To Think My Upbringing Wasn’t Middle Class?

[GondolaQueen]

Both my parents were Uni educated, both had professional high status jobs and we lived in a leafy area. But a poster on another thread pointed out that I didn’t have a middle class upbringing because being middle class is more than just job and education - it’s attitudes, beliefs, behaviour and lifestyle - and my mum was neglectful.

i finds this interesting as this is something I’d thought about for a while tbh - my mum often left me floundering while she drank spirits.

When I was growing up - a typical middle class upbringing would be -

A child has one or sometimes two siblings with at least one close in age

Either stay at home mum or a mum that puts her career on hold while kids are very young and only goes back to work when kids are in school

uni educated parents

parents without regular smoking habits or problematic drinking

parents emotionally stable

parents ensuring as far as they can that their kid only mixes with middle class kids

restricting/monitoring TV

now the only box I can tick is both parents uni educated - it’s a ❌ to all the others

anyone agree with this ?

Yes, the op reads a bit like this. Op neglect and alcoholism are not working class traits. I had a working class upbringing and it was great.

Class has nothing to do with child neglect. The middle classes can have drinking or other social problems too. The Royal children might be neglected in some ways- that doesn't negate their upper class.

My parents were very firmly working class- both parents left school at 15 with no qualifications and did apprenticeships. Money was OK but tight budget. Lived in a small terrace house. Dad was a semi-skilled engineer working in a factory, paid by the hour so not a salaried career, and mum was a tailoress until she had me and then she stayed at home until my brother and I were at secondary school and then she had part time jobs cleaning etc. However, they were wonderful parents: they were kind, played with us, read to us, taught us how to care for pets, grew vegetables, took us on family holidays to the seaside, we had homecooked meals every night, discipline, freedom to play out etc. They are good and honest people.

I went on to university- the first in our family and had a career which would be considered middle class and married my husband who also has a professional career so I consider my dd to have had a much more middle class upbringing than myself- she went on holidays abroad, grammar school education, ballet and music lessons, theatre trips, we live in a largish house in a nice area, we have a nice car, she has designer clothes, driving lessons, private tutor when needed etc. Whether or not I drank 3 bottles of wine a night or beat her every night before bed is irrelevant to her class.

Totally bonkers assertion OP. I went to private school, had 2 educated parents and a sibling close in age but my mother was also an alcoholic and a smoker. In no way does that prevent me from being middle class.

Plenty of middle class parents are heavy drinkers. Parents from all backgrounds neglect & abuse their kids. Plenty of working class parents are committed & caring & strive to do the best for their kids.

That's very prejudiced to think that all middle parents are good parents & all working class parents are poor parents.

Me too. I lived on a council estate but both my parents were hard working, my dad only had a bit of alcohol at Christmas, he never went to the pub, always came straight home after work. No violence or abuse, not even swearing (apart from the occasional ‘bloody’). No neglect. By OP’s class parameters I must have been upper middle class or even aristocratic!

Not that tiny, 7% is still around 554,243. I'm working class but some of my friends are middle class. Their children are at private school. Public schools are abysmal around here in the West Midlands. They're over crowded with a rotating line of agency teachers. My children are at one, my friends have commented skmilar about their children's schools. I've worked in education for years, so know it's the same in most places. If one had surplus money to buy whatever they wanted, why wouldn't they put their children into private school? It makes sense. I start a new job soon which is well paid, I'm considering enrolling both of mine into private school next year.

I had a middle class upbringing in the 80s/90s and my family was utterly chaotic. If you are sufficiently middle-class, though, that's seen as "eccentric" or "bohemian".

Middle-class people aren't any less fucked up then any other class, they just have more financial security to deal with/cover up the fuck ups.

I always associate middle-class dom primarily with wealth. They are the class that owns or will own property and have both savings and spare cash at the end of the month (or could afford this if they didn't spend it all)

The idea of class is so mixed up now though. Traditional working class jobs are often paid more then 'professional' roles. I'm a designer and my plumber gets paid more then me. Probably my childminder is higher paid too. Children of middle class parents can't afford to buy houses and can't get decent jobs, do they suddenly become 'working class'. What age is it settled? Is it about who YOU are or who your PARENTS are?

By your reasoning does neglect / alcoholism / TV watching drop you down to working class?! 🤨

It sounds like you had a shitty childhood but I don’t think it has anything to do with class.

As others have said, unstable parents can be found in all classes.

With the widening of university participation, that is no longer a reliable indicator of class.
The economist's or sociologist's view of class takes income and education as proxy measures of class because they are the things that are measurable, but as the OP says, class is "attitudes, beliefs, behaviour and lifestyle". These are usually handed down by the mother (as primary caregiver), so the father's occupation can be irrelevant (except that women used to nearly always marry within their class).

Was there an emphasis on table manners? Did you learn how to correctly lay out a full set of cutlery and side plates at a young age?
Was your speech habitually corrected if your accent or grammar were 'bad'?
Was there a huge, huge emphasis on reading, with comics (cartoon strip magazines) frowned on and screen time monitored?
Was the BBC favoured over commercial TV so that children had less exposure to advertising?
Did your parents have conversations about things other than their own lives, such as politics, history, philosophy, or anything remotely 'intellectual'?
Were you taught to take care of personal possessions, with leather shoes polished and toys put away carefully?

There are a thousand indicators of class, not all of which apply to every family in any particular class, but enough of which are consistent to be able to judge what class a person grew up in.

Emotionally stable parents is NOT an indicator of class. What Utter rubbish.

"Eccentric", neglectful, selfish, egotistical, drug abuser parents are common as muck in all classes.

There is no formal definition of 'typical middle class'. It's almost completely subjective.

You have your own personal stereotype of what it means. And your upbringing doesn't fit your stereotype.

Why does it matter?

Working class / middle class / upper class is about income, the value of your house and assets. That's pretty much it.
Everything else is pretty much evenly spread within all classes.

But a poster on another thread pointed out that I didn’t have a middle class upbringing because being middle class is more than just job and education - it’s attitudes, beliefs, behaviour and lifestyle - and my mum was neglectful.

That poster was wrong.
Your class position in society is about your economic position.

Sorry, but why do you care? Is it important what class you were or are now?

I don't give a toss about mine. I am what I am.

I disagree. Formal studies used things like income, education level, father's occupation, and home-ownership as proxy measures of class, and because income, wealth and education are what is relevant to social policy.

But everyone who is middle class knows that the thousands of subtle indicators are what really matter - table manners, speech, conversation, etc. as I posted above.

To be fair it's important because it's interesting. It also forms the baseline for so many political, economical and socioeconomic arguments, if anything.

Clearly, there are plenty of emotionally unstable middle class people, middle class people with drinking problems, middle class mums who work etc so that as a definition of middle class doesn't work and you certainly can't apply criteria like this to individual people. Well, you can, but it would be wrong

However, it's probably true to say that as you up the scale in wealth/household income, you get fewer instances as a percentage of the population of some issues just because money makes life easier and removes many stressors. Not because of any inherent class difference.

But everyone who is middle class knows that the thousands of subtle indicators are what really matter - table manners, speech, conversation, etc. as I posted above.

Being rude at the table doesn't stop someone from being middle class 😆

That's what jumped in my mind straight away

It matters because these subtle signals of social class are the mechanism by which wealth is maintained across generations and within social circles.
Class-belonging is how some families gain advantage for their children, how they get into positions of power and influence, and how that privilege is maintained.
The same mechanisms (with a different set of signals) are how the middle class maintain privilege relative to the working class.

I actually think it's more than just about assets- it's about the way you present yourself to the world and your approach to life as well. It's possible to move between the classes, but your roots are still with you. It's also about breeding- not just money. A person who was born and bred in a council instate in Liverpool doesn't become upper class by winning the lottery- they just become rich! Similarly someone from an aristocratic family who suffer misfortune and become penniless don't become working class.

But the other dozens of indicators might. One factor is not taken in isolation.

Am incredibly random list of criteria you have chosen to identify the middle classes

No no no - not at all - it’s not just working class that can be neglectful - I know that 100 % and wouldn’t want to offend anyone.

BUT ……

in the middle class family and community I grew up in, working class people, I’m sorry to say, were 100% looked down on. By my mum, by other middle class kids. etc etc .

For instance , I told a parent at my solidly middle state school that I wanted to go to a school in a deprived working class part of the city that got dire results. This is because I had a crush on a boy who went there, knew another girl from there and was utterly sick of my shitty middle class school. She literally looked at me as if I had horns on my head and said in a disapproving tone :

”It’s. In. The. Middle. Of. A. Large. Council. Estate.”

… as if I’d just said the most ridiculous thing ever !

So my observation personally isn’t the fact that I think that working class people are the only ones to be abusive/neglectful it’s a reaction to the ridiculous narrow minded prejudice against working class people I faced growing up