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 ?

NO NO NO !!

Sorry for causing but my mum was one of these rare (unknown?) 70s mums who went back to work STRAIGHT after I was born and aggressively pursued her career! She NEVER stayed at home !!!

Sorry in my above post meant today sorry for caps !! Not causing !! 🤣

@GondolaQueen again you are conflating social class with something which affects all area of society - snobbery and inverted snobbery.
Snobbery is a character trait, therefore says more about the belief system of these people who your parents chose to hang around with

You seem to think “middle class” = good parenting
”working class” = bad parenting.

Not true at all, you’re all mixed up about this.

It is shockingly bigoted to think that drinking, smoking and neglect are "working class behaviours".

I’m sorry you were neglected.

On your point about middle class parents not smoking or drinking, that might be more of a thing nowadays but it definitely wasn’t up till 2010s so basically no one’s parents would be classed as middle class if that was the criteria.

When it comes to education, you only have to look at the royal family to see that education isn’t necessarily a factor in class although the middle class usually do need to be better educated to keep up with the privilege of the upper class who are born into wealth.

OP why are you connecting your mum returning to work with class.

Perhaps the immediate return to work was due to her thinking being a career woman was more valuable than a SAHM? The 1980s was the era of the power woman.

My mother also never took a maternity leave, self employed, back at work a few days after birth (but due to being self employed, just brought the babies with her).

I think your mother, perhaps, was avoiding the boredom of SAHM. She was a product of her time.

Given she enjoyed her alcohol, she probably was allergic to the twee SAHM life. She perhaps needed the escape of her work, and this also legitimised her drinking. She was working, earning, and therefore deserved her time to wind down (?).

I really think the obsession about class, is bordering on ridiculous.

This idea, that women should be constantly correcting and tutoring people on class indicators, is nonsense in today's world.

BTW : This is one of the reasons English people can be resented. The endless snobbery and judgement woven into everyday life.

I went to an FE college in a very working class area in the middle of several council estates - I’d dropped out of my shitty middle class school which I hated.

just before I went to this college my mum took it upon herself to take to her bed and remark about

THE ……… AREA!!! 😮

I honestly thought I’d have to provide smelling salts and hook her up to a life support machine .. the situation is almost laughable

I don’t think this at all but I very much grew up with people who did

Constance Marten was an actual aristocrat and neglected her baby so badly the poor thing died in a freezing cold tent in winter.

Those people are bigots. DH grew up with very upper class parents and ended up in care, DM had me at 19, (2nd child) I am one of 7 and all of us were very well cared for, well fed and loved.

Your mum taking herself to the bed 🤣🤣🤣.

I grew up in the most affluent area of the city I live in, however the city has a reputation of being a predominantly working class city (obviously with pockets of posh, leafy, old money areas).

My mother was paranoid about the council putting a travelling community halting site in a public park near our home. This never happened. Now at almost 80, her fear is about mandatory public housing %s, in new housing developments approximately 1 kilometer from her home. They fear someone destroying the distance they built from the poverty they grew up in.

The fear is due to, public social housing destroying the wealth and status that she accumulated.

Your mother's fear about "the area", was perhaps her need to protect her social climbing.

@GondolaQueen

Sorry for causing but my mum was one of these rare (unknown?) 70s mums who went back to work STRAIGHT after I was born and aggressively pursued her career! She NEVER stayed at home !!!

OK - I misunderstood your OP.

Although the way you have written that rebuttal suggests that you have quite a deep resentment of her working.

*parents without regular smoking habits or problematic drinking

parents emotionally stable*

These aren't middle class traits specifically. Children from all classes grow up with this. Although I do think that smoking is now more of a working class and upper class thing, not MC.

I was in a VERY predominantly middle class state school and in science when they asked us how many had parents who were current regular smokers only 3 of us put
hands up in a class of 30 - other 3 who did definitely working class

I would say I was definitely brought up middle class but I don't recognise your description AT ALL!

My parents were divorced when I was 5 and remarried when I was 13. My mother worked in a term time only job. I went to boarding school.
Both my parents were smokers. I was born in 1960, this was normal.
My mother left school at 16, but was intelligent and well-read. My father was a naval officer.

Class was not about any of the things you mention OP. It was about values and upbringing. There was an emphasis on good manners. Knowing how to behave. The correct way to do things. Acceptance and tolerance of people who were different. Learning and education (not necessarily the same thing).

In my opinion I was definitely brought up middle class. I am now working class, but I still have my middle class values, which can cause friction.

This is not a slur against working class people but, in my opinion and in general, priorities are different in the different classes. Not wrong, just different.

sorry Op you grew up in a dsyfunctional - alcoholic - home. Class has nothing to do with either of those things.

Op surely you can see that you can be very rich - even 'upper class' - and NOT at all emotionally stable?!

Literally countless generations of posh people in Britain have been abusive/ emotionally unstable/ damaged their kids through alcohol and drug abuse.

just read jilly cooper if you want a light hearted take on that - look at the royal family if you want a less light hearted take

some of the most poorly treated children in the country are those who were sent to top - abusive - boarding schools in the past 100 years.

Sounds like you had a difficult and neglectful upbringing. It’s nothing to do with class- neglectful parents exist in all classes, and middle class doesn’t mean “nice”.

That's nonsense sorry. Of course middle class parents can be neglectful or have drinking problems. It's quite offensive to say only working class parents can be bad parents.

TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU BUT…

MIDDLE CLASS PEOPLE I’VE COME ACROSS UNFORTUNATELY TOTALLT THINK MIDDLE CLASS = NICE

I disagree with your summation that those things indicate middle class.

Neglectful parenting (and abusive parenting) happens across all social classes.

As does problematic drinking. If anything, the MC families I knew growing up were far more likely to have alcohol issues within their close family unit.

What you're listing are issues that apply to everyone, not just middle classes.

Do you remember Absolutely Fabulous? Smoking, alcoholism, drug use and neglecting your child while also being middle class was common enough to be comedy stereotype.

So why do you think neglect and addiction issues make your childhood non-MC?

You appear to have completely misunderstood the basis on which social classes are determined. Neglect and addiction are cross-class issues. I have an upper-class friend who had one of the most neglected childhoods of anyone I know (and I’d include my own, which was extremely deprived and dysfunctional).

What an odd take on things. I had very few things on your list but I grew up firmly MC.

Neither parents went to uni, my mum worked part time, my tv use wasnt restricted and we were friends with whoever we wanted to be.

But my dad had a professional job and was a manager, we lived in a 4 bed detached house in a posh part of town, went to an outstanding local school etc.

What made us middle class was not worrying about money (we werent rich but could afford bills, food, holidays etc) and ingrained aspiration (was drilled into us from young we would go to uni etc) our weekend pursuits, went to museums in London, outdoorsy stuff alongside usual swimming, park playing etc.

To echo others, you clearly had a MC upbringing and neglect/addiction isn't the sole reserve of the WC