To think that the middle classes are liars and actors?

[MargaretBrewer]

I know this woman who I always assumed was middle class. Everything she says and values is a walking middle class stereotype. The couple live in a nice house, everything is nice. Forgive my surprise, then, when I found out that she was born on a council estate to parents who were often jobless. After some snooping around, I learned that her husband comes from more money, but his father actually began life as a builder - yes, a construction worker! - who rose to manage the (small) company before buying up a number of local estate agents. I never knew what the couple in question did until I learned that they are landlords to some shops in town. Their son went to a private school and struts around like he is prince of the county! When none of his grandparents were posh! And how is it that the husband and wife own so many properties in town?!

It reminds me of a doctor and his wife I know. I always thought they must come from solidly middle class, if not upper class backgrounds, given how they talk and behave. It turned out that both of them come from families that worked in steel!

And and and there is a writer who lives nearish to me. Single woman, carries herself with this gait and artistic flair that I assumed she must come from an UMC background. Turns out her father was a welder.

Why are these people so MC presenting?? I would never have guessed they had come from unglamorous backgrounds, and there are a few other 'friends' I suspect might be similar. Are the middle classes inherently actors? If so their snobbery is alarming to me!

Had to change my name for this.

Yes. It's not acting it's just that as you have different life experiences, you evolve as a person. Me? Working class background mum, and dad that was in prison a lot. We were on free school meals and uniform grants through most of my childhood but I went to university, mixed with people outside of home town and grew up 🤷🏻‍♀️ I have working class values but most definitely live a middle class, professional life. If I'm 'acting' middle class then pass me my Oscar.

Is that you Eliza? 😁

I'm sorry, I simply don't have time to read the thread, I have pressing matters to attend to...
I can't decide whether to chuck my old fridge out into the front garden with the staffies, or whip up some lobster and saffron truffles whilst gently steaming my silk polo necks and marinading my soul with an eclectic mix of freeform jazz and Wagner 🤔

Did you know that Keir Starmer's father was a tool maker?

Why do you give a shit about anyone’s parents’ jobs

mind, our PM was obsessed with telling us his father was a tool maker

I’m from a working class background but now classed as middle class - just off to burn my joules tops and Waitrose card lest anyone think I’m getting ideas above my station 🙄😂

I think what is probably more likely is for those who’ve done ok for themselves, largely because of sacrifices made by their parents, there has been broader exposure to things that wouldn’t have come into their orbit as kids. I don’t think I’m ‘acting’ a certain way, but I am definitely struck by how different my life is when I go back home to visit. It tickles me that my toddler demands stuff I hadn’t even heard of till I was a teenager (bloody avocados mainly 🙄😂)

Why does it matter what their parents did for a living ? Sounds as if your jealous of others lifestyle and apparent "success". Just live your own life and always be grateful of your blessings.

You sound jealous as hell.
It's not snobish to have had a good start in life.
But what does it matter what the grandparents started out as.
These people have clearly made it work for themselves.

You're viewpoint is that nobody can better themselves...

Snap 😀

Are you against social mobility? Or is there some sort of social requirement that if someone are successful but their family can't trace acceptable Middle Class credentials back 5 generations then they should also notify everyone that their grandparents worked in a coal mine or whatever.

"Being middle class" is a strange thing to try and gatekeep.

60% of people in the UK are considered 'middle class' - that's one hell of a lot of liars and actors.

This is up there with "I met a woman outside in the sun and she was wearing sunglasses and isn't that rude?" for batshittery...but at least that OP had the good grace to admit she must be being unreasonable when she got rinsed for it.

A lovely creative writing exercise all about the horrors of 'new' money.

How extraordinarily vulgar. Pass the smelling salts! 🙀

possibly one of the most bonkers things I have ever read on here.

I remember that post! 🤣 thanks for that laugh.

Oh, and being in a skilled trade doesn’t automatically make you working class. My dad is a builder and owns a building business which is doing very well (probably not so well after Reeve’s autumn budget kicks in). He’s probably earning more per year than any of the directors do at my place of work. I know he earns way more than I do each year and I’m in a so-called professional role.

"WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"

OP, we love to see your family tree? To assess your pedigree. You must be blue blood, with generational wealth from shipping, the slave trade, insurance and banking, no doubt.

Ive never come across place like numbers is so obsessed about class. And I come from a country
which actually still (unfortunately) practice it!

Sometimes it happens the other way round. My DM is the private school educated daughter of a professional sportsman turned managing director and a career woman from a globe trotting military family. As an adult she was a farm worker, cleaner and care assistant and lived all her life in a council flat.

I grew up on a council estate. I am now very well off, mortgage paid off, I don't need to work. I don't worry about things anymore.

I'm open about it but I don't go around telling everybody my life history because it just doesn't come up. When out with friends once I had a very snotty woman (mother a friend) make a snide comment about somebody else we all know being from a council estate and that they were 'council estate skinny'. I waited until she was done and said 'actually I grew up on a council estate.' and another friend replied 'I'm glad you said that because I did too!'

It's not as uncommon as you think, people can do well for themselves in their career, be very lucky and end up in more privileged positions, work hard and become wealthy, inherit from grandparents and even marry into money etc. The opposite can be true as well, you can end up in a council estate by cheer bad luck and hard times, even if you're from a 'good background'.

You can't buy class though op lol

I'm from a working class background but am middle class, each generation has done a little better than the last. My great grandparents were on the edge of the workhouse poor as children. The introduction of the welfare state meant whilst they were still poor and in poverty at times they survived better than their parents as adults. Grandparents working class but with enough financial security for a good life. My mother was food bank poor in her first marriage and relied on the kindness of others for food and childcare. My parents started married life as working class family by the time we were teenagers they were nudging into middle class. My sisters and myself are more firmly in middle class.

It's called social mobility

On a less frivolous note, this British fixation with class is oh, so tedious.

And no, it isn't just Mumsnet.

If you see videos of the 1950’s a lot of children were raised to speak correctly regardless of their class. It’s only in more recent times the poor speak poorly - not all of coarse lots of people don’t dumb down language or swear - bit there has been a shift.

Maybe it’s that?

Are British people obsessed with this? It's a bit mental.
Maybe everyone else feels they have to pretend to feel respected. A viscous circle then.
Are you not allowed move from one class to another?
If someone from a wealthy background ends up poor, do they get more respect than someone poor who ends up rich cos they worked hard?

I think people forget how much social mobility there was 1945-2000. 50% of the UK lived on council estates in the 70s. 25% went to grammar schools. University was free. The most famous actors of the 60s/70s were all working class. We have gone backwards at a frightening rate.

Yes, but (to me anyway) there’s a significant difference between saying you’re proud of something, and saying you’re not at all ashamed of it.

Being proud of something usually implies that you’ve done something to earn or achieve it.