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 think many of us are a bit confused about it these days. Society has changed so much.
You get the opposite situation too - people living in dodgy rented studio flats working on min wage, but eating sourdough and organic avocado. It's just not as clear as it once was.

*If you don't give a damn what anyone thinks about this then you're probably upper class. If someone calls round and you hide the food while switching off the telly then you're probably middle class. If you're working class then you've probably 'married up' or made a lot of money from your market stall or plumbing business.

*Lighthearted comment in case anyone decides to get their knickers in a twist.

But it doesn't take any energy when you're in it, because we all know about it without having to think about it.

Riding is only posh if you also ski.
Riding only = not posh, loads of rustic types with a bit of spare land ride, or have a DIY livery that they pay for by yard skivying. Show jumping is as Essex as it gets.
Skiing only = not posh, loads of ski bums do the season out of a camper and pay for it doing bar work and mountain bike guiding or windsurfing instruction or whatever in the summer.
Riding AND skiing? (and being reasonably good at both as you've done them since you were 4). Posh.

OK, fair enough. Thanks for clarifying.
I'm a vegan, so wouldn't ride for animal rights reasons, but that's a separate issue.
I also definitely couldn't afford it. It's such an expensive hobby.

This explains a lot actually 😂Having just been on holiday for a week with family which involved sharing a hire car, DH and I found it continually hilarious that our relatives would look totally confused, bordering on angry, when DH drove (I currently can't for medical conditions) and I automatically got in the front, leaving my male relative to sit in the back with his wife, and even more so, when the male relative took the driving seat and we both headed for the back. This was so automatic and sensible for us, we just couldn't understand the reactions.

Social mobility is definitley real - at least to an extent. I have a PhD and work in a professional career where I am in a senior position. We live (with mortgage) in a typically middle-class area and our social circle includes lawyers, doctors, scientists and academics. We both come from similar upbringings which means that going home to family means spending time with shop assistants, cleaners, delivery drivers, security guards and relatives living in council accommodation. In truth, I don't have much in common with my family these days but that's not really important, blood being thicker than water and all that.

On the surface, I'm middle-class but I'm well aware that I'm really a working class person in a middle-class world. The main difference for me is assets and background. DH and I have a decent income and we scrimp and save to put as much of that as we can into savings every month. Our savings pot is still nowhere near what our friends have and if one of our jobs were to disappear we'd be in trouble very quickly with no cushion nor family assistance behind us. We have friends who talk openly about inheritance and have expressed confusion at the fact that we are in our 40s with no grandparents left and have never received any inheritance. It's just an automatic way of life for them. I also know that we'll get nothing at all from our parents - no issues nor hard feelings there, it just is what it is but we are very aware that every penny we own comes from our own earnings and will never grow beyond what we personally put in.

Actually that's a very good analysis!
It makes me realise that at least one facet of me is more middle class than I think (I don't generally think of myself as middle class) as if I'm shopping I sort of hide the tins and cheap bread at the bottom of the basket, and make sure the fresh fruit & veg and fair trade tea are visible at the top, in case I bump into someone I know 🤭

Tins at the bottom is sensible @Ruminate2much, or you crush the fruit and veg!

No one is discussing accents! I think it's all about accent and vocabulary and cultural outlook. Partly to do with types of job although not nothing to do with money or whether you have a horse.

I'm middle class because when I do have disposable income I spend it on the opera and the theatre and not on package holidays. I agree social mobility is generational- my grandparents on one side were working class- three generations in a 2 bed council house, however my grandmother explained to me they were what she called 'artisan' working class ie skilled trade. In their side of the family there were some v fast maths minds and wonderful artists which made them well placed for my parents' generation to take advantage of the social mobility that was possible for that generation.

It seems to me that mobility is gone now although there will always be people who by luck or grit do 'better' than their parents

I'm middle class because when I do have disposable income I spend it on the opera and the theatre and not on package holidays

No, you spend your disposable income like that because that's your priority. Nothing at all to do with class in any objective sense of the word.

Do you think you’re maybe making up definitions of middle class so you can attribute yourself to that class? I mean you must know you’re just making stuff up , that it’s about being in a salaried professional role that requires further education. It’s not how you talk or what you buy.

if you’ve become working class there is no shame in this.

Whether class is somewhat about accent or not depends on where you live, whether you use a small or wide vocabulary and how articulate you are.

For example, to most people living in England, an articulate speech delivered in a Scottish or Welsh accent wouldn't give clues about social class but if the accent was Birmingham, Westcountry or Essex, many people would assume the speaker had a working class heritage.

However, a speaker with an upper class English accent could talk nonsense, peppered with ums and ers and still be perceived as upper class (or even aristocratic).

Haha yes @Janehasamane I am making it up and just musing on my own experiences and family history really. Of course sociologists and economists will have their own definitions but it's a nuanced subject and one I find interesting when life takes me outside of the middle class bubble I usually inhabit. Because of the catchment of my kids' state primary I'm in an area where all the children have exactly the same type of 3 bed house with a garden and therefore similar income families however the class differences are very clear and friendship groups almost entirely organise themselves in terms of accent and cultural outlook. You might say this is just people finding like minded friends but there is a very obvious divide in those with a mc accent who do particular types of extra curriculars and holidays and those who have a wc accent and do other types of things with their disposable cash and time. There is some overlap of course.

Irish accents code as automatically WC for a significant number of English people, in my experience.

For example, to most people living in England, an articulate speech delivered in a Scottish or Welsh accent wouldn't give clues about social class

Except that upper middle and upper class people don't have regional accents. If you go to Fettes, for instance, you don't come out with a Scottish accent. So those people would be automatically middle class at best.

Conversely, some upper middle class people try desperately to disguise their non-accents by affecrting a sort of man of the people/estuary English/roadman accent.

I agree, although people like @Notmyuser who got angry when I said that the Kardashians are not upper class no doubt would not. Accent, cultural capital, interests, and tastes have a LOT to do with class. It is NOT just about how much money you have, otherwise Michelle Mone would be upper class when she most definitely is not.

I agree about UM and UC accents but most English people wouldn't be able to tell if Gordon Brown were from a working class or middle class background based on his accent. That's more what I meant.

Yes but we would know he was one of them. Not UM or UC.

I mean, not that it matters 😄 but having a regional accent of any type is an immediate signifier.

Of course you can, but many people from working class backgrounds like to believe you can’t. E.g. my MIL still insists she’s working class (because she was as a kid) but is the epitome of middle class. It’s pretty irritating.

I’m also from a working class background but would be taking the piss to claim I’m still “working class”.

With a regional accent, or inflection, it indicates your origins but it's less of a classist definition as long as your grammar and speech is comprehensible. Nothing would make Rab C Nesbitt (in character) anything other pure Kilmarnock but the actor, Gregor Fisher, is and must be for professional success, much more varied.

I apparently speak RP, and could originate from any corner of the UK. Only a person from my region would recognise the "tells" in my phrasing.

Born that way. People on here tie themselves up in such knots trying to prove themselves one way or the other, but irl you either are or you aren’t, and it isn’t a reflection of anything except your family history. Such a waste of time. People who set so much store by it are either trying to be something they aren’t, or they have absolutely nothing else about them.

It's hard. But interesting to see what others think. I think it's very little to do with money. It's the values with which you are brought up. Correct grammar. Correct table manners. Respect for others and your community. Cooking from scratch. Possessions that might not be fancy but are 'real' eg knowing that one or two good coats or jumpers or saucepans are better-serving than lots of glitzy cheap stuff. An interest in education and the wider world. Knowing not to make your physical appearance too fake. You can be poor and classy and you can be wealthy and tacky.

@LovelyTheresa I don't think @Notmyuser got angry. Like some other posters, including me, she was just pointing out how Hyacinth Bouquet you are being with your snobbish, condescending tone.

Nowadays it's a pointless, meaningless 'moniker' with the current mc referring only to recent history and inclusion can be easily bought, sold and learned.

It only had meaning when their was a vast amount of uk people who were proud of their wc status with value given to their work.

The mc became meaningless since wc work became worthless.

This post wins the thread.

Well done, @rainbowbee — that is the authentic note of the British lower-middle class, clutching your single ‘good-quality’ jumper and saucepan and priding yourselves on your ‘nice manners’, grammar, and un-faketanned skin, in horror lest someone less well-versed in UK class shibboleths might think you were working-class.