When do you become middle class?

[ForMintUser]

I was reading the “rich get richer” thread which made me think about something I have been wondering about, interested in other people’s opinions.

My parents came from working class, council house backgrounds, neither set of grandparents ever had much money, never owned a house.

Both parents left school with no qualifications, didn’t go on to further or higher education.

My father worked as a salesman, eventually got promoted to management and ended up working in senior management for a UK wide company.

I would say they were working class from birth but would probably be middle class now, jobs in management, home owners etc.

I would say I was raised middle class, there wasn’t a huge amount of money when we were children but certainly didn’t grow up in poverty, myself and siblings all went to university, have professional jobs.

I will say I recognise there is a lot of luck and timing in this (particularly in relation to house prices and the fact that my mother was able to be a SAHM because a family could live on one income then). I’m not a big believer in the idea that hard work always equals success, it does for some but not for others.

My question is, if they were born working class and are now middle class (happy to be corrected on that if people don’t agree) surely there needs to have been a point where you would say they had become middle class? So at what point do you become middle class?

When you enjoy the archers

I have no idea what is really is, but for me it's when you have a home or mortgage, can afford kids, and can still afford holidays and luxury items as much as you realistically want, on one persons income (whether single or a couple really).

I think in reality it has a lot to do with culture, social circle and hobbies etc. I don't know how it's measured really. Interesting thread!

🤣🤣🤣

Are you a member of the National Trust?

Do you wear Boden and shop at Waitrose?

When you’re losing sleep over school choices

When you start wondering about what class you are.

Lighthearted but:

• members of: national trust, English Heritage + RSPB
• radio of choice is R4
• your DC are in lots of extra curricular clubs/societies
• working dogs ie Labrador/springer spaniel over designer mongrels or pugs
• bookshelves filled with books
• ballet/theatre (not musicals)
• obsession with being MC
• Obsession over school catchments

Nothing to do with wage/salary/income

Ime middle class kids all ask where the humous is whenever they eat carrot sticks.

I think class is a largely outdated concept now, evidenced in part by the fact that you can move between classes during a lifetime. In the old days if you were born working class you knew your place and stayed working class. Some people then started to shift upwards, through grit and hard work, and the awful term nouveau riche was invented - people who had become wealthy but lacked the breeding to be 'one of us'.
Although lots of people do still talk about class, I think the distinctions have blurred massively and I don't think we can really use it to describe people's backgrounds accurately.

I think it’s a lot more complex than income etc. For example, lots of the “celebrities” from TOWIE / love island etc have lots of money and yet are still very working class despite supposedly moving class circles. I think people like to pretend class isn’t a thing anymore but of course it is, we’re just not allowed to openly make judgements about people anymore.

A lot of supposedly middle class people are poorer than the working classes!

It’s a dated concept. There are tradespeople earning an absolute fortune calling themselves working class and maybe not saving anything for a rainy day. And then there are academics on a low salary eking out a humble but definitely middle class existence.

I’ve never understood why those living mostly on benefits consider themselves working class - surely they are anything but?

I’m a worker. I’ve worked all my life. I’d also be called middle class because I own my own home, have savings and investments (😱) and I value education.

I don't think your parents are middle class, I think they're very successful working class.

You and your siblings could be middle class.

It's not about money, it's about education/culture/values.

Once you start contemplating class and where you sit in the structure, you can rest assured you are middle class. No other class gives a hoot.

I would say I was no new middle class. Working class parents, Dad in a trade, home owner, values very working class or perhaps also of partly born of post war era and living through 18% mortagage rates of the 80s. I’m university educated, national trust membership, listen to radio 4, happily buy second hand, children do ballet and piano, yes yes to school catchment and pushing of education. Maybe some of them are more middle aged concerns than middle class. I am not the full trope, still love an AI holiday with kids shows.

It's interesting that so many people in this country are so concerned in looking a certain way or appearing to have more money than they have. I personally don't care about a person's class or how much money or material goods they have. People who are happy with what they have don't have anything to prove. I feel like this is evident in our circle of friends. There are a few who have average to good wages but live with the leased brand new cars, mortgage to the max to live the so called perfect urban life. Live to shop in Joules and waitrose on maxed out credit cards. Love to talk about money they clearly don't have. We have been very lucky to have a built a successful business that I come home from everyday filthy and covered in mud but can earn more in a day than many of our friends earn in a week. Have been very lucky to have inherited a large sum which is mostly invested for the future. We live well but within our means and enjoy small luxuries. Probably due to the nature of our business and not financing our world to the max we appear less well off but would take our situation over our friends

I believe that you can't become middle class as an adult no matter how much money you earn, likewise, you can't become working class just because you don't earn the kind of money your parents did. This is because class is more about upbringing than money. Its exposure to a set of attitudes, values, and cultural experiences during childhood that sets you into a particular 'class'. Middle class is not better than working class - its just different.

My old boss was worth £12m plus, in the rich list of local paper, many successful business, kids in private school, started it all from nothing.

she always used to say she wasn’t middle class and didn’t give a hoot. She was and always would be working class with money.

Personally I don't understand why people care if they are middle class or not, that’s just my opinion

Is no new class a typo? Do you mean Nouveau?

It's not to do with money. If it were then a middle class person in terms of education/ values/cultural life would become working class when they were down on their luck and maybe having to do a manual job/ minimum wage job/ sign on.

No-one ever asks ' when do you become working class' do they?

I'm from a working class background. I lived in a poor area. My parents came from grinding poverty, left school at 14 to work in the cotton mill. They had a period where they moved into a posh area, had a big house my dad earned a lot of money. They never became middle class though.

I would say I became middle class when I was sent to a good school, when my interests became about theatre etc, when I then went to university. I've still not got a lot of money though.

This Surely if it's just about money then what happens to all these middle class born and bred people if they stop working so have no money.

Nothing to do with wage/salary/income

This.

If you are concerned with class, what class you are; whether you've achieved 'middle class' status or not; are concerned about whether you're driving the right sort of car, eating the right sort of food, shopping in the right sort of places, enjoying the right sort of things so that other people will know you're middle class, then you're not middle class.

This is because class is more about upbringing than money. Its exposure to a set of attitudes, values, and cultural experiences during childhood that sets you into a particular 'class'. Middle class is not better than working class - its just different.

👏

I’m glad I live in a country where this is less of an issue and people don’t really use these labels so much.

Genuinely mc people dont care either.

It's the aspirational mc who does. The people who live desperately trying to escape their wc roots and establish themselves as 'better than'.