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 think he can say he grew up working class, and a binman is definitely a working class job, but if your a surgeon a £1 million plus house, I think it’s a stretch to be claiming that you’re working class yourself.
What constitutes working class is a bit of a funny one. Some people want to be classed as such, others don’t.
I always understood it as “labour”, as day labourers and semi skilled, the kind of jobs that needed to be unionised to protect the workers from exploitation.
When you get into the various trades it gets quite murky, but a lot tradesmen lived and still live lower middle class lives and resent unionism and vote conservative.
And growing up in a council house was the default not long ago, for working class people but also for lower middle class people. Rupert Murdoch famously lived in a house owned by the council!
Its also a matter of perspective; my grandmother, who grew up in abject poverty in a one bedroom tenement the 1910s and 20s, used to tell me stories about how awful things were the “poor people” (ie not her)!

He's a surgeon on 6 figures with a flat cap on.

If your class is defined by your job, what if you’re unemployed then? To me is about much more than your occupation or wealth. Footballers are often quoted in these discussions and labelled very much working class despite earning extremely well and having houses in excess of the example given here!

No one can agree on how class is defined or how you move class.
i have seen it written that you can’t change class from the one you were born into. Which would mean he was working class. Some classifications say you can, in which case he wouldn’t be.

You seem to confusing wealth with the class system. That’s not how it works.

Did you mean ‘low/lower income families will struggle’?

Also 2 working class people could be earning 24k each. Bringing in more than a one wage middle class household who earns 45k. But they would be still working class. So it doesn’t work on earnings either.

I still have no clue what class I am to be honest. I mainly grew up in England and have no idea. Like that man I could be working or middle. Different classifications have me grouped differently.

He is middle class with working class parents.

I dont think he is working class

There's intra- and inter-generational mobility. He's had the first. He's MC.

Do you remember that proper working class (& rough) kid that won ££££ on the lottery? A few years back? He didn’t become middle class overnight. Money means fuck all re class.

His kids will be working class, he is not.

I don't think it matters. If someone wants to say they feel WC, what's the problem?
I was born WC, and that's how I feel, and how I relate to the world.

It would be tumbleweed

It matters if, as this man has done, you start scoffing at the challenges faced by actual working class people.

Because to justify his membership of a group he has to rewrite the experiences of the actual group.

there are some v wealthy pumbers and electricians that wont be too bothered by it all either - so yeah its not about class its about income

FIL was a solicitor for a big name law firm in the City, in the 60’s they bought a new build 4 bed detached house 25 minutes from central London.

Looks down his nose when talking to me because not only did I grow up in social housing, but I still lived in social housing when I met DH.

Apparently he’s working class, because he had to work for a living.

In this context, he isn't, since the issue is one of ability to cope with financially difficult times, which he has the resources to manage. In some other situations, background might play more of a role. Perhaps the term 'lower income' might be less liable to confusion or controversy.

So if you are raised middle or upper class and end up homeless or in poverty, You are still middle/upper class?

No one does lol

I live in a wealthy and very MC area.

In many ways my life doesn’t look much different to other people here but I don’t fit in socially and although people are friendly and my dc are very settled, I don’t feel I ‘belong’. This doesn’t bother me but I think some people would scoff at me if I said I am WC even though I am!

I have actually been congratulated for ‘how well I’ve done’ given my background and that’s quite offensive to me.
My parents worked hard to give me opportunities that they didn’t have and I have them to thank for encouraging me academically and exposing me to certain things culturally that they hadn’t experienced before. But I’m proud of my parents and my background despite my apparent ‘MC job/life’.

I am working class. I was raised on a council estate, went to a shitty comp, both y parents left school at 15/16 with no qualifications.

Married the son of a Navy captain. Oxbridge family, all of em.

My kids are middle class, like my husband. I am working class, and always will feel that way. I live with immense daily guilt about how much my kids have compared to others (and myself as a kid).

It's all pretty subjective. Personally I think class is much more about background than money or education.

However, he was still a dick to bring it up like that when the topic of discussion was people struggling with the cost of living. I'd definitely consider myself working class and the cost of living crisis isn't going to put me on the breadline, but I wouldn't use that to be dismissive and sneery about the fact that loads of families are going to really fucking struggle.

The cost of living crisis isn't just about low income though. Working class people as a group are more likely to live in locations where services will be impacted by the crisis, as well as having work colleagues in similar job and neighbours struggling. It is whole networks (class) of people struggling that has the material impact not just an individual's low income.

Class is about more than education and income, and I think it’s quite rude to dismiss someone’s upbringing and values as irrelevant just because they did well for themselves.

Not this crap again

Iiiinteresting - I thought that class was to do with level of education, type of career and lifestyle.

This is why these sorts of threads inevitably start to get people’s hackles up, when posters start up with lazy stereotypes (which invariably include “we’re middle class because we value our DC’s education” as if working class people don’t give a shit about educating their DC) and strange interpretations of “values.”

Class has become meaningless. You can’t group people into categories according to vague stereotypes about their “culture” or “background” and have it say anything meaningful. Somebody earning a six figure salary in financial services and living in a big house in Godalming has nothing in common with and little understanding of the concerns of and challenges faced by somebody working as a zero hours carer living on a council estate in Cambuslang, regardless of whether both of them had fathers who worked as bin men.

What’s wrong with Hunter wellies and Labradors? That sounds very much like a scene from my life but I’m working class too

YANBU- he comes from a working class background but is now upper middle class.