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?

But she won’t have changed her social class via marriage. Sure, her income and lifestyle have changed, and her children, if she has them, may be MC, especially if the men she married were MC, but not working outside the home isn’t a class marker, and nor is a pool or a big house.

i know two women, one in her 40s and one now in her 80s, who married into aristocracy — they’re very much ‘married in’. One met her husband when doing upmarket private catering, the other when she won a beauty contest in the 70s.

We've got a Dualit toaster but I got it for free on fb marketplace and cleaned it up myself, what class does that make me?

According to Jason Manford I believe this makes you Muddle Class 😀

My great-grandparents were declared "exploitive class" (kulak) and sent to a working camp, as former bourgeoise were not allowed to hold several jobs or be drafted into the army (or anywhere near weapons) - just in case they decided to throw a revolution (USSR). My grandparents were born in a camp and became agricultural workers (sharecroppers with no passport or freedom of movement). My parents are civil engineers (education and then mandatory job placement in one of the former republics, stayed there after the independence as well). I was born in an independent republic, have moved to the UK to get my master's and now own a million-pound home. Foreigners don't have class in British society unless they marry into it, but soon I will get my passport and then what? Am I taking after my parents (working class), grandparents (underclass) or great-grandparents (bourgeoisie) or whatever I have made of myself (just ordered 2,000 pound commissioned oil painting so I am standing at "middle" then) ?

@Chypre
you are Exempt Class. Prost !

@Notmyuser

Retirement age is 66 currently… he is 78… so no, you’re right he is 12 years past retirement age.

Teachers always setting up new lessons…….. so you are telling me that the syllabus is changing so dramatically in an annual basis that you can’t use material from one year to the next?!

Unless this is lying minimum annual pay for a teacher is £28,000 going up to about £40,000. Leadership roles £50-120,000.

https://www.nasuwt.org.uk/advice/pay-pensions/pay-scales/pay-scales-england.html

Minimum wage is £10.42. For a 50 hour week that is £27,000 a year, with less time off and a pension nowhere near as good.

I realise wage stagnation needs to be addressed, but stop pleading poverty, lack of opportunity and trying to put yourself in the working class category you aren’t working class.

That made me laugh out loud, spill my Moet and almost choke on my avocado on toast 🤣🥂🥑

many people operate so entirely in their own class bubble that they don't know the class system is still alive and well. I think it's harder to cross class boundaries than cultural or racial ones. It does happen sometimes but not that often. I've noticed working class women take an instant dislike to me on a number of occasions- far more than with mc women. In my area mc women are scruffy on the school run if not dresse for work, and have scruffier children and wc have lots of make up and tight fitting clothes and fillers and their kids always have clean new clothes.

Well, it doesn't matter, in the sense that I don't think people are defined by their class. I actually loathe the class system, and the 'othering' it can lead to. I never meet people and start categorising them. We're far more complex and multi-faceted than whatever class a sociologist would put us in.
However, as Britain is still a very class-based society, and people don't seem to allow us to be classless, I do struggle to know which class I am.
I guess traditionally, sociologically it had a purpose, as it helped address inequality. But, as nowadays many professionals such as teachers and nurses are not nearly as well paid as some in blue collar trades, it's no longer as relevant.
I don't think about class all that much though. I guess I think more about income and housing inequality, which can affect people from a variety of backgrounds, and in a way is more 'real' iyswim.

I don’t know. Dh was born into aristocracy but has inherited nothing. He sounds posh but we don’t even own a house. He has his own business and works hard.

Can you be middle class without home ownership?

I am from a country that doesn’t really have a class system but I’d imagine I’m somewhere between working and lower middle class.

Why we so obsessed with class. Who cares.

I think it’s an interesting obsession. A shitty one but a fascinating one.

He isn’t 12 years past his retirement age though, is he? Again, you are being disingenuous.
And yes, that is pretty much what I’m telling you … but you’d know that, since you know teachers which basically makes you a teacher, yeah? Do you do this with other jobs or just teaching?

And there you have it - many teachers are earning less than minimum wage. I’m not one of them; but others are. And to cap it off they are likely paying off student loans, buying resources with their own money, and lost out on several years earning potential while they studied to be a teacher.

I have stated several times that I’m upper working/lower middle class. Im not pleading poverty. However, most teachers I know are the main earner in their household. Many have a SAHP as a partner, many have a partner who works p/t, many are single parents. Most of them are on a household income (myself included) of under £60k. It’s hardly a “middle class” lifestyle. It’s not breadline; but it’s barely more than comfortable for many.

One of my good friends is a teacher, from the East End of London before it gentrified. She met her husband at uni. He is from the aristocracy (owns loads of land, public school etc). She's still not upper class. He is. Her children are. I think she finds it weird seeing how her children are so comfortable in that environment.

But, as nowadays many professionals such as teachers and nurses are not nearly as well paid as some in blue collar trades, it's no longer as relevant.

It was woman that were historically nursing, therefore the money wouldn't ever have been decent enough to live upon. Teaching was much the same for many woman, though men may have made a career from teaching.

I disagree. Of course she'll have changed her social class, in the meaningful sense. It's called socio-economic class for a reason. She'd be socially mixing in different circles, and the economics aspect speaks for itself.
Social mobility is real. It's a phenomenon sociologists have talked about at length; and if it wasn't real the vast majority of us would still be serfs!
I guess the middle class is still a fairly young social class; and more and more of society has joined its ranks since the decline in industry.

Yes, nurses and teachers have been historically underpaid. I guess I see them as lower middle class.
But, what I meant was that nowadays many trades people earn considerably more, but would still be regarded as working class. Also, in terms of inflation, probably nurses and teachers are paid less, in real terms than they once were. I don't know that for certain though. Just conjecture.
Of course nurses and teachers are still professionals, and as such I couldn't see them as working class.

I agree with the idea that you're either upper class (don't need to work for a living) or working class (work or claim benefits) and middle class was an invention to appease snobs and create the fictional idea that social mobility is achievable for the majority.

I'm not sure of which class I fit into. My Dad came from a very middle class family and was a highly educated professional man, my mum however came from a very working class family.

Growing up I had the influence from both classes and when I married for the first time it was to a working class man. The marriage didn't last and I am now married to a professional man he earns a good salary and we have a nice lifestyle and a son at grammar school( if that makes a difference)

I do find however that I don't really fit into any class or social circle.

Working class people seem to think I'm too 'posh' so don't really include me, I actually had someone say to me that I was probably the poshest person they had ever met.

I'm not posh.

But equally I don't seem to fit in with middle class groups as I feel they look down on me and exclude me as if I'm not good enough.
So all in all I'm a misfit.

There are obviously shades of grey and it’s not an either or situation, but I’d suggest the answers to the following questions would give a general idea:

• What accent do you have? How is your grammar?
• Are you due to inherit a decent amount (if it doesn’t get drained by funding elderly care)?
• Does anyone in your family own a holiday home?
• Is a gap year something your DC might consider?
• Have you ever paid for 11+ or GCSE tutoring?
• What is your education level?
• How many holidays do you take per year? Where? What is the accommodation like?
• What extra-curricular activities do your children do?
• Do your children go to a private school? If not, have you considered it/gone to an open evening?
• In what room do you eat your dinner? Where does everyone sit?
• Were you able to work from home during Covid?
• What type of pension do you have? How big is the pot?
• What assets do you own?
• How many conversations have you had with friends about catchment areas?

People can earn more money. People can get to a point in life that is unthinkably different from that of their parents. You can even start mixing with different people from a different class (although I guarantee you will be “spotted” for what you are, even if you think you won’t be). You are always the class you were born into - there’s just too many complex factors that go into it, it can’t be unpicked and reprogrammed. Social mobility occurs over generations.

I've heard this idea a fair bit recently, and I can't really agree with your first point.
The idea that a lawyer and a minimum wage worker have equal cultural clout in society is surely very unfair on the min wage worker? We'll never achieve equality if we don't recognise the unfairness.
I do agree that it's a myth that social upward mobility is achievable by the majority. I think social mobility is real; but you've generally had some really good fortune in other ways if you've achieved it. There are many ways you can be advantaged/disadvantaged. Class isn't the only way.

It doesn’t happen that fast. Social mobility is generational. As I said, the children of a WC woman who marries into wealth may be middle-class, depending to an extent on the class status of whoever she marries. Wealth isn’t the sole determinant of social class. Wayne and Coleen Rooney are wealthy, but not MC.

Some of the assumptions on this thread about working class people are so depressing.

Someone says having manners make you middle class? So do working class people not have good manners? I've met some incredibly rude folk who consider themselves "middle class". Who know the correct order to use fancy cutlery but will do crass things like discuss how much they earn with acquaintances.

I respectfully disagree utterly. I believe that if you've become a salaried home-owning professional, even if you grew up in a working-class home, then you've been socially mobile and become middle class. Trained professionals are middle class by definition. I'm fairly sure most sociologists would agree. But, I respect your right to a different view.