To ask what makes you middle class?

[Wantobeareader]

I am not from the UK so not very familiar with these class definitions (which personally I cannot stand) but I am curious to understand what people mean with MC. I thought it was a term referred to the fairly wealthy but apparently lots of people and incomes seem to fall into that categories.
So, how would you define Middle Class? Feel free to type a description of a typical MC person you can think of :)

My experience in baby groups, bear in mind HUGE generalisations, is that:

Middle class women:

• Breastfeed (or are stubbornly determined to breastfeed at all costs even at the expense of their own mental health & sanity). Judgy if you don't breastfeed
• Buy their baby clothes either new from Scandi-esque brands like Frugi, Picalilly, Maxomorra, OR everything is secondhand/thrifted
• Their babies are called names like Theo, Harrison, Olivia and Ottilie. They are sometimes strangely offended if someone else calls their baby the same name, because obviously their baby name choice was just SO ORIGINAL it's absolutely ludicrous anyone else would have the same brilliant idea as them. "There were TWO OTHER babies named Ottilie the night I had my DD! Can you imagine?!" (Actual conversation I've had!)
• Spend the equivalent to a second mortagage on Waterbabies

Working class women:

• Bottle feed, and never really considered breastfeeding as an option OR breastfeed/mixed feed but without punishing themselves if it didn't work/they moved on from it. Don't really give a toss how you feed your baby so long as you and baby are happy!
• Buy their baby clothes new, from brands like Zara, River Island, H&M
• Their babies are called names like Jenson, Evie-May, Something-Rose or use "nicknames" instead of full names especially for boys (Alfie, Albie etc)
• Seem to REALLY REALLY like Blade and Rose leggings

Fwiw I'm also a foreigner so don't particularly identify with any class! Although I do like Blade and Rose leggings so maybe I'm WC 🫠

MC always seem to have dogs that are either poodle mixes or retrievers!

It's a load of pretentious bullshit really.Only on mumsnet do you get people falling over themselves to prove their middle class credentials.
Meanwhile, in the real world, nobody gives a flying fuck.

You mean to pretend they're working class when they're not...

Yes, I think it's much more this way round. Both on Mumsnet, and in rl. I've known so many people boasting (which is weird, as it's neither a good or a bad thing) about being working class, when minimal scrutiny proves otherwise. I'd love to know why they do it?!

Thank you for this. It prompted me to look up the current list, as it's over 20 years since I got my first passport, and subsequent versions don't need to be counter-signed.
The list seems much longer and more exhaustive than I remember it. I'd still say it's a middle-class list! Some odd ones, such as professional photographer. You're right that the list is much longer than I thought. But, I do respectfully disagree that it's due to traceability, as some on the list are potentially freelancers. So, I do think classism is a possible explanation. I tried to research this and read that it's because the person signing must be considered an upstanding member of the community - I rest my case.

It's funny how people buy into certain elements of social climbing on the one hand and then discredit themselves by claiming to be working class the next.
As for research into classifying people is that a useful endeavour?
No.

Not sure that's true - maybe in an urban setting? Where I am, black labs are more the thing.

@Lampslights

Yes they working class, their kids are the children of working class parents. Their own class won’t be decided until adults.

It's just not that simple anymore. It used to be simple because people didn't do what the ppl you describe did. But today people have the luxury of choosing whether to go into the same field as their parents or to do what they want. People today have more freedom to partner with who they want. Finances are not set. Some people with working class jobs earn millions and live in a mansion. Some people with MC jobs struggle and live in a modest semi somewhere not so nice.

The old class system of MC, WC doesn't hold anymore which is why there are attempts to create new categories.

Today MC people like Charlotte Tilbury and Lisa Eldridge chose to become makeup artists starting as lowly assistants and working in retail shops but built up empires and are very wealthy.

Chefs like Gordon Ramsey started out WC but built an empire.

Bernie Ecclestone... we all know who he is. Started out very WC. Billionaire. Still WC in manner but loaded.

Trades and jobs that were once WC have attracted MC people. WC people have gone on to university and work in the city.

It's not some straightforward thing anymore

That person was probably talking about retriever breeds in general. Labradors, goldens, flat coats etc.

If your parents are MC, you are.

Otherwise, you’re WC. Doesn’t matter if you went to uni, drive a Volvo XC60, own an Aga or only go on Scott Dunn bespoke holidays, you are firmly WC

You can’t change class just because you want to, just as you can’t change sex, etc.

Lol at the idea that being French makes you MC!

I think that just shows how much of it is tied to culture and what we do in our free time, as France and particularly Paris are sometimes held up as examples of arty and cultural places. I wonder if it's to do with that and somebody exoticising the idea of being French.

Could also be the fact that (if you have moved to the UK) you have had the means to move to another country. Travel is an element of it too.

I respectfully disagree utterly! That's what social mobility is. It's totally different from something like biological sex. Going to uni and entering a profession such as medicine or law absolutely makes you middle class, regardless of origins. It's not a static thing.

As we can see from this thread, the concepts of working class/ middle class are not exactly well defined.

I think it's come to a point where it is just about how people self-identify.

Having said that, I am often surprised that university educated people on high incomes, with professional jobs, who holiday abroad twice a year, own property, send their kids to fancy nurseries/ private schools, go to the theatre and expensive art exhibitions on the weekend, make their own kombucha, identify themselves as working class.

To me, that's about as far from working class as you can get without being royalty, and I would see those people as firmly middle class.

To me, working class is the area where I grew up, where people work largely in unskilled/ manual jobs like factories, on the railways, in a small local shop etc.

I think that you can absolutely move between working class/ middle class as you go through life and social mobility is a thing.

But I can see that's not how everyone sees it - so I think the system and classification is all a bit muddy really!

It's not being French, it's being French but mobile and moving to the UK.

I would say it’s about parents/grandparents. My parents and grandparents all had ‘professional’ jobs, owned homes and went to university therefore I’m MC. I have a lot of friends who tick a lot of the boxes for MC but would insist they are working class because that’s what their parents/grandparents were perceived to be…

My now-retired ex-manager (staunchly and very vocally working-class and proud of it, father was a coal miner, Welsh) thought that I (no degree, pretty intelligent, worked my way up to a senior position in the Company, brought up in Home Counties so natural accent close to RP) was upper-class!
IMO it’s people who carry an enormous chip on their shoulder about their roots that put “others” into boxes.
I don’t. I have great friends from all walks of life and rarely stop to consider class at all…

Do you not understand what social mobility is?
Of course you can change class. Once upon a time u would have agreed with you because people didn't marry outside their class and MC jobs were not available to WC people. But that all changed with universities becoming more open and people being encouraged to attend. Once upon a time a person born into the WC could not have become a doctor or a lawyer. Good thing they can now

Company directors are on the list. That will cover plumbers, builders, electricians, hairdressers etc.

You can choose to view it as classist but I think that said more about you than the actual list

The one and only thing it says about me is that I dislike inequality surely? I'm sure you do too, and most people do. But, it has to be acknowledged that Britain is a very class aware (at best) to very classist (at worst) society. For middle-class professionals to not acknowledge that they have a great deal of cultural capital prevents that inequality being properly addressed. Going back to the passport signature list, tbh I only mentioned that as an arbitrary example. I could have cited other examples. Without doubt professionals such as doctors and lawyers (who are middle class regardless of upbringings) have huge cultural clout. For them to identify as working class is very unfair on genuinely working class people.

So you think no one with an accent is middle class? I live in the North East and know families that are, and have been middle class for generations. Doctors,lawyers,politicians,CEOs all with accents.

This. Everyone in my family/friends circle was MC when I was growing up, and shoes-off was unheard of.
And I’d just add, in case anyone’s wondering, my DM with 4 dcs never had a cleaner until she was widowed and in her mid 70s.

That depends what you mean by "being" middle class. If it's a question of your self-image, then sure, you're working class. But someone else might look at you and define you in their own terms as being MC.

Statisticians (and marketing people) probably wouldn't use the term 'middle class' at all, but something like 'Social Grade': A, B, C1, C2, D or E. These are based on your occupation (or that of the household's main income earner). The first two and last two are lumped together for the census, so in 2021 there were:

• AB: higher and intermediate managerial, administrative and professional occupations (23.3%, 10.9 million people)
• C1: supervisory, clerical, and junior managerial, administrative and professional occupations (32.8%, 15.3 million people)
• C2: skilled manual occupations (21.3%, 10.0 million people)
• DE: semi-skilled and unskilled manual occupations, unemployed and lowest grade occupations (22.6%, 10.6 million people)

Class is more complicated that just your job, of course. You could be a titled aristocrat who works as an electrician when not sitting on the board of an arts organisation, in which case placing you in Social Grade C2 doesn't really tell the whole story. And these categories are only somewhat correlated with income.

If a plumber sets up a limited company to manage his solo business, then takes on a labourer, and an apprentice, and employs a part time administrator to manage payments and keep accounts, and eventually ends up as millionaire owner/CEO of something like Pimlico Plumbers, then when exactly do they stop being counted as a C2 skilled manual occupation and become AB?

Really there is no single answer to the question of what 'middle class' means. It means you're somewhere between 'working class' and 'upper class'. Given that fewer and fewer people in the UK are in low- and unskilled manual occupations and a vanishingly small proportion have ever been really upper class, I'd say a large majority of people could be considered MC, even if that doesn't fit with their self image.

Uff. Class system in the UK is very tricky to get your head around if you are not from here. Basically it has little to do with actual income, education level or career and more to do with accent, cultural preferences and parents social class. It’s bullshit and the biggest thing that holds people back.

I think traditionally, working class = low-paid unskilled/manual jobs, from a family/community who are similar, minimal education/qualifications. Middle class = professional job/career, well educated, socially connected with others who are similar. It’s a bit more complicated these days though as some very well educated people work in low-paid jobs, and some people from ‘working class’ backgrounds become rich and successful in their career/business. Also for some reason many people think working class is ‘cool’ and middle class is ‘boring/smug’, so you have ‘middle class’ people pretending to be working class. The boundaries/definitions are very loose these days, which is probably a good thing.