You're not working class!

[Womeninthesequel]

Ridiculous conversation with an NCT acquaintance - we as a group were discussing the cost of living crisis and it was mentioned that working class families are really going to struggle. He scoffed and said "not all working class families, we're going to be fine." To which I goggled, and said "you're not working class!" He looked cross and said "of course I am, I grew up on a council estate, my dad was a binman."

This is true, he definitely is from a working class background, but he went to university, then med school, is now a senior surgeon doing mainly private practice, he makes six figures (which he'll tell anyone who walks past him) and his house is currently on the market for £1.2mil! He's not working class! This was pointed out to him (not by me) and he was vastly offended. He seems to genuinely believe that his upbringing means he'll always be working class, but that's not right, right? Class isn't innate, is it?

He's a bit of a dick in general, but this has raised a wider conversation at home. DH is from a working class background and is now uni educated and a professional and feels he's now middle class, so is confused by the idea that he's not.

I grew up in a working class family.

I am university educated and work in a professional role.

I was working class, I am now middle class. Social mobility.

Your children, if you have them, will be middle class. You however are working class. Going to university doesn't stop you being working class.

Sir Paul Nurse is a good example of this. He has a knighthood and a Nobel prize, he is still working class.

I was working class, I am now middle class. Social mobility.

It really doesn't work like that.

Does the professional privately/grammar school educated colleagues in your job consider you MC or WC University educated?

I liked the French analogy above.

@Eastangular2000

Funnily enough, at university I was taught that as I was in a professional role that requires a higher level of education that actually does change my class.

Not that it matters, the fact that we still have levels of class is an embarrassment as far as I can see. Upper and middle class people find they are above the proles. Society needs a head wobble.

If I were to do a market research survey tomorrow, I would be classified as middle class.

Personally I don't care, I think of myself as working class, but I do believe that technically I am middle class.

Surely in the context of struggling due to cost of living he cannot be placing himself in the same category? He may have come from WC roots but that's not what you were discussing.

@Womeninthesequel
He is not working class. He is just a nobhead. That is a separate class.

It is disconcerting that he is a senior surgeon and thinks like that 😵‍💫. Hasn’t he heard of social mobility? He sounds like he can’t believe how well he’s done with his showing off his six figure salary to anyone who will listen. There is. A term for it, but I can’t remember what it is 😄

Why do you need to pigeon hole people?

Eastangular2000 I fully accept your point. What I was trying to say is that people should be comfortable with who and what they are rather than trying to fit a stereotype so they’re accepted into a particular group. None of those things are wrong in any way except that they are essentially trends followed for the wrong reasons. I just don’t get why people are not comfortable to just be who they are especially in a world where you can be anything.

What about someone who grew up in money, went to university etc... But then later in life doesn't work, lives off benefits and has little to do with family. Still speak with a posh accent and talks about the arts etc .. What class are they?

This is not how social mobility works. You are not suddenly middle class, you can't change your past.

What has happened is someone from working class background has taken a role that previously society would have expected someone from a middle class background to fill.

Social mobility means (in theory, a whole other thread about UK issues in this regard) class and family circumstances don't limit future opportunities - e.g. working class people can become barristers - it isn't a process of converting working class people into middle class people.

The are middle class and skint.

And they will get a lot less shit and judgement about being poor than someone WC would

I don't really ever think about class as it's a rather outdated notion, more of my parents generation than mine, but I suppose by the accepted standards then I am upper class and my husband is working class. Confusingly we both appear middle class now, and have typical middle class professional jobs, our children go to good schools (but we don't pay anything for them due to scholarships) and because we both work in the public sector we are getting poorer by the day, and have been on a pay freeze for 12 years! We live in a large house with land, but again we have a mortgage on, and we were only able to buy it because of gifted money for that purpose from my parents. Day to day we are ok financially at the moment but we will struggle hugely in 2 years when our fixed mortgage rate ends, if interest rates haven't gone back down. The cost of heating oil is vast at the moment and our tank will need filling in about November but I'm.not sure we will have saved enough to do so. Because we earn over the govts idea of 'low income' we aren't eligible for any help that is means tested, so I think it's families like ours that will have the unseen struggle - we both work in good but relatively low paid jobs and on the face of it have a nice big house that we own, but in reality we could never have afforded the house if it wasn't for being helped with the cost of it, and it's not one that would sell quickly so we could move to a smaller home for a temporary fix to financial worries (something we have considered doing). So I think people from across the old British class system are going to struggle not just the working class (many of whom are in high paid jobs and pay full whack for their children's education). As a nun used to say to me when I was a child "money isn't the same as class".

Maybe it’s time we dropped the class system at this point…it’s vastly damaging!

It is vastly damaging but Britain has very poor (and in some ways worsening) social mobility so it is hard to 'drop' it.

British inequality is far more extreme than most European neighbours - for example in Ireland the bottom 20% in income terms are 63% better off than in Britain - so our class structure is entrenched.

Plus no big political shake ups in history unlike most countries.

the whole point of social mobility was the option to move class through education. Your friend may have been raised ‘working class’, but he is now middle class abd enjoying all the trappings of that.

Off the back off this thread, me and DH were discussing it last night. We’re both working class but with the outward trappings of being MC. For DH it’s not really a thing that he thinks about - he’s mixed race so for him, there’s other signifiers he uses to kind of categorise himself in context to other people. But for me, I realised that within a few seconds of meeting people, I do kind of instantly recognise myself as working class and categorise them as whatever I think they are.

I guess it makes sense from a tribal perspective, 1000’s of years ago we needed ways to recognise allies or whatever. I don’t know. Probably talking out of my arse. What I do now recognise is that despite all the stuff about how we should be classless, and how stupid class is, I do strongly align to class as a way to categorise people I meet. Not even in a judgement kind of way - not to shun people not like me or anything like that - but just as a simple frame of reference.

Years ago I had a very posh boyfriend. Trust fund family posh. They lived in dolphin square in Pimlico where Members of Parliament lived. After I was initially intimated by his family when I first met them, I got to know them and I was very much a part of the family and adored all of them. I was very close to his sisters and we lived together for about five years. So there was never any inclination of me not being “accepted” because I was working class. But I always, to some small degree, felt the difference between us. Just really tiny things they would do or not do that would signify to me that I was not the same. I couldn’t even tell you what these hundreds of slight differences were but they were enough for me to pick up on.

Years and years later, I was then a stay at home mum in a fairly affluent-ish part of a south London suburb. At baby groups and whatever, meeting different mums, I would pick up on similar things. I made lots of friends so it was never a negative thing, but just a recognition that we hadn’t had the same up bringing and it showed in lots of tiny mundane ways.

I guess it’s about recognition and we use all sorts of ways to give context to people we meet. I now earn over six figures, we live in a nice house in south London, outwardly we probably look middle class. But I think if I met someone who also was working class, within a conversation I think I would “betray” (for want of a better word) certain signifiers that person would pick up on that they would use to categorise me as - oh I thought you were MC but now I recognise you as WC.

Or not if they don’t care about class, maybe 😂

He was right OP, and you were wrong.
You were technically incorrect in equating financial position with class.
Not only is it patronising to the very many wealthy working class people, but also negates the struggles of professional people on lower incomes, middle class defining people who are ill, disabled etc.
The sort of assumptions that equate how much people will struggle with a judgement made based on their education, accent, fathers job, their job, their leisure activities or whatever any individual wants to dream up next, miss the mark.How much one will struggle depends purely on whether they can afford the increases. Nothing else.
And just because he is wealthy and has the sort of job people considering themselves MC want to be associated with, doesn't mean he can't define any way he chooses. Just like everyone here is doing, simply picking the criteria that best gives them membership to the class they want to be part of.

What a horrendous and absolutely snotty response. Reaks of "stay in your lane"

Why shouldn't they be proud?

Well, I was born into a working class family to a teen mum and lived with my grandparents on a council house until I was 9. Mu mum had been studying and working during that time and had got a very high paid job in IT. From 10 I went to boarding school and was educated there. What am I? A hybrid of both maybe, as from 0-9 I was in a working class environment living in a council house, then from 10-18 I was educated in a middle class environment, and my mum lived in a big house with a high paying job 🤷🏻‍♀️

Wtf? You misread something there.

I don't think being MC is better than WC, or vice versa.

If it makes any difference - I have one parent from each class (massive differences between them). I'm proud of both sides.

I think he's definitely middle class but might be termed as a 'Champagne socialist'. Class isn't fixed and is determined by education, job, lifestyle etc. Whatever his class, he doesn't sound particularly classy! 😁