To think that good things seem to be seen as, middle class?

[QuertyGirl]

I see this a lot on here and in other places.

At the moment we have people discussing whether Park Runs and 15 minute cities are middle class.

I've seen the same around loads of other stuff, from breastfeeding to getting outdoors, gardening, museums to healthy eating.

Do we have an inherent snobbery in our culture in that we equate good, healthy stuff with being a bit posh?

I come from a very working class family and arguably live a middle class lifestyle now, so this stuff fascinates me.

Anybody else?

What do you mean by 'technically' though? I think that is more like the American definition of class, which seems to be more about income. Like when they say a 'middle class' family they just mean a family on middle income, simple and straightforward. Here in the UK it has a lot more connotations, it's also to do with your background, the way you talk, etc. Waitrose or Asda for your food shopping? Butlins or Centreparks for your holiday? There are books about it. I think we are obsessed with class in the UK, hopefully things are changing though.

You mentioned nursery workers, well Lady Diana 'Spencer was famously a nursery worker just before she married Prince Charles, she had also worked doing cleaning. Was she therefore working class?

I agree, especially with your comment about foreign food. Many of the things often said on MN I wouldn’t think it even worth a class distinction or see why it was necessary to give it one.

Not ironing or cleaning your house. Oh and dressing your kids in mis-matched jumble sale attire from places like Boden.

@Pemba i mean if you are studying class as a social science.

Applying a logic and structure to it. Not self perception. In that sense, every country has a class system.

so for example, when I was studying politics and social science, we read a study that demonstrated the ‘first vote predictor’ (if you take just one characteristic and use it to predict how people will vote)

• in the U.K. it is class - but specifically class as defined by the job you do, not your perception of your own class.

• in the US it is race

or was when I was studying 20 years ago.

Social scientists then develop more complex models to understand and predict voter behaviour to also take into account income, religion (important vote predictor in some countries, less in the U.K. though it is in some groups), education level and self class perception, and so on.

more recently markers like value of assets held and age have become more important predictors of voting behaviour in the U.K.

and yes, when working in a nursery or cleaner Diana would be classified in those models as working class. and if you think about it she was very much the exception in those roles.

Most nursery workers still are working class. But there were and still are some jobs they are perceived as suitable activities for posh young women while they wait to marry. not sure nursery worker still would be (maybe a v high end one for rich families), working / teaching in a private school, nannying, and some types of marketing and events (whcih is what K Mid did between St Andrew and proposal). Fashion - I’ve had some contact with that industry and until Very recently if you WERENT a posh and wealthy white girl you didn’t stand much chance of making a career in it. Driven by who you knew, whether you spoke well, and ability to dress fabulously on the very low wages. Posh girls can as they can draw in the family account.

But once Diana married she changed class - as a member of a family with so many assets she did not need to work, firmly upper class.

The aristocracy is interesting as there are now members of it that still
have the name and title but no longer have so many assets they don’t need to work.

So social change has meant at least some of them have travelled down to the upper or middle classes.

just as some people who’s parents were miners or worked in a shop or factory who went to university, got a well paying professional job and became middle class.

There is definitely an unhealthy fixation of the class system on here from what I have seen of late. Have a look at the parkrun thread, it's bonkers.

Being middle class doesn't mean you're any better than those who are not. People invest and spend their money on different things. Some working class people may have things that middle class people don't, and not necessarily material things.

@Catsstillrock - Diana didn't change class. She was from an enormously wealthy, titled family with a mansion on Green Park. Badly designed marketing tools might have mis-classed her because she worked in an exclusive kindergarten, but she was never ever anything lower than aristocratic from birth.

The class system in this country has got worse. At least in the 70s and 80s, working classes had more access to a fair education, or access to the arts for example.

Personally, I'd abolish school catchment areas or distance allocations. Of course we don't want children travelling far across towns to school, however, up and down the country people are buying their way into top schools by being able to afford to move closer and closer. We have schools just a mile apart and the middle classes can all afford to buy into the outstanding school, everyone else gets dumped into the failing school.

Same can be said for holidays. Some middle classes recoil in horror at the thought of a package holiday or worse, an all inclusive. However, the working classes go on holiday for a rest. The middle classes don't need the physical rest, they are happy to camp, travel across various cities and visit far flung places because they aren't exhausted.

We celebrate the wrong people in this country.

Wouldn't it be more logical to... Better the other schools?

Working class doesn’t mean poor or chavy ( for want of a better word). I’ve got working class friends who’s kids enjoy the outdoors but doing motorcross and banger racing. They’ve got tons of money and a big houses. They like take aways and home cooking but home cooking isn’t tons of olive oil and niche ingredients. They are good fun and enjoy celebrating all the Saints days including St George as well as St Patrick’s day.
I think there is an underclass who seriously worry the middle classes but proper working class people just get on with life quite happily.

@Bubblebubblebah it doesn't change who the children mix with though. Making a school better is all very well but we still isolate the kids from one another based on their background.

DP and I are both from working class backgrounds. Middle class in terms of joint income and housing location at this point in our lives. Very much live within our means a la traditional working class values.

Our hobbies are free outdoor activities, museums or places or interest. We l
Have a simple, non-materialistic but good life. Mostly buy second hand goods, everything DIY, shop around for best deals and don't care for designer clothing.

We are often deemed posh due to our housing location,hobbies (mostly free to visit or do) and our rusty old campervan.

I've never given any thought into how some people who call me posh are very quick to shout about being working class whilst seemingly doing everything possible to make themselves appear to be from a higher class...designer clothing, luxury brand new cars...stuff I'd never even dream of wasting money on...but this thread has got me thinking. Has working class and "chav" become somewhat merged as times change?

@WinterFoxes I agree with that and @Catsstillrock I'm sorry, I know that's what you've been taught but to classify 'class' in that clumsy way going by current occupation, and state that apparently LADY Diana Spencer, daughter of an Earl, 'sloane ranger' etc was working class for a while when she worked in a nursery, only to suddenly become aristocracy (well royalty) on her marriage just seems nonsensical.

It's about family history, culture, accents, speech patterns, patterns of behaviour. And it's not just 'your perception of your own class', it's how every other British person will perceive you too. I don't know what you should call the systems of classification you studied, economic status maybe? Not class though, class is far more complex than that.

Other countries have class systems too, I've heard the UK is more fixated on it than many other societies, which may have a simpler system.

Sorry, it sounds as though I'm having a go at you, I was just a bit surprised at your definitions of class in the UK, which don't tie in with what I know and have read about. Have you read 'Watching the English' by Kate Fox, for example?

God, don't you find all this endless navel-gazing about class so bloody tedious? It's all so divisive and pointless! Does it really matter?

Being perceived as middle class is only something I see on MN. Very few people I know are obsessed with being middle class. It's a bit sad, really. Just enjoy life and doing the things you like.

But it would though?

up and down the country people are buying their way into top schools by being able to afford to move closer and closer. We have schools just a mile apart and the middle classes can all afford to buy into the outstanding school, everyone else gets dumped into the failing school.

If both schools were outstanding, there would be more of a mix because no one would have to move closer to 1?

This MN obsession with class is quite bizarre.

I'm sorry but at no point was Lady Diana Spencer, the daughter of an Earl, working class. If she had never met Charles, she was still upper class.

It's how society works.

It's shit and I dislike it intently, but that won't make it go away unfortunately

I'm sorry but at no point was Lady Diana Spencer, the daughter of an Earl, working class. If she had never met Charles, she was still upper class.

Absolutely

It's how part of society works, especially on MN. Class is never discussed with my friends and family. And it is tedious.

@Bubblebubblebah but it's very obvious that parents want their children mixing with their kind of people (even if they don't admit it). School A is full of aspirational families with the money to live close to said school. There are also so many schools selling off land to 100% private housing developments which in turn builds a brand spanking new school and pushes out poorer backgrounds even further because they can't afford the new houses.

School B, will have to take on every other child in the town who cannot afford to live within 600m of School A. School B will have kids from various types of backgrounds but there will be kids who come from poor or unsupportive backgrounds. The kids in School A are sheltered away from those pupils. Of course if School B manages to achieve an outstanding ofsted (but let's be honest that's very very hard to achieve) if not all children are adequately supported at home, then over time housing will be bought up in that area amongst the more affluent and price out lower income families.

We have state funded mini private schools in effect and that could easily be stopped if catchment allocations were abolished (we are not talking about schools 50 miles from another, kids can easily travel to school A or B.

@Mercurial123

Nobody is forcing you to discuss it