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 :)

I find the only people bothered about this are those who think they are, or want to be, middle class.

I think it's a mixture of finances, culture, outlook and upbringing.

The thing that annoys me on here is how often people seem to think that enjoying museums, reading, food and music is a middle class thing. It's as if some on MN think working class people only watch reality TV, eat sausage rolls and never leave their hometown.

I feel working class and that reflects my wider family's values and culture. There was a strong culture growing up of wanting to provide more opportunities for your children than you had. Because of mine and DH's jobs and our situation as a family our DC will have a different experience to us and will probably grow up feeling more middle class.

The PP who say it's nuanced and complicated are spot on.

I think a big part of being bothered is the judgement that if you have X income and have a ‘naice’ house then you automatically must be an arsehole who only does things for appearance and put pressures and restrictions on your children.

To add to the WC plumber vs the MC lecturer. The plumber on £80K will not have sick pay or a company pension, the university lecturer on £45K will. Terms and conditions are generally much better in MC careers and the risk of an industrial accident are much lower as well

Is this a joke ? My grandad was actually Scottish and there was nothing MC or posh about him. Sounds like some weird cultural appropriation except the majority of Scotland is very WC.

This is so true! I’ve worked for mc and uc families and ime like wc there is no pressure to remove shoes in uc households. It doesn’t cross their minds but you will be told before you enter a participating mc house about their no shoes rule! My first job with aspiring mc I was rather taken aback but duly removed them 😅

Yes, it's a joke but also has truth in it (I'm Scottish). An English person who does Scottish things is posh, a Scot doing the same things is not posh. Yes, I do suspect it is cultural appropriation. And while most Scots may be WC, that is true of most countries. Scotland has a middle class and even a UC, who do you think built all the castles?

Intrigued to know if other people think 1980s library visits signify a certain class.

Also semi-regular skiing holidays.

(I’m foreign and completely, unmistakably middle class)

"my" descriptions were taken from the dictionary. Hth.

DH and I are foreign (Canada) and the whole class obsession is fascinating/hilarious to us. I've heard it said that in America every conversation is a coded conversation about race; I'm not sire if that's true but I would definitely believe that most conversations in the UK are coded conversations about class!

Canada certainly has classes but not a culture of identifying with a particular class or knowing/caring which one you are.

FWIW I'm pretty sure we are middle class here, if immigrants get a class at all

Offcom
Based on my experience the library visits could be working or middle class.

The skiing is middle class to me, unless it was done as a school trip but even then that's still a bloody expensive school trip that most people wouldn't do.

Same here!

Identity is interesting in the age where social mobility. I would consider myself middle class due to my family background- both parents were educated professionals, as were grandparents, as are we (children) Go back a couple more generations anf there was money and status. The values and outlook my parents instilled in us felt very different to most people I went to school with- I went to a comprehensive that nowadays would be considered rough.

My best friend considers herself working class due to her family background but she is a highly educated professional with a doctorate from Oxford.

I'm a teacher and don't think many of my students have a clear class identity (ex pit town so traditionally working class)

Love this 😂

I’m working class and ask people to take their shoes off because I think it’s gross not to, I had no idea some people think there’s a class divide over this!

It's an old fashioned question because there's lots of social mobility now. Class is "class" as opposed to "socio-economic position" precisely because it denotes something you inherit. It refers to a certain culture that you are raised in, which itself used to be determined by job type.

I think that traditionally middle class have office jobs and earn a bit more. Because of this, they are usually people who went to university and go to shit like national trust - but it's not like those things make them middle class, it's just that they have the money and lifestyle for it. Working class have manual jobs and earn a bit less. Upper class have very good jobs or no job at all because they've inherited wealth or live from Investments.

In Austen's era, you'd have people with old money and gentry (upper class), self made money (merchant class) and manual labour (working class). It was hard to marry across the stratas, as marriages were orchestrated carefully, especially among the upper classes. University was for the wealthy. People inherited trades. So your job and related earnings was more than a job - it was an entire lifestyle, with associated rights, expectations, cultures, conduct codes.

Of course now you don't really get that anymore, because there's nothing stopping a kid whose parents work in a supermarket from going to university and becoming wealthy, or marrying into wealth. But you still have some slighter traces of the different "class cultures" in amongst the obvious lifestyle differences that come from office vs manual labourer jobs. So now you have the weird situation where people raised working class but in office jobs, or even people whose grandparents were working class, defining themselves as such. It's true if you hold fixed the cultures. It's not true if you're looking at it in terms of jobs and lifestyle. It's a matter of what you're using the terms to mean in the context you're interested in.

For what it's worth I think the real difference now in the UK, financially, socially and culturally, isn't between working class and middle class but between the "unemployed underclass" , the securely employed (working class + middle class), and the upper class (inherited wealth, trust fund and investment families).

Exactly this… if you have to think of reasons you might be MC… your not lol

Then you’re not WC. Why the distaste at being MC?

No where, it’s not worth trying to place yourself into an old fashioned way of placing people in society.

Middle class = bourgeois, aisé, et (au moins superficiellement) cultivé.

Foreigners are outside the British class system, which is good news for you.

It's all about the accent and use of language and money.

A G&T (with a hefty slug of gin) is more likely, except maybe in summer

It is mostly the belief that your income, job and education means you are more successful/important/elite than people you judge to have lesser incomes, jobs or educations.

Im working class, my Dad was a builder mum worked in social care. Was brought up in a council house went to state school. My DH has been very successful in His career but started of doing an apprenticeship, never set in a uni. I went to uni as a mature student. Just because we are now financially comfortable does not mean you jump the class system… even taking into account my horse, labrador and country walks 😂

What about middle class uni students living on ramen noodles and beans.