What makes you middle class?

[Singlemum90]

So a comment from my mother a few years ago has stuck with me ever since then really. When I was no longer a single mum, and found myself a little less skint, she said 'oh it's so good now you're just a nice middle class mum, I'm so proud of you'

Aside from her clearly looking down at me before this, and deciding class was what defined how she felt about me- I have often wondered what made her decide I was middle class at this point.

How do you define it? (I feel it's very subjective) Is it what family you are born into? Your income?(And what income makes the 'classes'? Is it a specific job type? The way you stick your finger out when you drink tea?
Or is it just a shitty way to divide people and how they feel about themselves?

That doesn't really make much sense. My DH is very culturally minded, travels a lot, knows lots about history/culture, reads books constantly, writes, and is also a big football fan 🤷🏼‍♀️

That’s an interesting angle. But if I may say, a very white one. It’s sad to say, but that belief doesn’t just come from class privilege.

I think class is much more fluid these days but when I was at Grammar School in the 1960s it was clearer. Those of us from working class families lived in council houses and very few families had a car or a foreign holiday. We played in the street until dusk. The mid-day meal was dinner and the evening meal was tea. Older relatives (including my granny) were often still in rented terraced houses with outside toilets, no hot water and a tin bath hanging on a nail in the back yard. Our fathers did manual work and our mothers worked part-time as cleaners or shop assistants. Most of us didn't have dining rooms, we ate at the kitchen table.

The middle class girls lived in privately owned semis or detached houses with a drive. They all had family cars and some of the mums had their own car. They had telephones, holidays in hotels (sometimes abroad) and went to the theatre and concerts. The girls had piano / flute / violin lessons and learned ballet. The mid-day meal was lunch and the evening meal was dinner. Their parents had a drinks cabinet with crystal glasses, held dinner parties and employed cleaners. Their fathers worked in offices, some were professionals eg doctors, dentists, teachers. Most of their mothers didn't work but some did volunteering or supported the family business. They had pianos, bookcases, desks and a dining room with a parquet floor and French doors to the garden.

There weren't any upper class girls at the Grammar School to my knowledge. They probably went to private school as did the more affluent middle class girls.

I became a professional, married a professional and my own children had a comfortable, middle class upbringing in a large house.

Definitely. Good point.

Yes but howwwww 😆

Unless it’s a really obvious BBC accent then would have no idea

I think people miss the point about cultural capital. They interpret it as an allegation that working class people cannot be “cultured”, and they refer to a builder who likes Mozart. I don’t think this is what it means. It refers (I think) to the kinds of dominant habits, hobbies and cultural pursuits among particular classes, such that even the least interested person from that background would have some knowledge or competence.

A working class person who knows about theatre does so because he takes an active interest in it. A working class person with no such interest will have zero knowledge. But all middle class people will have at least some knowledge, to varying degrees, because the environment they grew up in was replete with such pursuits going on around them. Ditto piano playing etc.

Likewise, I know working class people who don’t like football but can still tell you who the title-winning squad from twenty years ago. Middle class people can like football but it’s not in their cultural DNA. They would not have grown up with their dad talking about it, and any interest in it has to be systematically discovered rather than absorbed osmosis-like as it is with the working class.

The bbc had a quiz on class a while ago. It looked at your job, your interests and the jobs your friends had.
There were subsections of working, middle and upper class.
I agree it is not about money as such but sadly wealth often gives better education and opportunities and so can lead to social standing.
However the richest person I know considers themself upper class but is actually rougher than a badgers arse.

It can be subtle - but, like with any group, you know who is in your tribe and who isn’t, and who is trying too hard to behave as if they are. Behavioural codes are powerful.

Sometimes this process of uncovering who you are can be more obvious. One of things I notice about middle class people for example is that conversation with them can resemble an interview. I’ve been asked outright about what I own. It’s presented as friendly curiosity but it’s a person attempting to rank you in the social hierarchy and to understand whether you will be of any future value to them in some way.

No it wouldn’t. If it was truly paid, my salary would be 48k plus £220.26x22, so £58.5k. Our salaries are already pro rata’d down to account for the fact that we are not paid for most of our summer holiday. It becomes really obvious after you have a baby and you see what proportion of your holidays you get paid for upon your return and what proportion you must take as time off, because it’s already unpaid (although your salary is calculated to recognise this)

I do 🙋

Honestly I’ve no idea, I expect it was because she liked Rod Stewart. 😬

Middle Class is when you're broke because you spent all your money on your mortgage abd music and swimming lessons for your kids. Everyone else is just broke. Nothing to be ashamed of, though. Your mum was being weird.

Wow, well this blew up!

Thanks everyone for your input 😀 I was curious as to what the consensus would be, but I don't think there is one.😂 Some of the responses have given me a giggle though.

By the huge variation in responses, I can honestly say I have no idea what 'class' I am.

I came from working professional family. 2 x degree educated parents. But my grandparents were factory workers/cleaners etc. So my parents grew up in council houses themselves. Their parents (my grandparents) pushed for a good education. By some peoples definitions my parents remained working class due to what they were born into- by others, their income, education, tastes, home etc would have made them middle class. Very interesting!!

My husband earns 6 figures, enjoys skiing and bought a nice detached house for us. He dislikes watching football 😂 but came from a non professional background. His mum worked part time retail, dad plumber.

BBC calculation has us as 'elite' which we both think is very funny, yet others definition would suggest my husband is working class as he came from generations of working class. And are we different classes even though we are married?

What started as a Monday night musing had given some really interesting perspectives. So thank you all for that 😀

Didn’t Carole Middleton grow up in a council house?

Surely as Mother to the future Queen, she cannot be considered working class

What education do any of them have? Your posts are full of contradictions. None of them have anything above a high school education, so why are you citing education level? Economically, they are not 'upper middle' they are far higher than that. Culturally, they are in the gutter.

No, that is upper upper/gentry. Nothing 'middle' about it. I went to a private day school and I know people who are as you describe, but I would not say that I am part of that set.

Their father is a lawyer and highly educated. Kourtney has an arts degree; arguably the most middle class of all degrees. Rob has a degree too. Caitlin Jenner has a degree.

Again, just because you don’t like someone’s style doesn’t mean they are not middle class. Morals don’t come into class either.

Are Rob and Kourtney who you think about when you think about the Kardashians? Their father was (not is, he died years ago!) a lawyer, yes. That doesn't mean that his family are well educated. They are not. I said nothing about morals, I said culture. You seem weirdly preoccupied with both defending them and knocking me, I can only assume because I have given you an insight into how a certain class of person thinks and you don't like it.

I generally think if people went to university before the 90s they were middle class, on the whole access to uni wasn't available to working class women especially. Even my mum that did nurse training was too working class for the sister's liking. I grew up working class, I have a middle class life now but can never quite fit in with the levels of anxiety and hand wringing of middle class mums. My ability to talk about catchment areas or virtue signalling that my child doesn't have a mobile phone is limited. As for culture, it's a myth that middle class people are more cultured and more obvious when you're a cultured working class person

@Yazo "I generally think if people went to university before the 90s they were middle class, on the whole access to uni wasn't available to working class women especially. "

Well I'm not sure about the access bit...
In the 1970s when I was a student, it certainly wasn't the norm for working class women by any means and we weren't brought up with that aspiration. We were definitely outnumbered in higher higher education by middle and upper class students. We did have access though via free tuition, free accommodation on campus and up to a full grant for living costs (means tested). We worked in shops and factories in the holidays to supplement our income.

@SoupChicken

Your mother was my mother.

In addition, I was not allowed to go to any soft play type places nor clothing with my favourite characters on as she considered them common.

Its a simple twostep approach. Step one- tell people you are, based on whatever criteria best fits you, be that income, background, education, lifestyle, or the conveniently nebulous 'values'. Step two (and this is important) - tell other people they're not, because they don't meet whatever criteria you've selected.

I actually think they will be because they have been brought up by working class parents in a working class way, just with money.

This is different from two people who grew up working class but then education, job lifestyle means the children lead a middle class life.

I was brought up being told everything I did was uncouth..
I had a confortable seventies upbringing , parents owned a nice house , car , Father was a government scientist , My mother was a SAHM who spent all her time gossiping on the phone like Sybil from Faulty Towers .
I had to write thank you letters to relatives that sent me money for Christmas/birthdays but was told to say Thank you for the present .. because saying the word money .. was also uncouth 🤨
I did have a middle class upbringing, it was also strict and devoid of affection sadly .

Yeah, I get that. My thoughts were more about the fact all his kids go/went to a really prestige private school and they will probably be exposed to more opportunities than their parents were. However, if we are talking about values etc, I agree they will likely be brought up in a working class way.

By the way, I’m not a Wayne Rooney expert. I know that one thing about his family lol. I couldn’t comment in-depth about his upbringing.