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.

@crochetmonkey74

I am as caitlin Moran describes herself as a 'class jumper' from my very very poor childhood to my now graduate job. I think I would definitely be seen as middle class now maybe but I don't feel it. I'm a bit adrift as to where i fit in. I have all the trappings of middle class but I like all the working class things from my childhood. It's hard to explain

That's because your class is more defined by your upbringing than your current socioeconomic situation. If your parents were working class, so will you. Your children however are at risk of being middle class ;-)

Oh - also, although people in the UK seem to imagine this is an especially British thing, it really isn't. It exists just as much even in places like the US that imagine themselves to be meritocracies. They have their own rather brutal class systems, in truth, you can't have that kind of capitalism without such a thing emerging.

I thought most people played board games, including scrabble.

I still have no idea what class I belong to. My father was a farm labourer and I became a schoolteacher and married a chartered surveyor.
My definition of middle class is someone whose dad went to work in a suit!

The middle class is a trick to distract us from the fact that if we sell our labour for a wage we are working-class and our political interests are the same and in opposition to those who pay our wages. The obsession with being middle class distracts us from that fact and ensures that those with the real power and assets are never confronted with a united opposition. This is the very best way they can safeguard the status quo which grants them their wealth and privilege.

Oh no, not a regional accent!!!!

According to The BBC social survey they defined me a Liberal Elite. Wonder what ‘score’ I would have got if they’d heard my scouse twang.

@StarsAreWishes

I think a lot of the things you list are a certain style or sophistication rather than “middle class”.

I wouldn’t describe myself as middle class because I don’t fit with the traditional definition. But I would be “MN middle class” - I shop at Toast/Boden/John Lewis. Waitrose or M&S for food. Drive a Volvo. Well paid professional job after postgrad degree. Well read in the classics. RP accent. So I think a lot of those are spot on.

That is the definition of middle class.

How strange, no middle classes in new houses then??
Sounds more like you are talking what would be referred to as "old money" to me and more so upper middle class if not upper.

(Sat here with my accent in fairly modern house with my perhaps 'flash' car eating something from Waitrose pondering what I am?!)

@Fink

Decanting milk and also not having any water bottles or drink bottles on the table when having dinner, but decanting all the drinks.

What if you have to decant milk because the big milk bottles don't fit in your narrow fridge? That's what I do!

And I don't know what you mean about decanting drinks on the table ... like drinking out of a glass instead of a can or like pouring the wine into a carafe before serving? They're quite different behaviours (not sure either of them is MC, but the first one definitely isn't).

Plastic bottles of water or juice - decanting them into glass bottles. Serving beer in a glass and not a can of course. Wine can stay in the bottle or be decanted.

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

Dying laughing at this one

@billycat321

I still have no idea what class I belong to. My father was a farm labourer and I became a schoolteacher and married a chartered surveyor. My definition of middle class is someone whose dad went to work in a suit!

I agree. If you grew up with a dad who went to work in a suit then you’re middle class. It doesn’t matter what your accent is.

@TheKeatingFive

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

Dying laughing at this one

Hahaha why ?

@HepzibahGreen

Middle class in the UK is thinking that only people who live in nice houses, have an an office based job and have been to university are “educated” and read books. It’s a level of small minded arrogance that enables them to believe that anyone outside of their own tiny frame of reference is a bit thick and common. So basically it’s a state of mind.

I think in some ways this is more modern. And stems from a time when university education became more prominent and common.

It used to be fairly common for members of the upper classes to have little formal education at the university level. And by the same token, there were quite a lot of working class people who were very well educated compared to today, but not from a formalized setting. My working class grandfather was a lot more well read than a lot of university graduates now and that kind of education was't that unusual.

caddycat that makes sense!

Take the test and see what you are

www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2013/newsspec_5093/index.stm

Hahaha why ?

Not in the slightest bit applicable to the middle class people I know. If you're lucky, they'll have watched the bbc adaptations

[quote Sodullincomparison]Take the test and see what you are

www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2013/newsspec_5093/index.stm[/quote]
I remember that test. It doesn't work for me because the second question is whether you own or rent your home, and there's no option for 'back living with your parents, well into middle age'

I like Rich Hall's definition:

Working class - your name's on your shirt
Middle class - your name's on the door
Upper class - your name's on the building.

We now have a majority new class in the UK though: Upper-Working class... your name's on your lanyard.

@PearPickingPorky

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

People from north (and west) of the Home Counties can still speak with an RP accent.

I know people native to Cumbria, Yorkshire, Cornwall and gasp! even Scotland with RP accents. And no, they haven’t changed them along thr way.

I disagree with a lot of your criteria. A lot resembles my childhood and how I raise my children, but my family is very working class and has been as many generations that I'm aware of.
Owning your own home I think is the big one.
Getting the mortgage deposit, having an income where you'd actually be approved for enough to buy a house. Not at all realistic for those of us living month-to-month.

@TheKeatingFive

Hahaha why ?

Not in the slightest bit applicable to the middle class people I know. If you're lucky, they'll have watched the bbc adaptations

Oh really ! The ones I know are so into all of the book stuff... I am absolutely not. It's just not what I enjoy.

I stayed far away from any literature courses at university and I have two degrees. But I've not read any of those classic books and hate literature..

I guess I'm WC. Although I just took the quiz and apparently I'm elite.. naaaah.. I don't believe it.

Wasn’t there something about whether your tv or bookcase is bigger? Which is easily achieved by owning War and Peace and Vanity Fair alone tbh.

@PattyPan

Wasn’t there something about whether your tv or bookcase is bigger? Which is easily achieved by owning War and Peace and Vanity Fair alone tbh.

We don't even have a TV not alone a TV stand. Clearly there has been a mix up and I'm meant to be upper class, how do I trade my over-crowded council house in for a mansion?

@Raquelos

The middle class is a trick to distract us from the fact that if we sell our labour for a wage we are working-class and our political interests are the same and in opposition to those who pay our wages. The obsession with being middle class distracts us from that fact and ensures that those with the real power and assets are never confronted with a united opposition. This is the very best way they can safeguard the status quo which grants them their wealth and privilege.

I think there is a reasonable explanation for this though.

If the wealthy are people who don't have to work, and own capital, and workers sell their labour, the middle classes do fall in between to some extent because while they sell their labour, they also typically have investments, even if only in the form of a pension.

That gives them a kind of security that historically hasn't belonged to the working classes.

@JazzyBBG

How strange, no middle classes in new houses then?? Sounds more like you are talking what would be referred to as "old money" to me and more so upper middle class if not upper.

(Sat here with my accent in fairly modern house with my perhaps 'flash' car eating something from Waitrose pondering what I am?!)

I think it’s because the categories are just not as distinct as questions like the op’s imply. Despite thinking class is a depressing load of regressive crap, I know (or have a very good idea) within minutes or even seconds of meeting someone how I stand in relation to them class-wise. It’s not about being in the same category or not, it’s about there being a thousand gradations whereby you can pretty much sort any group of people from most working class to most middle class (or upper, even).

I don’t think about this consciously and I certainly don’t think it’s a good thing, but when I read threads like this and reflect I know I’m definitely doing it. Comes of growing up in a class-obsessed culture.