this is a gross and uncalled for generalisation but it has stuck with me. When I worked on the tills in the food department of M&S the kindest and nicest people were always the ridiculously posh upper class, and the very working class. In my town there was a word mixture of both demographics. Somewhere around the upper-middle class things seemed to go a bit rotten 😂 The worst customer abuse I ever had was from MC women of a certain age. The men were generally fine.

Obviously anecdotal, and a huge sweeping generalisation.

inverse snobbery is definitely a thing. It annoys me as much as regular snobbery (which I don’t think you see much of these days. Or at least I hope not).

1.There is an important difference between punching down and punching up.

1. You see plenty of snobbery on MN every single day.

this really grinds my gears
I loved going to a posh college hearing all the kids stories about how bad they were, doing drugs or being drug dealers...
yes mate, you're well hard especially when you go home for a dip on the jacuzzi or you get the money for your drugs from your trust fund.

I honestly wish I had some of them round our house. they'd have probably shat themselves on the bus

I think accent is a big marker of class system but it can really throw people off. I'm definitely mc, parents were doctors, grammar school and went skiing as a child. However I've got a Belfast accent, to my ears it's really not strong but when I went to uni I really had to slow down and tone it down. I think the fact I had to their ears a strong regional accent a lot of people initially labelled me as working class. People were genuinely quite surprised I could ski (water and snow) and that I'd even been to a private primary school.
In Northern Ireland, due to the lack of private secondary schools as a result of the grammar system there doesn't really seem to be an upper class and it's harder to necessarily distinguish people's class. I went to secondary school with the daughter of one of the richest men in NI and you couldn't have told. Yes she had a nice house and went on nice holidays but she went to state school and her mum was a teacher.

I’d say I’m MC as I earn £40k~ and have a degree. My family though is probably WC - we live in a poor area (property worth less than £100k), single car, rare foreign holidays.

But actually now I think about it - I own a house even if it’s cheap. I own a car even if it’s old. We could go on more and better holidays if I wasn’t so atrocious at money management.

I dunno. I don’t think I’ve ever voiced what class I think I am. I only ever muse about it here!

@XelaM

Money and education defines your class.

As a fellow immigrant from the former Soviet Union I don't understand why the OP would feel the weight of the class divide when everyone had access to higher education in the Soviet Union and education alone would levitate you above "working class".

@XelaM I'm afraid it's actually the opposite- class defines your education and in many cases income, but certainly attitude to money.

who gives a flying f**k!

Class is defined by your aspirations more than anything else.

[quote Stretchandsnap]@NewModelArmyMayhem18 it’s interesting you say about skiing. DH is not from the UK and grew up both skiing and playing tennis at a club - he is from a very working class background (dad was a welder and his mum was a cleaner) and he was shocked that over here both activities are consider affluent and/or middle class activities. He thinks the whole class things is nuts, but as an immigrant he just ignores/doesn’t think it applies to him - it truly is a very British thing[/quote]
Many things that are just normal everyday things that everyone does in other countries are considered weirdly aspirational in the UK, even when you don't have to have much money to do them, and often contradictory, they're a cheap thing to have/do.

We've already covered visiting museums and galleries, but you've also got blackberry picking, hummous, lentils etc. Jamie Oliver has being criticised multiple times for suggesting typical Italian peasant cooking (cheap ingredients, takes little fuel to cook, versatile, filling, healthy and tasty) as an alternative to unhealthy and expensive 'beige' food and takeaways.

I am working class due to my parents where I was brought up and how I sound. I went to art school and have a masters degree in fine art. My tastes are more high brow regarding what I like to watch or read or listen to probably due to all my years in fine art education. I live in a bought house in a housing estate bought years ago now. My nieghbours and even my family think I'm a weirdo snob. Most of my friends are middle class, privately educated types. Although my friends are lovely they haven't been immune to making comments on my accent or working class habits and I don't fit into that wider circle either, people do look down on me for talk and assume that I must not be that bright. This has meant that in a conversation its been assumes that I must be the one who is incorrect as opposed to the middle class person when I've known for a fact I am correct. What about the dinner party I went to where everyone got drunk and immitated my accent laughing, asking if my holiday luggage consisted of freeser shop plastic bags?

I could afford to move to a nicer area but why the hell would I? I don't fit in anywhere and at least here people ultimatley know I am one of them.

I am fascinated at all these regular MNers that are from former CCCP countries that are interested in class. Did you not learn history from pre-1917 in school?
The Russian class system is similar to the English class system in many ways, except Britain abolished serfdom 500 years earlier. Life in 19th century Britain and Russia was probably fairly similar for mc and uc subjects. Many other Eastern bloc countries had similar court systems, dynastic rulers, and cultural/social mores.