What makes you middle class ?

[toddlerdanger]

Inspired by another thread. Just for a bit of fun.

MN is obsessed with this. Let me start- I am not originally British - so I wasn't born into this system. But I understand it somewhat. But I would like to understand what it is that makes you middle class.

Here are my thoughts, gathered from 20 plus years of living here, please correct me if I'm wrong. I don't want to offend, I find this topic fascinating, especially since reading so much about it on here:

• speaking in an RP accent, so not in a regional accent

• living in a period property or cottage ( an old house basically )

• playing board games and scrabble

• loving puns and word play

• having read all the classic books because you grew up with them and your parents showed you/ talked for you about them since you were young

• having parents who don't do manual jobs/ are entrepreneurs. Middle class parents seem to work in academia or in the corporate world in general.

• having parents who have a degree

• having parents that have been to private school

• having been to private school ( but not 100 percent necessary )

• having a degree yourself

• not driving flash cars, think more like a Volvo rather than a Porsche

• shopping at Waitrose

• not piercing your child's ears until they're in their teens

• not having too much flashy designer stuff. The odd bag is OK. But not constant flashing of designer stuff. More understated

• the Christmas lights things. Not too many colours, but more subdued. Think warm white vs ice white lights

• antiques in the home

• not into football, but more into rugby

This is all I can think of right now.

Oh no not this again!! (Said in my broad Cornish accent, while wearing my Man United t shirt, in my 2 bed 1970s shithole!)

"White collar workers are middle class, the best definition I've seen is the middle class shower before work, working class shower after work."

Lol ... loving this definition

@Cornisharchitect

Oh no not this again!! (Said in my broad Cornish accent, while wearing my Man United t shirt, in my 2 bed 1970s shithole!)

Well I'm here in my new build with my box toilet en suite, listening to my husband taking a dump.. so not to worry.

@LivingDeadGirlUK

More than 3 types of cheese in the fridge.

Literally just counted the number of cheeses in the fridge. 😂

@blueshoes

It's based on your job and income mostly

I don't know. That is the American version of middle class. In the UK, it is more subtle than that. At least that is what I think, not being from the UK myself.

Middle classes tend to value and spend on things that are invisible especially education.

Well that's what you think, but it doesn't align with reality

Job type is the traditional form of class distinction, and since that isn't overly helpful in todays world, most also overlay salary onto this too to get a true view of 'class'

For example - the OECD defines the middle class as households with disposable income of between 75% and 200% of the median (or mid-point of the income distribution, adjusted for the number of people who live in a household).

I’m in Scotland but still have an RP accent

But the vast majority of middle class people in Scotland have a Scottish accent. Obviously.

Your first name is usually a sign of your class.
If you're called Tracy, Sharon, Jackie, Mandy,Lynn or Linda ....then it would be unlikely you come from a middle class home.
That is, of course, depending on the decade you were born in.
But as I'm late 50s women with those given names tend not to be middle class.

That's a funny list, I guess you don't mean people who consider themselves middle class can tick every time item? Or would just a percentage be enough? Social class is so complicated. I see myself as MC now but don't have a lot in common with most of my MC friends:
Accent tinged with south London
Live in Victorian terrace like millions of other Londoners
Used to love Scrabble but only play online now
Have read some classics, but only Austen, Brontes and a very few Dickens basically. No Russians! My mother never really read books, my father did, but didn't "introduce" me to classics.
Parents were musician and dancer before I was born but then low-level civil servants, my DM did childminding when I was little.
They both left school at 14.
I went to state schools and I don't have a degree.
Our car is a 12yo Ford Focus and we shop at Sainsbury's mostly
I don't have children but if I did, I wouldn't have been at all keen on piercing before teenage at the earliest.
Have never had designer anything.
Multicoloured Christmas lights every time!
Don't think we have any antique furniture, DP brought some old brown stuff to the house which I don't like.
No interest in football or rugby.

@TearifficTaz

Well none of that is what makes someone middle class

It's based on your job and income mostly

White collar workers are middle class, the best definition I've seen is the middle class shower before work, working class shower after work.

What happens if one part of the marriage is white collar and the other part is working? Does one pull the other up or down?

Asking for a friend

I disagree that most of the things of your list can determine someone’s class. Accent in particular can be a bit of a red herring - I’ve known people living here in the NW who assume anyone from down south with a ‘posh’ accent is MC, rich, privileged, etc. Likewise, the difference between the classes in the north is often how strong the accent is, not whether you have one at all.

The old chestnut about being working class if you work is rubbish.

Originally, upper class were titled, middle class had incomes from estates/ inheritance/rich family and the working class were literally that - people who had to work for a living. Nowadays, it's a bit of a movable feast.

Does knowing that make me middle class?

I do think many of the factors that you have mentioned are used to assess social class, even though obviously trying to break up society into any sort of class system is wrong and in reality in the UK we just have the super-rich and the rest (struggling to get by).

Other factors which might have traditionally been used to assess class include- the types of food someone eats (e.g. quinoa vs. KFC), access to things like musical instrument lessons, which newspapers someone reads (e.g. tabloids are traditionally seen as working class), which TV programmes they watch (e.g. documentaries vs. ITV/channel 5 prime time programmes)

@FawnFrenchieMum

I'd say class would work downwards, so the WC would drag the MC down

@PearPickingPorky

I find the "RP accent" qualification quite interesting, as if you don't get middle class people north of the home counties.

If I had a pound for everyone in my life who has expressed surprise at my being from the north when I don’t have the accent…

OP - all the things in your list would be considered middle class markers, yes.

But the money part is the most nuanced and complex, difficult to explain.

You can definitely be (relatively) poor and middle class as education, values and lifestyle are such important elements. As you said in your OP, MC does not mean flashy.

And you can definitely be rich and working class.

@Howshouldibehave

Some of the things like playing/enjoying rugby rather than football might push things into upper class though.

Private school or public school?!

Guessing your referring to Union as opposed to League. League is very working class

What a load of guff.

MC also love a quiz...

I despise a quiz or board games or scrabble.

@Bundlesofchocforme

Round here it’s driving to school when your whole family is able bodied and you live two streets away. Parking your massive car on double yellow lines inches from the school gate and covering most of the pavement so wheelchairs can’t get by and then standing gossiping to equally irritating middle class friends in the middle of the school entrance while ignoring your kids who are creating Merry hell!

Very different where I am! All the middle class parents walk or cycle and wouldn’t be seen dead driving on the school run.

If I had a pound for everyone in my life who has expressed surprise at my being from the north when I don’t have the accent…

But having a non-RP accent doesn't make someone not middle class. There may be a few people who live in North of England/Ireland, Wales or Scotland who speak with an RP accent, but that doesn’t mean they are middle class. And 99% of the middle-class people in those regions will not have an RP accent.

@N4ish I agree with you. MC parents I know are super eco friendly and would never drive to school - let alone in a big car and they would never park on yellow lines and block people in etc.

Oh know I’m middle class because I’m faintly embarrassed by my RP accent and would like to be a bit more street , at times

I thought most people played board games, including scrabble.

@PearPickingPorky

If I had a pound for everyone in my life who has expressed surprise at my being from the north when I don’t have the accent…

But having a non-RP accent doesn't make someone not middle class. There may be a few people who live in North of England/Ireland, Wales or Scotland who speak with an RP accent, but that doesn’t mean they are middle class. And 99% of the middle-class people in those regions will not have an RP accent.

Of course - all scenarios apply.

The point being that you can tell relatively little from accent alone.

so she can look down on other people.

It's about looking up to some people and looking down on other people.

Google the 'class system sketch', with John Cleese, Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker.

Says it all really.

I'll always consider myself working class because I've had to work for everything I've got. By external appearances (home, holidays, money, cars, job, education etc), many would see 'middle class' and probably why I get Tory pollsters knocking on the door at election time - who get told in no uncertain terms I'd never vote for them.