To think working class shows?

[MrsBonnie]

I work in a lovely school where they’ve all had very different upbringings to me. Very much working class here. Sometimes I think it shows with little things I’ve noticed.

Having sugar in tea, using a tumble drier, not having a cleaner, using the wrong glasses for different drinks (I.E using the same one for everything!)… what else am I missing that excludes me from the club 😂 sometimes I will mention something like the above and get “oh I never use a tumble drier” … then I just think oops have I said something weird there?

Sometimes I think they’re judging me with things I say and do but I hope not! I grew up being homeless at a certain point, council houses, single teen (but amazing) mum, a very specific type of circle. I feel like Mum did everything she could to get us out of that way of life, but I can’t help but feel I don’t belong sometimes. Or that I stick out like a sore thumb. Am I being daft? Imposter syndrome a little bit!

You probably do stick out a bit if you’re making random comments in the staff room about the class divide being evident in tumble driers, sugar in tea and not having a cleaner 🙄

I remember as a young teen being invited to stay at my friend’s house for ‘supper’ - we never used that word, it was alway tea or dinner. I had to phone home to ask and was so self-conscious saying it (my friend’s family were listening in) to my mum who just laughed!

I had no idea tumble dryers were working class. But I have one in my utility room in my very middle class home. Does that reflect I'm a lawyer who is the child of a HGV driver and SAHM? 😂

With all due respect if you work in a school you are working class and that applies to everyone there. You work for a living, you are not well off.
Maybe , way, way back when only the middle or upper classes could afford to go to university could teachers be considered middle class. Nowadays I disagree.
Anyway I don’t have a tumble dryer now but I have owned one in the past. I’m the same person and I’ve not suddenly lost a million quid or anything. As for sugar in tea, well what on earth does that signify? 🧐.
Does strength of tea matter?
How about the strength of coffee?

I must confess that when I met my wc DH I found his mothers use of the tumble drier one of the oddest thing- plus coloured loo roll.

One is upper class and, whilst one’s staff do use a tumble drier, crucially, it’s gold plated.

Are you for real? 😳

One of the 'oddest things'? I can't believe the crazy stuff people write here.

How is using a tumble drier odd or a class signifier?

Stop thinking about it is the main thing. 100 to 1 none of them give a fig about your or their own backgrounds.

I'm middle class. I like sugar in tea & i have and use a tumble drier.

Who cares, honestly?

You like them (or not) for how nice they are as people, and vice versa. Not what class anyone is.

Why did you find it ‘odd’?

I use a tumble drier all through winter. Not in summer, because I line dry everything then.

I’m middle class through and through?

What’s the point of a tumble drier?

What do you find odd about it?

Not if you can't afford one/don't have the space/landlord won't provide one.

We couldn't afford a tumble drier when I was growing up. Does that mean we were some sub-standard version of working class? We did have sugar in tea though and didn't have a cleaner so am I still common? 😂

Honestly OP, what a load of twaddle. Just because people do things differently doesn't mean it's all related to the class system. I really hope you're not teaching the poor kids in that school.

Lol, this reminds me of a recent thread about what count as working or middle class jobs, and lots of posters were insisting that teachers and nurses are working class rather than middle class jobs.

Feel like this thread is about to take the same turn. A teacher is a middle class profession.

As for this comment: "You work for a living, you are not well off."

...OP didn't say that she was well off, but she is probably comfortable. Teaching can pay well, headteachers are on 100k plus. And anyway, there's more to class than money. Lots of working class jobs pay more than some middle class jobs, like teachers.

MC is about family history not going to university

Not about*

I’m very working class. Grew up in a neglectful home too, which is more where my own anxiety stems from.

I know exactly how you feel, it’s like you’re somehow marked and people can see. I look quite promising these days, people would consider us “rich” in some circles and my children will never know the hardships I did. I still baulk when I have to say certain words but it’s all about accepting all the different parts of yourself.

Own it. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. No one cares if you’re using a tumble dryer.

I really don't want to turn this into a tumble drier debate...but....I just can't help myself, how is a clothes horse with damp clothes on it more middle class than a tumble drier? Or is it that super middle class people just use the dry cleaner in winter?

My Eastern European parents refused to use a tumble dryer although one came with our house (some exceptions were made for emergencies). They had some weird ideological objection to it that I still don't entirely understand but assumed was linked to the residual communist mentality...

Some of you have misread the post… I’m the one who doesn’t care about these things! But as some of you have pointed out, maybe they don’t either. And obviously I’m not bringing it up randomly, it’s when it naturally comes into conversation @LadybirdsAreNeverHappy

I remember it started when I was at uni and they shared statistics about how unlikely it was a child from my “social background” would ever get to university. The idea was that we as teachers could help that, but I remember being sat in that lecture hall feeling like I was the odd one out. Overthinking then and probably overthinking now!

Perhaps ask yourself why you care? I'm a working class woman, mum worked in wool mills, dad down the pit

Those two things don't define me, they are part of my history though. A part i m really proud of.

if you looked at my adult daughter, you'd "cla ss" her as middle class. But, so what? She's also proud of her grandparents, and hopes they'd be proud of her.

We were chatting today, and I said (she agreed) we were lucky to inherit our political believes from the two of them. We both have inherited a moral compass from them, that is difficult to throw off course

MNs obsession with class is astounding.

Are you Hyacinth Bouquet?

Never realised it was a class signifier and find it hilarious that my immigrant parents somehow unknowingly displayed British middle class behaviour!

You do care, or you’d not have started the thread or even considered a list of things that mark you as different to anyone else.

I’d suggest looking at your similarities to other people instead of differences as a way to change your mindset.