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?

Nope.University is free if your parents are on benefits.

I was in a philosophy meetup yesterday . We talk about a lot of different topics.

There was an Indian lady. And she was talking about the history of the Caste system in India.

An English man said "it's a disgusting system , India should be ashamed of itself".

The Indian woman said, "but isn't the class system in England the same?'

He agreed after she pointed it out. How people get abused and looked down on in England depending on what "class " they are in. That the "class system " in England causes segregation.

He wasn't able to see how bad and abusive it was, until it was compared to something else

No it's not...

Good grief, in that case I've been middle class since I was a wild 19 year old punk!

If you'd just like to see 'em try to grind you down, you're not middle class.

I hope the snobbishness of the class system completely dies out this century.

It's extremely old fashioned.

Most punks were middle class.

My cousin’s favourite game with class is playing Posh Or Prole.

He says I’m Posh and he is Prole based on the condiments alone. Something to do with ketchup in the cupboard or fridge.

But I do enjoy The Archers so he’s probably right.

Do you look down on the class system?

My Dad, who is very politically incorrect, refers to knee-jerk aggression as ‘council estate rage’. I think he’s got a point.

For me, 'class' is dependent on the last one or possibly 2 generations of your family or the overview of the majority of your ancestors over the last few hundred years.

So my answer to the question would be "When your parents and grandparents go back in time and become different people with different jobs and backgrounds."

I know the current thinking about class (apart from it being stupid) is that you can start off working class and go to uni, get a degree, become a whatever and you're no longer working class, you're middle class. Fair enough. It probably makes more sense than my view of it tbh. But I still think the determining factor is not your present, but your past. More specifically, your parents' pasts and the broader view of your ancestry.

my dad was working class (miner, son of a miner). When the pits closed he went to uni and trained as a teacher. I don't see myself as the daughter of a teacher and therefore middle class. I see myself as the daughter of a miner. The granddaughter of men who worked in pits and women who were sahms or cleaners or worked in factories. The great granddaughter of the same. I am and feel working class. That's my family history and that's my identity.

Which I am very well aware is ridiculous. I can't explain why it matters to me. I suppose because I was raised to believe it mattered and I am completely brainwashed by it and unable or unwilling to change my position on it.

The happiest are the UC and WC, generally happy with their lot and don't care what other people think of them.

Yes of course.

I don't agree with any system that segregates and abuses people

It's totally the same and both are appalling.

In some ways never, my DB has made the transition, I don’t think I have in my head, my DC are solidly MC.

It's an utter crock. I truly don't understand this peculiarly British hang-up (I've lived in the US and whilst class and aspirations also exist, they take a very different form). It's not, as Mumsnetters are fond of saying, peculiar to this site. It's British society in general.

My grandfather was a joiner and tradesman. My abiding memory of him sees him in his flat cap and dark blue dungarees, clanking his ladders down the street whilst (extremely tunefully) whistling Vivaldi. He was well-travelled and went all over Europe (including behind the iron curtain) in his converted, air-cooled VW camper van. He owned that van from new and had it for over 20 years - my sibling and I have a real nostalgic fondness to this day for a VW camper. They were never financially affluent, but my Gran was a 'good manager' and what they lacked in economics they certainly made up for in experience.

Two generations on: from my grandfather and mother I inherited a lifelong love of classical music, the natural world, arts, literature and beautiful architecture. I have a PhD (literature). I'll grab pretty much any opera or classical ticket I can lay my hands on, likewise theatre (excepting Broadway-style musicals), and give me a good rock gig or better still a festival, and I'm there. I love classic literature and film and also read (and appreciate) my fair share of middlebrow stuff. I grew up in a two-up-two-down house.

This strangely reductive idea that your socio-economic background determines a narrow, myopic circle of interests suitable for your station in life, and that certain interests and pursuits are closed off to you (tickets to football matches cost more than most opera, for eg), is anathema to me.

Who cares what people own? It's what they are that matters.

So are we saying you can never change class, ever?

I grew up in a council house in a very working class area, region with working class parents in a loving stable supportive home. I went to uni. Now live in my own mortgage paid home, in a well heeled city in the SE. I have owned and run My own business for 20+ years. I have lots of those MC markers often mentioned here - Waitrose, R4, theatre goer, cultural holidays and holiday Home in France etc. Am I still working class? I also enjoy a lot of things that are seen as wc here eg football, beer, boozers. I still have my regional accent. Am I still working class

I’m not bothered by the way. I’m happy just being myself. I’m in a a class of my own 😂

Who doesn't? It's a total disgrace - it creates social divisions, stunts social mobility and enforces disgusting attitudes. (I'm agreeing with you of course!)

When you stop caring about money and status with the exception of the major items (house, cars, school, maybe holidays). The posher you are the fewer shits you give. This correlates strongly with income, though not perfectly.

Could you show me the info regarding this? I can’t find anything that says if your parents receive universal credit etc that fees and living costs are £0.

I do too, but it's more than that, it's inherently dangerous and divisive. Also it's treated women in particular abhorrently over the years. The only people who tend to push back about the abolition of the notion of class are those at the top... I guess turkeys don't vote for Christmas.

I was in a philosophy meetup yesterday . We talk about a lot of different topics.

Not your point, but I think attending philosophy meet-ups automatically qualifies you as MC

It does. And I despise it. I really do. When it boils down to it, what do people's social positions actually matter?

I'm not fond of the way people are often keen to slap a 'class' label onto others. 'You do U V W and you own X Y Z, therefore you are middle-class' is one such presumption. That person may have been born working-class and quite legitimately still views themselves as working-class. A person can be working-class, educated and cultured. They are not mutually exclusive.

Regional accents are also a snobbish yardstick for judgement, even though these change rapidly and today's British accents don't even resemble those of even 50-60 years ago. My speech didn't remotely resemble that of my grandparents. It's as though we came from different cultures and different worlds, which in some senses we did. These things don't stay static.

It's tedious. And tiresome.

that lets me out

My children ask for seaweed and olives as school snacks FFS 🙄
I used to have a breakaway