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?

There is a difference between cultural and economic class. Economic fortunes can rise and fall but cultural preferences remain. And make no difference.

Essentially class is not a purely a cultural phenomenon - this is a strangely UK thing. Economic class still exists the world over. If you and your family rely on earned income for your current and future income you are working class even if you like the Archers and opera and play instruments and have heaving bookshelves and earn a good income. All it means is that you have a greater but not vested interest in the continuation of the current system because you would be fucked without it.

If on the other hand you do not rely on the labour of yourself but make profit from the labour of others and so do not rely on earned income to maintain your lifestyle, you are not working class even if you hate the Archers and prefer Love Island. Change the cultural references and this applies across the globe. This is class. This is exploitation and vested interest.

If you ignore economic class how do you understand inequality? I'm not talking of inequality between individuals who may have strived to different degrees but between groups that share characteristics. Regardless of class are white men superior as they do seem to occupy a lot of positions of economic and political power? How do we explain that? I don't think a concept of the cultural middle class or egalitarianism can stretch that far.

So I thought my parents didn't earn much.
3 of us dcs and DM was a foster parent who stayed at home, while df wore a suit to work and paid all the bills.
Not allowed to watch itv as df worked for a BBC department.
Over time they followed rugby and became quite snobby iyswim.
I on the other hand married into working class.
Bought our own home kids went to local grammar school and we live in a nice area.my corner shop is Waitrose.
No idea how class works tbh.

You asked me to elaborate what I mean by 'values', which is what I did.

What you'd actually like to know is which values I think are held by WC/MC/UC people?

There are many examples. I'd say a key one, that's already been mentioned a lot here, is education. I think the MC demographic value academic results more highly than either WC or UC groups. I think there is far more respect and value for hands-on professions/trades in a WC demographic than a MC one. I think there is far more hand-wringing and worrying over school choices/education in a MC demographic than either WC/UC.

Another area where the groups differ is community. Community cohesion is generally valued more highly in WC communities than MC ones. Social isolation is higher in a MC demographic.

Sociology or social psychology books/papers are where to look for more examples, data and more eloquently explained than I can do here.

I find that hilarious, and yes, the demarcation did indeed exist. You were a BBC family or an ITV family, and if you watched the BBC you didn't watch ITV and vice versa.

And it's not as though there were a plethora of channels to choose from. What a weird, weird stance to take!

As the old Yorkshire saying goes, 'there's nowt so queer as folk'.

We’re WC and my parents held education as very important. My parents went over our report cards thoroughly, attended every parents evening, checked we’d done our homework, we all took our 11+. I failed so went to the local comp. My sister passed and went to a very selective posh (private) school. Ironically my best friend at the comp was very MC and my sister’s best friend at the posh school was WC like herself.

I think money will increasingly trump class. It already is in a way. I grew up WC, went to Uni, and have a well paid job, same as DH. Most of our work peers come from very MC backgrounds.

We live in a nice home, occasionally go to museums and the theatre, have NT membership and we take the DCs skiing every couple of years but lots of wealthier WC also do these things. They are not the preserve of the MC.

I’d rather be wealthy WC at the pub with my mates than doing many of the things listed as MC, which sound boring as hell. I’d also rather have DC marry rich WC person than a poor MC person sitting in a cold house listening to the Today programme on Radio 4 and being an expert on knowing which fork to eat with which course.

I don’t see MC as aspirational and don’t see WC as being authentic and salt of the earth either.

No really obvious economic social classes in India spain Italy Latin america, some may have more opportunities for social and economic mobility. Class is a social contract not a rule of physics but it explains parts of how societies function and how opportunities are not equally distributed.

You can have a working class background & go to uni but the point where you graduate & get a graduate job is the point where you become middle class.

You can have graduate parents but if you don't go to uni & work in an unskilled job then you become working class.

I don’t think it’s about income or job status- it’s more about how you present, hobbies, holidays , schools, how you speak - everything . It’s a vibe ✌️

Yup! I was pulled into a diversity working grp at my employer ( big MC/UMC profession really hard to break into as a junior because pay is low at that level) and stayed what I thought was the obvious -
We are only going to get a load of the same MC/UMC interns and graduates year after year because they can afford to work for £20k because mum/dad/ granny/trust fund are paying a lot of the bills.
If you actually had to live of the entry level salaries we offer - which you still need a degree to even apply for - you’d struggle.
That caused a right fuss with lots of denial!

It took a while but our grad programme now only takes state educated candidates, we pay them a ‘welcome’ bonus after 3 months, guarantee them 24 month training and the salary just about live-able.
We also have an internship - state school only again- for candidates under 25 without degrees and a commitment to give these candidates financial aid towards degrees long term if they stay with us.

The WC and UC are the most alike; generally comfortable in themselves, probably swear a lot, don’t care about appearances. Might like “high brow” stuff, might like trash TV. MC is the bit inbetween where they stress about how they’re perceived.

WTAF!!!!!

I am Archers to my core, due to my (certainly workong class) mother listening digilently.

The Archers is seriously important and not to be used frivolously like this!!! ;-)

Oh the WC definitely care about what people think of them, just tell them they are unambitious and you'll get a mouthful.

They just like to make a big show of "I don't care what anyone thinks!" Which is a solid marker of someone who is working class. Along with lots of complaining about people who are richer than them.

My family seriously don't fit any of your tropes. DH and I are both military brats, his family moved a lot, and mine didn't. DH took a tradie/entrepeneur route and started a company, which has employed a handful of carefully chosen people at any time. There's never been so much work we have to take anyone, so we tend to be picky about who we employ. And we employ men and women with gumption.

That would cover middle class too! Most.normal middle class professions would not take home as much as tradespeople these days! It's the upper class who can afford not to work!

Carole Middleton was very working class look how her children turned out!

Mist people on benefits are in work, though, surely, unless they're pensioners.

Class is cultural, so middle classness is about education, especially art, music, literature and philosophy.

Middle class - well educated, enjoy culture, aspirations, detached house, read...

I know I'm working class. My dad was a labourer (and a widower), and we certainly didn't have lots money wise when I was a kid. The odd holiday which was usually camping, most of our clothes and household goods were second hand. He couldn't afford to have us in paid for extracurriculars, but we did get a family horse...but that was because he was friends with someone at the stables.

However, he was also very clever. No formal education of his own, but he was an avid reader of everything. Don't think there was a classic he hadn't read, and he loved music - everything from Beethoven to Bob Dylan. Education was very important to him. I went to university and recieved several degrees (postgrad), and got a very good job with a very high wage. I'm also a published writer.

Our houses are owned outright. Kids play instruments (DH is a classically trained violinist), we have horses, and they'd (the kids, not the horses!) be aghast if someone gave them chips and beans for tea. I think they're probably MC, but I know that in spite of my life I'll always be WC because that's what I grew up with. You can be WC and still have interesting hobbies and a love of books, literature, and art.

I don't see the obsession with it, really. Why does it matter? There's a woman I know from university, she married a surgeon and she's a SAHM. Very obsessed with appearing MC, to the point she won't do things she enjoys (she wants a tattoo, but won't get it. She won't shop second hand. She throws dinner parties and loathes them) to avoid "showing her roots". It's strange to me.

DH friend who he met when they were at Cambridge was from a council estate, he has done exceptionally well, truly wealthy of all that graduating class. He has however a real chip on his shoulder. His background was easy to spot when he opened his mouth though he tries to hide it. I’m from a very poor and dysfunctional family. My Great grandparents however had been very wealthy factory owners with a house in London and a house in the country. My Grandmother disgraced herself by getting pregnant and marrying down as she used to say in her parents opinion a common soldier, a Sergeant Major and was disinherited.

If you heard myself and my sisters accents you would think we had been to a private school. The accent trickled down from people who I had never even met. When I met DH who is from a family of landowners he assumed I was like him. He calls me his diamond in the rough. The way people speak is still usually the biggest give away as to a background, with a few tricky outliers like myself. If you are looking at it from a sort of My Fair Lady type of slant. My mate is from a council estate she drives a top of the range Mercedes and by her own admission and to her amusement she will always be a council house kid unlike DH mate she makes zero attempt to hide it.

Indeed.

I read a while back that the average trade salary is now £10k higher than the average graduate salary. I can well believe this but I'd still consider most of. the wealthy builders etc that I know to be working class.

I've lived in the UK, Canada and Australia.
I miss a lot about the UK, but not the class division. Its just not a thing in many other countries.

Can you ride a horse….?

@SerafinasGoose can you explain how it works in the US?

I'm emigrating to the US in a few weeks and it's music to my ears that the obsession with class (or at least the toxic form this takes in the UK) is not a thing in America. 🥳