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!

I’d say you’re all working class because you’re all working

Exactly!

We all have different tastes and lifestyles, but let's not 'classify' us according to some archaic concept.

I embrace my working class roots : my dad worked hard , but they didn't have the privileges afforded to many and we were not that wealthy.
We were brought up with morals and values and taught to be polite and well mannered..
This is also important too. I judge people on how they treat waiters or cleaners or those that actually do the work

Snap. Except I've gone back to farming. Such a good point about the overdraft. We used to go to the bank manager's house for dinner. We always had apple pie and cream.
I think this is an English thing.

Correct and NOT for volume

It’s not the same people ime.

Yeah, we'll have to tell the Indians, Arabs and Brazilians they're drinking the drinks they invented incorrectly.

I have a distant family member who dries everything over and around the Aga. It makes everything smell like gravy.

I'm currently on a package holiday. I think I'm probably the only middle class person here. The working class are obviously very different. It's odd. I feel ostensibly different and I don't know why! I'm not rich but I guess my work defines me as middle class.

I know its fab
Plus the smell of burning hair as you dry your hair over the AGA, no hairdyer here.

Plus we one nursed a new born lamb in the plate warmer

I have one scant tsp of sugar in my one coffee per day. But would spit out tea that has sugar in. My best friend with all the same myriad MC credentials as me has one tsp of sugar in tea but none in coffee. Go figure!! (as she would say, she is American so that's ok).

I don't think going on package holidays is a MC activity.

My coffee is as follows:
2 or 3 heaped tsps of Gold Blend
2 tsps of sugar
full fat milk preferably Jersey milk
Can't stand filter coffee except in France
Is that alright with the lot of you?

I'm working class. Grew up in the care system. I'm doing a master's degree atm and tbh I will always consider myself working class no matter what my profession or education is. It's about a lot more than that imo. I will never suddenly start caring about things like using the 'right' glasses etc either 😅😂

I don't think going on package holidays is a MC activity.

I didn't get that memo. It was just something that was super easy to book with young kids.

I don't think going on package holidays is a MC activity

Depends where you’re going l would think.

Tuscany and Benidorm are very different.

And how much you pay. Ikos, Mark Warner etc are frightfully MC.

The most misplaced MC item I've ever seen was an aga in a third floor council flat. In a 1980s financial crisis, the family's home had been repossessed but she'd refused to part with the aga and there it sat. It must have weighed a ton, I feared it would go through the floor. It was an old block of flats, 1930s?, and had an unusually large kitchen. Most tenants had a sofa in theirs.

TheLassWiADelicateAir · 24/10/2022 00:36
What do all the posters claiming to be "working class" mean by that?
For example how can anyone seriously claim to be "working class" and a teacher?
I'm middle class- family was middle class, farming background. I'm in a different profession, still middle class. Husband's family was urban working class, he's middle class now.
His family weren't hard up - whereas mine probably regularly lived on overdraft and spent money we didn't have. I suppose the difference was his family would have had no access to an overdraft and it was normal for a farmer to have overdraft facilities.
Snap. Except I've gone back to farming. Such a good point about the overdraft. We used to go to the bank manager's house for dinner. We always had apple pie and cream.
I think this is an English thing.

Another farmer's daughter here. I posted a little earlier about the way we lived, but despite all that, we owned the farm and were reasonably 'well off' on paper.

I think there was a system of social stratification in rural villages, which was a reflection of the past. The 'upper class' were the people who lived in the hall. They were usually minor members of the aristocracy, who owned quite a large estate, which was farmed by tenant farmers. The 'middle class' were the farmers who owned their own farms. The tenant farmers were upper working class, and the farm workers were working class.

When I was a child, this system was still solidly in place, but it became confused as the village became a desirable commuter settlement for people who worked in the local city. Then the split became more like the 'villagers' and the 'newcomers'.

The old system was based on property/land ownership and paternal occupation. Education, did not really play a part in it. My father left school at 14 to work on the farm, during the Great Depression, my mother left school before taking her exams to work on the farm during the war. My grandfathers left school at 13.

I am sure there are other communities, where ideas about social stratification are based on more than how many sugars people take in their tea, whether they have a tumble dryer or even what type of education they have.

@Melonapplepear

Same. It is possible to be highly educated but very much WC.

Just about to finish my Research Masters at Warwick Uni but I’ve just came back from a weekend in Blackpool 😂. What an actual fuck up I am lmao 🤣.

😂😂 that's cool I'm in my final year of a master's in social research methods.

I don't think people are so easily pigeonholed these days, and there are various new ways of classifying groups of people.

My Dad was definitely London working class made good due to a fully funded elite education (he was bright), my Mum was the daughter of immigrants who came over here with no money and set up a multinational company.

I took the BBC social grouping thing a couple of years ago and randomly came out as the top group for various reasons.

My sister came out as being part of a separate high rated tech grouping as she's very involved in all that.

For the record, we both use tumble dryers, I've never ever heard of that being a thing 😂but then maybe it's our working class roots!

This is the BBC social grouping study if anyone's interested www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34766169

The oddest thing is people saying they are upper or lower (any) class! Are the uppers trying to say they’re different as they have an aga (thats just middle), are the lowers saying they like ketchup (that’s just preference). It’s always the outliers trying to be something else/more. For ‘middles’ for example. Yes you might want to be upper class (you’re not), and you might want to think you’re working class (you’re not). And you say all those things in reverse. Class doesn’t equal money, you can live in a mansion, castle, bungalow. You can have all the income, no income, living on credit or inheritance. All ‘classes’ can live be in those positions.

😆

@TheLassWiADelicateAir You have reminded me that my father (a family farm owner) used to say that he always new when his finances were looking bad as the bank manager would invite him for dinner. When he had a good harvest, he wouldn't get an invite!

You are not being unreasonable but maybe overthinking things. I have an opposite experience I am from a very poor w.c. background and most people think/assume I am middle class or even posh. I had imposter syndrome when I went to Uni and met really rich people for the first time. I must have been the only person whose standard of living went up when I moved into shared student housing- a phone! a fridge! central heating! I realised after a while that personal relationships span class race and colour etc. People are people. I accept everyone as my equal and I am equal to everyone. life is better that way. P.S I worked in an Arts provision on a council estate and the teens we worked with declared that we were all communists because we didn't take sugar in our tea!😀