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?

I agree

Agree with is too.

Is it lounge or sitting room.?

Is it how you pronunce 'garage'?

Is it 'serviette or napkin? Or a piece if kitchen roll?

I wonder if you have ever visited any home that isn’t occupied by Anglo Saxons?

Or is it actually, that you don't worry about it?
To be warm and get warmth/nurture from others is to be happy., For me anyway.

I agree with you, actually!

BigFluffyHoodie
If you insist that people take their shoes off in your home, you're lower middle class.

I also agree. But also kinda disagree.

People who do this are just twats. And you get twats across all walks of life and all classes.

Performative home presentation and performative germ phobias are epidemic and make me want to scream.

People who 'ick' at raw meat, shoes indoors, 'other people's' dirt, soil, wildlife, insects, life in fucking general! Aargh!! They are knobs. And their houses are never actually hygienic! They have no actual knowledge of or interest in food or hand hygiene.

It's all just pretend 'I'm far too pretty to touch dat scary fing' batshit, attention seeking kidults!!

And breathe...

My mothers definition of middle class was 'knowing the difference between an aubergine and a courgette'.

I'd say it's more not knowing the difference between a spanner and a wrench. (Unless you're American.)

Has anyone mentioned horses yet?

@Superlambaanana Thank you so much for that. Sums up my thoughts about the immune-system-deniers and compulsive cleaners perfectly.

Absolutely.

I think I’m a mix of working and middle class, a foot in both camps. As I’ve got older I’ve probably gone more into the middle class camp, but find middle class people far more accepting of my hybrid lifestyle than working class people. Inverted snobbery is rife, particularly amongst women

@TheGreenManalishiWithTheTwoProngedCrown don't you notice the compulsive cleaners only ever clean and tidy what's on show? Their cupboards and drawers are usually revolting.

Houses which are pristinely spick and span in an overly house-proud way definitely belong to the working and lower middle classes.

I'm mc and I don't believe that, because experience has taught me otherwise. My wc father was all for all of them.

Or European and clean

Unless it's because you own a £6000 handmade rug...

how you do your make up

Can't you hoover a £6k rug?

Placing a value on academic education

Of course its not quite as simple as this but: working in a job where the value is based on brain based skills (analytical, knowledge based, problem solving, people managing etc), rather than physical skills or those learned through manual hands on practice.

Being raised to have an emphasis on long term decision making over short term/impulse driven choices

Avoiding overt wealth display

Individualism over community

Not really worrying about what people think of you/your choices

I think it's education and mindset with some upbringing throw in.

When I was young, my friends said I wasn't working class as I had a 'posh' mum! She's from Devon and I'm from a rough northern town; if you go to university and have a decent job round here you are middle class.
I'd say in the general population of the country I'm educated working class.

I was born and raised working class, and probably still am as both my husband and I are on quite a low salary compared to average. However. We now have a monthly window cleaner and since this has happened I feel middle class as fuck 😎

Yes [though it needs a regular professional clean too], but street dirt is more than dust. If everyone picked up after their dog...but they don't.

It's beautiful, represents two craftswomen's labour for 6 months, and I want it to last.

The complexity of it is also compounded by the British attitude towards it. Everybody belongs to a class. Everybody can work out exactly where you are in the class system within about five seconds of meeting. Even people who painfully try to adopt the affectations of the middle class are immediately spotted as interlopers. Yet nobody mentions class (in polite society), and we pretend it doesn’t exist. There’s even sometimes talk of moving to a “classless society”. But people know it’s a pretence, and everyone knows everyone knows it’s a pretence.

This.and actually you know damn well what class you are really. Change does happen but takes several generations to embed.

My maternal grandparents were working class. My paternal grandparents were lower middle. My parents sit right on the line between working and lower middle & fluctuate depending on situation. My siblings and I are lower middle class (despite us being very highly paid, degree educated professionals. You will take your shoes off when you enter my home!!). Dh is upper middle. Our children are upper middle.

It's when you only use a napkin to neatly dab the corners of your mouth after eating, rather than wiping up the beans you've dropped down the front of your jumper.

🤔😀

It really isn’t, you know. Period novels written by UC gels needing to up their dress allowance are full of UC mothers wondering, horrified, how to break their children of the ‘dainty’ non-U table manners taught them by the governess before they go away to school. There’s a Molly Keane governess watching in distress as her charges, allowed down to dinner for a treat, ‘eat enormous quantities of food in a greedy, rather slovenly way’, copying their parents.