What makes you working class?

[Greenbluestar]

I noticed the thread on what makes you middle class. So how about what makes you working class? I’ll go first..

• achievement achieved through merit and seldom by privilege
• keen to work and hard working

Any more?

I’m in Scotland, class is virtually never discussed.

I grew up in Morningside and would count my mother as one of the most impressively snobby women in the nation. This is someone who considers the word “mirror” to be vulgar. I’m not sure anyone really discusses class in real life though in England or Scotland.

Lack of social capital.

Class may take on a different form wherever you are, but I defy you to show us a classless society.

@MadameHeisenberg I also had a paper round aged 11. I worked 25 hours a week all through my A levels. I’m really torn about how I feel about my kids working. I’d probably like them to have the time to pursue a hobby, play a sport and concentrate on their academic work or volunteer.

Interesting discussion.

Higher education is the big divide, so going to university makes you middle-middle class or above, although only really for men, as women didn’t get to university in any real numbers until the 1980s and before then for women it was for the likes of nurses and teachers so not really high status institutions or professions.

Another signifier IME is willingness to DIY. If something goes wrong, you’ll have a go at fixing it yourself before paying someone to do a job. Your house is often immaculate as a result. No scuffed skirting boards because you touch them up yourself.

Tidying up before you invite anyone over, even if it’s just a playdate.

No safety net. My parents were poor ( dad inside, mother worked in a bookies). They died before I was 21. The council house went back to the council, and as I was living else where that was the end of that. Knowing that your family can put a roof over you head and feed you if the chips are down (eg through divorce/redundancy) is a massive benefit psychological throughout adulthood, even if you never need to use that safety net.

I know that always having to be earning affected my career choices - I chose a career with short paid training but ultimately a limited earning ceiling as I could not make longer, paid-for training work.

Also knowing straight away what "dad inside" means in my first paragraph

I’ve done higher education as an adult (access course, then degree, then masters, then further professional qualifications) and family just roll their eyes now if it comes up that I’ve done another qualification. But the first one - the access course- why would you do that why do want to go to university.

To be fair my mum picked my kids up from school occasionally to let me go to the access course and university. And she put my graduation photo on top of the piano in the good room.

@BurnDownTheDiscoHangTheDJ So true! My SIL is defo middle class (she’s a doctor and her parents were doctors) she had never seen bullseye until recently and had NEVER PLAYED BINGO before

Explaining to a 35 year old doctor how to play bingo was an surreal experience

I live in a council house in an ex mining village in Yorkshire. I have no money and shit loads of debt. My kids (and I do call them kids) play out on the street with their friends and I call them in for tea. My kids have common, popular names. Both my parents and my step-dad did blue collar jobs in engineering and textiles. We eat a lot of processed foods such as pasta, pizza, ready meals and the like. I sit in my front garden and talk with the neighbours.

I am also degree educated and am a teacher. I drive a merc and drink loose leaf tea made in a tea pot. I make my own fancy bread and my children take it to school for their packed lunch. These do not make me middle class at all but I suppose I wanted to show that not all working class people follow the stereotypical Onslow or Benefits Street way of living.

@socdem

I think your right but there is a class divide between universities in my opinion. With the previous Labour government goal of getting half of children into university and the conversion of polytechnics there are a large number of working class students at the newer universities but the older universities are still disproportionately middle class.

I think attending one of the older universities as well as opening up career opportunities means being in a culture that is overall middle class in a very formative period of your life.

*-achievement achieved through merit and seldom by privilege

• keen to work and hard working*

Yeah, because obviously:

• middle class people automatically inherit a posh job without having to ever lift a finger at school or at work. All the kids of NHS doctors and university lecturers get their own place reserved from birth, just like that
• all working class people are super high achievers with an impeccable work ethic, and are never, ever known to slack or cheat

Jesus fucking Christ, do you people even listen to yourselves?

This is pure nonsense. You're working class because you either didn't go to University, or if you did, you had to take a loan, and perhaps a side-job, because your parents could never have afforded to fund you there. It's about that simple. It's about money (and material support) or lack thereof, not hard work.
Stop trying to invent additional virtues (which are in no way universal or unique to any class) just to compensate for lack of fund or opportunities. It's a toxic myth that just entrenches a stupid class system that really should be abolished by offering all kids decent opportunities regardless of background.

You never eat avocado or olives.

@Greenbluestar

I noticed the thread on what makes you middle class. So how about what makes you working class? I’ll go first..

• achievement achieved through merit and seldom by privilege
• keen to work and hard working

Any more?

Oh bloody hell.. ‘working class’ is an old fashioned social grouping from the Industrial age referring to people in manual or semi skilled occupations. It doesn’t work any more, which is why a different system of social groupings is used.

It’s self-evidently not a personality type.

Having white sliced bread and butter alongside your meal and using it to mop up the plate at the end

Living on council estate.

Scraping hair back into damp, unforgiving pony.

Telling kids off incessantly.

Talking too loudly.

Naming kids Brayden, Kaden, Jayden

Working shifts

Drinking endless quantities of tea

Talking shite

Gossiping

I think talk of there being no class divide is disingenuous as though class distinctions are more blurred they still exist particularly from an economic perspective.

I also think a working class background is boasted about by celebs to give them a more authentic backstory (e.g. Adele) and there is a conscious effort to mask a middle class background (Ed Sheeran, Mick Jagger). The working class hero narrative that makes it against the odds is a perpetual human theme and is going to be exploited.

Short version: "working class pride" is toxic. Its purpose is to keep people in their place, prevents them from questioning the system. It holds them down.

I know because plenty of my friends (and my DH) are "class climbers" ("class traitors"). Their relationship with their families and childhood friends are strained. It still limits their life opportunities and ambitions. There's a toxic culture of reverse snobbery. This shit has to go. It's divide and rule, and it only benefits those at the top.

@sweetbellyhigh

Living on council estate.

Scraping hair back into damp, unforgiving pony.

Telling kids off incessantly.

Talking too loudly.

Naming kids Brayden, Kaden, Jayden

Working shifts

Drinking endless quantities of tea

Talking shite

Gossiping

Are you working class? 🙃

Some of the replies on here are raging stereotypes 😂
Have some of you watched too much Shameless or Benefits Britain?!
🥱🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

@RobotValkyrie

*-achievement achieved through merit and seldom by privilege

• keen to work and hard working*

Yeah, because obviously:

• middle class people automatically inherit a posh job without having to ever lift a finger at school or at work. All the kids of NHS doctors and university lecturers get their own place reserved from birth, just like that
• all working class people are super high achievers with an impeccable work ethic, and are never, ever known to slack or cheat

Jesus fucking Christ, do you people even listen to yourselves?

This is pure nonsense. You're working class because you either didn't go to University, or if you did, you had to take a loan, and perhaps a side-job, because your parents could never have afforded to fund you there. It's about that simple. It's about money (and material support) or lack thereof, not hard work.
Stop trying to invent additional virtues (which are in no way universal or unique to any class) just to compensate for lack of fund or opportunities. It's a toxic myth that just entrenches a stupid class system that really should be abolished by offering all kids decent opportunities regardless of background.

👏👏👏👏

OP, how are you defining merit?

Isn’t having merit a privilege? Not being snarky, it is a genuine question that I have thought about in recent weeks.

www.thedailymash.co.uk/features/the-15-things-you-should-own-to-be-working-class-2015040997147

*Retail expert Stephen Malley said: “Waitrose sees itself as a force for justice but is actually really deluded and weird, with no sense of normality.

“Aldi revels in the dark underworld of litter strewn retail parks, chuckling and poking fun at the establishment with its weird cheap sausages.

“The one is the mirror of the other, and despite the bitter ongoing duel they secretly want to kiss.”*

Excellent flufflycloud

@CrackerGal

I just observe. You?

I think privilege isn't just about money at all.

I think lots of working class people have the privilege of having a very loving and intact family (which of course some don't). I think if you come from a good family and were raised in a supportive environment, you have privilege. Whether you're working class, middle, class or upper class or whatever.

I think working class families ( from my experience ) are warmer and closer knit and help each other out more than middle class families. Middle class treat their family really formal in my opinion. It's like they're strangers. This is super subjective and my own opinion and a generalisation, I do realise that.