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!

It could be being bright, getting a degree, getting a job..and then realising you have no clue how to behave or interact with others confidently and professionally. Knowing, not just feeling, that you're just not quite as good as everyone else, no matter how hard you work.

I'm middle class but my parents weren't. Re tumble driers, I just don't have because they seem to take so long. Also! I'd never heard of the Uses of Literacy, just looked it up, so thank you, its interesting. I've never thought of there being a distinction between popular and mass culture.

Tea tastes like soil if it doesn’t have sugar in it.

Using tumble driers as a class marker is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve read on MN. I live in one of the most MC areas in the country and literally everyone I know around here, from fellow WC-background friends to the UC (titled) neighbours use a tumble drier. My WC DM who lives on a council estate won’t have one, though she could afford one as she prefers the feel of line-dried clothes. Most of my WC friends have tumble driers nowadays although I know more than one isn’t using it as frequently bc of the rising cost of electricity- I suspect that is the same for the middle classes too.

Much of this “oh, the MC/WC do this/don’t do that” on mumsnet is absolute bollocks but saying using a tumble drier is an indication of your class is just laughable really.

Is it more of a WC thing to be questioning/ stating what class one is? I hear my WC (their opinion) friends discussing this but I don’t hear people discussing whether they are MC or not. I don’t know enough UC people to know whether they discuss their class!

Re: tumble dryers, in North America (I'm Canadian), you would never find a nicer home with clothes hanging, either outside or inside. Everything is dried by machine, or goes to the dry-cleaner. Some neighbourhoods do no allow clothing to be hung outside. We own a condo in a vacation area, and the strata stipulates no hanging clothes outside.

Of course we don't have the class system here like in UK, but there are differences in manners, hobbies and interests that tell people apart. Money isn't everything.

I don't care how working class a tumble dryer is, I'm not having mouldy damp sheets for anyone. Nor am I pretentious enough to pretend I send my laundry out.

If you're worried about showing yourself up, get a copy of Debretts modern manners and etiquette. That's the correct stuff that people are forgetting. Get a 20th C version. The rot had set in when I looked at newer books with some decidedly strange advice on how to drink a cappuccino 😂

So long as you act with courtesy and consideration, you'll be fine with normal people. Pretentious people are the ones who look strange to everyone else

Does any of it matter? How you treat other people is far more important than wasting time wondering which class they are, and judging them accordingly.

…I don’t…

…how do you dry your clothes in the winter without a tumble dryer?! Mine stink if I hang them up for days.

I know!! I’ve only read on MN that a drier is a completely superfluous item. Or that people ‘have one but only ever run it twice a year’ 😂😂yeah right!

Are you being serious?

I've never seen so much talk about class as I've seen on Mumsnet.

It's truly irrelevant to almost everyone in the entire world.

Personally I hate the notion of adding sugar to tea or coffee because the idea of swilling sugary liquid around your teeth every time you have a drink seems disgusting & it spoils the taste.

Tea can be quite sweet anyway, depending on which one you are drinking, but many have quite delicate flavours easily overwhelmed by a spoon of sugar.

Maybe she was putting cats in the tumble dryer - can’t imagine this PP means her MIL using the tumble dryer for it’s intended purpose is odd? Surely not?

As for the snobbery around coloured loo roll - there is nothing more WC and common than trying to point out things you think are common

I'm working class. I don't give a fuck if it shows, I'm not ashamed of it.

Nor should you be!

No class is better or worse than another.

Posts like this one make me oh so glad that I live in a country where class isn't a "thing". Nobody would know or care about sugar in tea,, tumble driers or what glass you use. The whole system sounds horrible , it must hold a lot of people back.

What twaddle are you talking about op? Sugar in tea, really? And I'm WC and don't own a tumble dryer! Plus I'm a graduate in a legal profession. And no one I know, including the judges and barristers i work with, have cleaners! Surely you're trolling. Of all the more serious things going on right now, you're more concerned about sugary tea and tumble dryers? 🤣

Well both of my parents were working class but then they, quite rudely, both went and got degrees and became extremely successful while bringing us up. Next thing I knew, I was using a tumble drier. It was almost uncanny.

And I'm almost 50 so this isn't a new thing!

How does one differentiate working and middle class? Is that by income or profession?

From what I understand, trade people like plumbers, builder's and electricians etc are working class even if they have a good business and earn a lot.

And middle class is office job like teachers, pharmacists, (doctors, lawyers?) basically those who have university degrees.

Is that right ?? Would love to know

Then who are high class people? Tycoons and Uber wealthy? (Royals obviously)

I'm working class and I totally get you op! Grew up in a council house in a notorious area. Now live in a beautiful detached 4 bedroom house on the other side of the world with wild parrots looking into my bedroom and I have imposter syndrome about my entire life. I actually have severe anxiety that I will lose everything because I know how bad things can be.

Middle class people tend to buy more expensive clothes that need looking after.

Tumble driers have a tendency to wreck your clothes

I've never met a middle class person who owns a tumble dryer

My top the range Miele tumble dryer (I won it in a competition) is definitely infinitely posher than I am. 😁

I’ve never met a middle class person who didn’t own a tumble dryer.

I grew up solidly working class. I worked like a dog at university and ended up in a profession where working class people were a rarity. People like me, even when we were studying, soon learnt to conceal our working class roots - changed vocabulary and speech etc and I played down my ethnic origins. I thought I might have overdone it when somebody said I looked like the sort of person who'd grown up with a pony! (I learnt to ride much later.)

I think middle-class or upper class confidence is having a safety net. There are usually parents or grandparents with room to have you and a bit of money to support you if it all goes wrong. Upper class and middle-class people are much less likely to be charged or bothered by the police too. I have seen the police behave appallingly and know communities who are fearful of them for very good non-criminal reasons and I am always a bit surprised when they are very nice to me but they see me as the white, blonde middle-class Anglo-Saxon.