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.

He is working class (and telling everyone his salary is an example of it) - he is also what you would call 'new money'.

(Um, realised I sounded horribly sexist in previous post. Only phrased it as "plumber and wife" as he's the one i talk to and is the one who has talked about their financial position and how grateful they are to be comfortable)

DP and I both working class, grew up in estates to young parents, parents had manual jobs.
we both went to university on scholarships, our joint income is £200k + - we’re still WC.
Our formative experiences, background, morals, values are all WC and rooted in our upbringing. I know what it’s like to have to choose food or heat, so I have huge sympathy for people struggling.
our money doesn’t make us MC but our kids - living in a house we own, with 2 professional parents, doing activities that cost ££, having music lessons, wanting for nothing, going on holidays abroad - they’re middle class

Both my children have very naice little middle class southern accents and when they talk to me I'm like 'who are you and how did you end up this way?!'

I definitely did not know what a brioche was when I was 4.

I still consider myself working class even though we were both able to retire in our mid fifties 20 years ago. And I had to leave school before I was 15 due to tragic family circumstances.
some people need a head wobble.
A very well known ( now dead) politician said to me once if your paid for your labours, your working class

And you said dinner lady too!
You should have said 'The school meals supervisor and her husband' really. But I won't tell anyone.😂

Having a recollection of what it was like to grow up poor doesn’t mean you have anything meaningful in common with people who are still poor as a group when you personally are now wealthy. Putting yourself into the same social category as them just attempts to obfuscate your differences; particularly since, by the definition of class which says it isn’t about income but background and values, many of the people you are volunteering to help might actually be middle class or upper class fallen in hard times.

In my experience most snobby people define class by what school you went and what job your dad has. So even if you are bankrupt living in a bedsit, if you went to the right school you will never be working class.

Wealth of course is entirely different.

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

I did too, @MolliciousIntent , but then there are many upper class people who don't go into further education and don't have much of a career - Princess Diana, for example, left school with a couple of O Levels and worked in a kindergarten - but would anyone consider an Earl's daughter working class, even before she became a princess?! 😂

I think different generations can be considered different classes, though. It's complicated and not worth over-thinking, IMHO.

This will tell you what class you are and what he is if you know enough.

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

Class is class, wealth is wealth.

No matter how much cash I'll have I will never be considered middle class, partly because of my skin colour but also my upbringing.

He’s absurd.

DH grew up on a council estate, very few in his family worked between prison sentences. Drugs and violence the norm. Not sure you could even call some of them working class tbh.

He and I both have professional qualifications, have run our own companies (I sold mine) lots of money, 4 DH in good private schools. We ski, we ride, we sail. We’re a walking MC cliche tbh.

If he pretended to be WC he’d be rightly ridiculed. Fortunately he would never pull that sort of cringey shit.

He's MC you are WC and the kids are MC

YANBU.

Class is very strange in the UK. It's a mix of family background, profession, education, and income.

But, no, a surgeon with a £1.2 million house is not working class. Certainly not anymore. Whether his parents were binmen/binwomen/non binaries is not really the point.

I’m working class, and you can find me outside a pub with a fag in my hand. Or equally as likely walking the dog in a pair of hunters or joules wellies .

He is - I am - I've done well, I went to Uni (practical subject choice, as WC, so chose so I knew I could get a job after)

I have massive gaps in my cultural knowledge, and very different expectations because of my upbringing.

I'm always at a slight disadvantage because of that. And whilst (and I know this will sound trivial) now, shielded by money, I'm happy to walk into an expensive hotel lobby and ask for things, or stride up to the business class check-in desk, it took a while to get there, and I don't have the comfort with it that the MC/UC people I know do, and my parents definitely don't.

It takes a generation or two to move classes, it's not just money.

I’m working class living what would be considered a middle class life now, but this is very recent since marrying DH. My DH is middle class and my DCs will be middle class. I will always consider myself working class regardless of our family income.

I agree not all working class families will struggle, I think what you should have said is low income families will struggle. Most of my family are very much working class, they know how to cope in a crisis and know how to do without, something a lot of middle class people won’t be use to. And, although they may not earn as much as others, there jobs will more than likely be secure due to the nature of their jobs.

Ive got a degree, am a self employed artist, but definitely working class. Dad worked in a factory on the production line mum did part the work- she cleaned, dinner lady, shop assistent. They both left school at 14. They owned the house we lived in, they didn't rent. Dad was also an artist, submitting to the RA open exhibition every year. Class and wealth and achievement are not all tied together.

my DCs will be middle class

Your DC will most likely be perceived by others as working class

I agree, @SunThroughTheCloudsAt6am . UC people have a confidence that most other people don't, simply because they've always known that they were at the top of the social scale - essentially, they assume they'll be well-treated!

It takes a few generations to develop that.

Sounds like you DH is WC but lives a MC lifestyle. Doesn't make him MC

Weird world where people can self-identify as non-binary or a cat or whatever, but your “class” (and thereby “place in society”) is ingrained from birth. As a non-British born person living in the U.K. I find this thread depressing.

I'm think he's correct (but sounds like a knob).

In the UK, class has traditionally been cultural: your education, profession, whether you or you family own land, even things like interests and accent (I'd guess this is because we have had an active aristocracy far more recently than most other Western countries).

Up until about the mid 20th century, everybody knew which class they belonged to, and it was impossible to move from one to the other. This started to change when the power of the aristocracy began to decline and working-class people started doing things like going to university.

E.g. prior to about the 1950s a surgeon like Dr Dick would have been upper-middle or upper class, because the only way to become a surgeon was to be a privately educated white man (who had probably been to Oxbridge). It wasn't being a surgeon that made him UMC/UC, but that the route to becoming one was only open to the upper classes. Nowadays, you can become a surgeon after growing up on a council estate, so the class markers become a lot more blurred.

Yes, it’s lower income families who are going to struggle.
Whatever some people like to think, class has sod all to do with money. I dare say many lesser-earning MC families will be struggling this winter, and it’s long been the case that you can be UC with barely a pot to piss in. OK, not common, but there also used to be charities for the aid of ‘distressed gentlefolk’, perhaps especially for ‘distressed gentlewomen’.

I forgot to add, most working class people will take any job to pay the bills, even if it’s a job they hate. I don’t personally know any middle class person who would do this, most would look at a lot of jobs beneath them.