To think there are some strange views on "Class" on MN?

[Flapjacker48]

It is undeniable that there is still a class system in the UK. There seems be some odd ideas about it on MN. This is inspired by the recent thread about Christmas decorations.

1.) Possessing a certain item or not is a huge class indicator (rubbish)

2.) That obtaining (or not) certain standards of education defines, or indeed changes your class (again rubbish)

3.) That class is defined by income alone, the "I earn x so I'm middle class!" type views

Does anyone really think that money defines class? Would you say a aristocratic widow who has lost all her money/house is now working class? Or that Wayne and Coleen Rooney are upper middle class due to income?

4.) The view that your interests somehow make you a certain class. Saying, for example, "I'm working class, but have middle class tastes like radio 4, theatre etc" thus (offensively) implying that working class people could never have such interests....

I really couldn't give half a hoot . I have people in my family who are millionaires and some are on benefits , we all get together and get rat arsed a few times a year and the puke of the millionaires is indistinguishable from the puke of the unemployed .

@LouKelly

I really couldn't give half a hoot . I have people in my family who are millionaires and some are on benefits , we all get together and get rat arsed a few times a year and the puke of the millionaires is indistinguishable from the puke of the unemployed .

But it’s irrelevant whether you give a hoot — low socioeconomic status reduces your life expectancy significantly, for instance, regardless of whether you’re personally indifferent to class. A big study of populations in 48 countries found it was a bigger risk factor for early death than obesity or high alcohol consumption.

@MatildaIThink, but doesn’t your own example contradict your middle-class delayed gratification theory? You and your husband are WC in origin, yet you practiced delayed gratification for years before you can have achieved anything like MC status.

I think it proves @Cbtb's point: that Middle Class- desperate to prove their not WC.

Thank goodness I don't live in the UK is all I can say!

@MatildaIThink - are you for real??? I've never heard such a load of rubbish.

I think class is most definitely alive and well in the UK.

The only indicator that I believe has little baring on these particular pidgin holes is money.

There are plenty of working class people with a lot of money ... and even more middle class , aristocracy with hardly a bean.

My brothers Godmother is 'titled' . From a family that had all the trappings up until the 1970s . (Huge country house, grand Belgravia townhouse) but death duties, poor financial management and division of assets has left nothing. To the point where my mum used to regularly lend her money to put Petrol in her car.

Not a brass farthing to her name but still very much 'the Aristocracy' . Put her in the middle of a gathering of monied Lords , Ladies and wealthy industrialist.. and you couldn't pick her out as the one with not enough in her purse to get the bus home.

Class is a combination of your cultural background and adopted behaviours. Money means nothing.

@lazylinguist

Why is teaching seen as a middle class profession? All the teachers I know are working class.

Because it's a profession. Also presumably because in the days when working class people hardly went to university, they didn't get to be teachers. I know teachers from all parts of the class spectrum. The range is obviously affected by what kind of school they teach in - probably not that many working class teachers in top-end private schools.

I wonder where that leaves nurses? Studying at degree level to become a nurse is a fairly recent thing.

@MilkTooth
but doesn’t your own example contradict your middle-class delayed gratification theory? You and your husband are WC in origin, yet you practiced delayed gratification for years before you can have achieved anything like MC status.
Nope, there are always exceptions (as I have mentioned before), but I look back at most of the working class people I went to school with (some of whom are still great friends), but there was and even still is (even though we are in our thirties now) a "live for the now" attitude with most of them. I was one of only 14 from my year (120 children) who went to uni (only 14 even applied, we all got in). I remember coming back from uni and seeing people from school, many had gone into entry level jobs and had no ambition to do anything more than stay in those and spend their pay cheque as soon as they were paid. I also went to uni with people who were from working class backgrounds who are now comfortably middle class.

Deferring gratification is seen as a characteristic of the MC, its not a passport in. I went to uni and saved up for a house deposit. This doesn't make me MC. I am an educated WC owner of a modest house. It was also 30 years ago when I did this. Anyone trying to save a deposit these days from 'paid overtime' would be deferring their gratification for a very long time. I actually find the 'if you weren't so impulsive and just had patience and worked hard, you too could be MC' argument extremely irritating (I don't want to be MC thank you) naive (completely ignores the reality of people's lives) and out of step with life today. (The theory is very old, we were studying it in the 80s)

I also went to uni with people who were from working class backgrounds who are now comfortably middle class

As a PP said, you are mixing up class/background with economic status. You cannot change class so easily.

It's a shame when people aren't happy with their lot.

That's probably a huge class marker there. Being "happy with your lot" and not striving and aspiring. E.g. Happy to live in a rented 3 bed semi on an estate where the whole extended family have always lived. Compared to the middle class buying bigger and moving away for work/ different life.

Also education. Middle class are far more likely to push their children academically and want to teach them things. Working class less likely to aspire to high education & high paid jobs as no one has ever done that and they are happy as they are.

@mustlovegin

I also went to uni with people who were from working class backgrounds who are now comfortably middle class

As a PP said, you are mixing up class/background with economic status. You cannot change class so easily.

Pfh, this implies class is a cultural group that has shared immutable traits. This is clearly bollocks.

Give me a single trait that isn't money based that all of one "class" share?

IF it's the rung above you determining your 'lot' then that would rankle!
I've decided I'm happy with my lot right now so that feels ok.

I'm a middle class girl or I was told I was (by my parents?) private school, music lessons, bi-lingual, and yet I had such a low self-esteem I got in to a relationship with an abusive man, had 2 kids out of marriage [gasp]/ I left thankfully and my parents helped me buy a small house, not in the best area of town, needs a lot of work but i have a roof over my head and a secure job. So I'm aware i'm living a life which is outwardly different from my school friends. I was with school friends on saturnight actually and the one who hosted, her house is magazine stuff. In some ways though, our lives are similar, get up and go to work every day five days in a row, get home and tidy up and get dinner for two kids. She is married to nice guy though.

i would invite those friends over though. As I said to the friend who gave me a lift home, it's a miracle I even have that house! Small and shabby though it is. I still feel lucky I have it.

I feel like a class chameleon. I think it's for the best. I see people for the people they are (i believe).

@Helpstopthepain like with civil servants some nurses were WC, some MC and some UC as it depended on their band/grade. Now they would all be considered MC due to their education but how MC would depend on their band/grade.

It use to be that working class lads who made good would marry a MC woman so their children would be MC by upbringing and manners. You can still see it's effects in my extended family and friends.

Holy fuck this thread is offensive.

[quote RedWingBoots]@Helpstopthepain like with civil servants some nurses were WC, some MC and some UC as it depended on their band/grade. Now they would all be considered MC due to their education but how MC would depend on their band/grade.

It use to be that working class lads who made good would marry a MC woman so their children would be MC by upbringing and manners. You can still see it's effects in my extended family and friends.[/quote]
Lol at the thought of MC women passively lining up so the WC 'lads' done good could use them to improve their social status.

@BettyBag

Holy fuck this thread is offensive.

Its certainly depressing if it a reflection of how MC people see WC people. I'm hoping that the more offensive comments are from former WC people desperate to distance themselves, rather than a true gauge of people's attitudes.

Class is discussed a lot in my family. Most of my friends and DH have had no class shift so it doesn’t get discussed. We find it difficult to define ourselves having Irish heritage and having been considered WC by many. Now some of the family have gone to uni and become comfortable financially and others haven’t so we sound very different and our circumstances are very different too. It’s doesn’t cause any issues it’s just noticeable. I’m seen as WC by some and MC by others it’s weird, I think it’s definitely still a preoccupation for many.

To add, in my experience class is much more about culture than economics. I was certainly shamed by my friends parents at University for not showing the right cultural markers. Although I am now financially sound and some in my family are wealthy, none of us feel truly MC.

[quote MatildaIThink]@MilkTooth
but doesn’t your own example contradict your middle-class delayed gratification theory? You and your husband are WC in origin, yet you practiced delayed gratification for years before you can have achieved anything like MC status.
Nope, there are always exceptions (as I have mentioned before), but I look back at most of the working class people I went to school with (some of whom are still great friends), but there was and even still is (even though we are in our thirties now) a "live for the now" attitude with most of them. I was one of only 14 from my year (120 children) who went to uni (only 14 even applied, we all got in). I remember coming back from uni and seeing people from school, many had gone into entry level jobs and had no ambition to do anything more than stay in those and spend their pay cheque as soon as they were paid. I also went to uni with people who were from working class backgrounds who are now comfortably middle class.[/quote]
So what do you think made you different from the majority of your peers? How did you learn deferred gratification if, as you suggest. you didn't see examples of it in action around you because of your social class?

The "deferred gratification" comment is highly offensive to me.
I have traditional working class roots as did my husband. (The working class that Engels wrote about, miners, cotton spinners, Irish railway builders).
My own family were Methodist and were masters of delayed gratification and obsessed with education.
My husband always said that you appreciate things more if you have to work and wait for them (bollocks!).
All of them delayed gratification so long that they died before getting any!
It's hard to "classify" me. I went to a direct grant Grammar school and then University. Most of my work colleagues were very middle class until the 1990s when recruitment seemed to broaden and vary more.
I buy "nice" clothes off ebay but as soon as I speak I have a strong Northern accent. The accent has caused some people to underestimate me in the past.
MN is a bit obsessed for a Forum that is so politically correct in other ways.
It's sad to see stereotyping. It should have died out really.

It’s a load of crap to say middle class people have what they have because of eduction and deferred gratification. I agree with Pics in Red- it’s all about inheritance. In other words- money.
Middle class people like to tell themselves they read more, are better educated, cleverer with their finances, more ambitious, more cultured, but in reality they just have more money. I really do object to the idea that reading and valuing learning is somehow middle class too, when I have met so many pig ignorant middle class people who live in an absolute bubble and have very little actual curiosity about anything that isn’t on radio 4 or in the Guardian.
I’m not English English- my family were all from somewhere else, but I can say my dad had more books than anyone I ever met, as well as a massive telly, and he was always reading, definitely working class though.

Just to pick up on something somebody said upthread, my old friends obviously did not consider me to have dropped a "class" when i left abusive x and was on benefits before i got a job. Even now my circs v modest but they do not see me as socially below them just because their combined wealth husband puts them in a different league materially.

However, this effect wouldnt have held on for the next generation. All of their dc at private schools. My dd got in to a v good university and is ambitious. So i wonder if she will be perceived to have been a working class girl who did well or another middle class girl who obviously ended up in university.

Im not over analysing that! But when people say you dont change class when you lose /gain money, i think that's true but not for your children. Their class might be the same as yours or it might not be.

What I don't get about that BBC Class calculator is that it's all about me and my interests, so I'm established middle class apparently even though my DM is the daughter of a train driver and a housewife, and my DF was brought up in an orphanage and left school at 14 to work on the roads.
When did I become MC?

I am not British but have been living in the U.K. for quite a long time. There are elements of a class system in other countries - often driven by education/income - but it’s a lot more entrenched in the U.K. and as others have pointed out, it’s less to do with your financial status (although there is obviously a direct link).

I actually think this class division is a huge barrier to equality and a higher standard of living in the U.K.

I like to bear in mind that if you have British ancestry you are directly descended from Edward III as a virtual certainty, ditto Charlemagne for erm... everyone in Western Europe. Great leveller, genetics.

Now can I have my tiara? I think one of my ancestors mislaid it