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 ?

Someone like Katie Price will always be considered 'common' no matter how much money she has!

I totally disagree with this.

An impoverished middle class author/artist is no less middle class because they are broke.

Equally, living on a "naice" street, there are people around who are clearly very working class but have made enough money to live in the area. They stand a MILE- there's no dressing them up as middle class despite their address.

And I don't think there's anything wrong with that either- but class is definitely as much cultural as it is economic, if not more so.

I had a very middle class upbringing, but I don't recognise your description at all:

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

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 - no, both my parents were working professionals

uni educated parents - yes

parents without regular smoking habits or problematic drinking - my dad smoked. My parents aren't big drinkers but I know plenty of middle class people who are

parents emotionally stable - what an odd thing to say - emotionally unstable people exist in all classes

parents ensuring as far as they can that their kid only mixes with middle class kids - again, no.

restricting/monitoring TV - to a certain extent, although we did watch it after school every day and for a pretty long period of time on Saturday mornings.

It's hard to come to terms with a difficult upbringing. But it's an absolute red herring to blame it on class. You seem to have an idealised perception of what it means to be middle class.

Have you considered counselling?

All of which has nothing to do with whether or not middle class people can be neglectful parents.

Your communication is very disjointed and the things you’re saying don’t really make sense, OP. Is everything okay?

@GondolaQueen
You are unwisely conflating class with neglect/ abuse and addiction.

First of all, neglect, abuse and addiction are classless - they happen in every strata of society and are unrelated to social class e.g. I believe the Queen is a heavy smoker (or at least used to be).

Class structure was traditionally defined by wealth, occupation & education. They are not fixed - people can move up or down the class ladder. People may have an entrenched view of themselves but obstensibly live the life of the class they pretend not to be in
e.g. the builder /business owner who runs a successful firm, is a millionaire, lives in a huge house, sends their DC to private school, goes on multiple holidays but always views themselves as 'working class'
The other extreme is the once wealthy landowner family, big house in a state of disrepair, lives in 1 or 2 rooms to keep the heating bills down etc. They may always see themselves as upper class even though they live like paupers

Class is not black and white.

I agree to a point. It’s not just down to your bank account, it’s something deeper than that. If I won £100 million on the lottery I’d still be working class but I’d have a rich person’s lifestyle. I may be working class by birth and upbringing but I’d like to think I wouldn’t devalue a posh road by living in it 😁

@GondolaQueen I'm sorry about what you experienced in your childhood and I hope you can have some support to process this if it would be helpful.

It's absolutely nothing to do with class though and abuse and neglect is rife in middle and upper class families, I can assure you.

It is pretty offensive and dangerous to assume that this behaviour and parenting is only present in working/lower class families.

It was also a different time, parenting was a lot more watchful then vs today, smoking & drinking more common & addiction affects all classes.

In a way that is the whole point. It is a bit random which side of a place setting the side plate goes. It is random to prioritise one speech pattern over another. It is random to favour 'traditional' wooden or metal toys over plastic ones.

The very randomness makes it hard to 'fake' being a different class, which is the whole purpose. I might learn to say 'napkin' instead of 'serviette', and 'driver' instead of 'chauffeur' and a few dozen other rules, but I am sure there is no way I could get through a formal dinner of ex-Etonians without being clocked as from the middle class. Which (if I was young and on the market) would affect my marriage prospects, unless my family had 'new money'.

This may sound like a Jane Austen novel, but I assure you the English class system is alive and well and shows little sign of dying out.

Of course, some things are not random; they are directly linked to maintaining wealth over generations, such as the emphasis on reading and conversation and caring for possessions (these are middle class traits - I don't know about the upper class).

If you lived in utopia it might look like the list, but there is both child abuse and neglect in the middle class and upper class for that matter.

The stupid and antiquated class system everyone still talks about in the UK is imo basically a privilege scale. The more privileged you are the higher up the scale you are. Of course we can all feel privileged, but privilege is buying something expensive without worrying about the budget or going on holiday without having to think about the cost or spends. Eg A working class person may go on holiday, but they'll have had a smallish budget and similarly small spends budget. A middle class person will likely spend more and have a larger spend budget. Other classes will focus on location or a specific resort/hotel that anyone who's not a multimillionaire might not be able to afford. They will treat others like they are servants at said resort/hotel.

Going to uni is a bit irrelevant these days as the majority go to uni.

Entitlement may once have been an upper class behaviour, but it now transcends every class - so many people behave like they're entitled and don't have cash, income or education...

@GondolaQueen you sound like you had a middle class upbringing - your DF is wrong.

What age is it settled? Is it about who YOU are or who your PARENTS are?

It is settled by early teens I would guess, maybe earlier. The Jesuits (I think it was them) had a saying 'Give me the boy until he is seven and I will give you the man'.

The subtle indicators of class are usually transmitted by the mother, as she is usually the primary care-giver and the one who will 'correct' the child.

I agree the boundaries between lower-middle and working class are very blurred when it comes to money and wealth. Hence the increasing panic of the upper-middle about maintaining the distinction of private education.

The poster that told you that is ridiculous OP, there are LOADS of middle class alcoholics. In fact, from observation, middle class people are obsessed with drinking wine. It's just for some reason considered more respectable than when working class people drink (source: I went to a school in a very middle class area and several of my friends parents were alcoholics and this wasn't that long ago).

Lots of dysfunctional middle class families. Upper class, aristocratic and royal ones too for that matter.

Your concern with class and what other people think makes you very MC 😂

Right, so are you saying only working class parents can be neglectful/abusive?
Have I got that right?

No. Not at all. But sadly when I grew up all round me looked down their noses at the working classes and had the attitude that middle classes could do no wrong.

i didn’t buy this for a minute

True. I mean believe me I do get the irony of this 🤣

yabu for buying into the class system

it is time to let go of the notion that middle class is better than working class (whatever the fuck either of those terms mean nowadays anyway)

Yes I know this . My partner had a fabulous working class upbringing on a rough council estate and I’m genuinely jealous of him

It was a middle class childhood with an alcoholic parent
I came from a working class background with an alcoholic parent, DH came from a middle class background with an alcoholic parent. We have similar emotional experiences but vastly different economic experiences.
He was financially secure had food in the table, sufficient clothing, family holidays, excellent education, extra curricular activities, ponies, paid for driving lessons and first car etc. Aupairs that provided practical care and cooked meals and cleaners and gardeners and handy men that maintained the home to a decent level . So on a financial /practical level he had significant advantages compared to me but both of us have bare the scars of having an emotionally absent alcoholic parent.

I can completely understand where you’re coming from. I had a shit boring but giddy want for anything financially. My parents in all their inadequacy could also, to be fair, keep a house ticking over and be ‘visitor ready’

Your mum being a crashing snob isn't middle class, OP.

I have lived in both a predominantly middle class town and a predominantly working class town in my childhood. Friendships were NOT class-segregated in the slightest. Louise's house was a council house. Rebecca's dad was manager of Lloyds bank in the town, she live a house with 6 bedrooms and she had a pony. We were all mates, and everyone else mixed to similar degrees. My dad was the manager of the manager of Chris's dad, but that didn't stop us being best mates, or our families getting together for BBQs in the summer.

The most class conscious person I know is my cousin. He is so devoutly working class it's like a religion to him. He mocks people for being 'aspiring middle class.'

Just picking up on your comments about your 'middle class' upbringing and the fact that you think this is characterised by 'stay at home mums' and 'uni educated parents' - but that your mum neglected you due to her drinking.

Obviously not good for you but I wonder whether your uni educated mum struggled due to isolation and lack of mental stimulation as she had been forced to give up her career due to social expectations. I don't know how old you are but awareness of mental health and things like post natal depression weren't so good back in the day. Sounds like she self medicated .

I would have hoped that there would be less emphasis on class and associated expectations nowadays but from MN I don't see it.

I don't think trying to put people into 'boxes' is helpful .

On this threads there is never any separation between mc & umc

Sounds to me like you had a dysfunctional middle class upbringing. But definitely a middle class one.

Middle class kids generally go to school with and therefore socialise with other middle class kids. They will live in a middle class area and their parents' friends will be middle class so their social exposure will reflect this. They'd be highly unlikely to go to a school in a firmly working class area and play with kids from a council estate or deprived area. Middle class parents are way more likely to push their kids towards uni and a profession. The same cannot be said for the majority of working class parents. I live on a large council estate and have done for many years. I can absolutely assure you that working class parents have different aspirations. They are usually very happy that their child has full time employment and hope their daughters get married and provide grandchildren.