I was discussing this subject with my dh earlier tonight funnily enough.
We are in our early sixties, benefited from excellent grammar school education, and although nowhere near rich, we are financially stable.
During the nineties in London, we felt positive, as if we had near enough the same opportunities as everyone else, even though we were, and remain, firmly lower middle class. The rich Sloane Ranger types we had encountered at university seemed to have gone in to hiding.
But even during that period we both had incidents in our careers where we were “overtaken” by people with “old money” family and professional connections. And that should have been a red flag!
In both of these situations, we were the obvious candidates for the next career rung up, and someone who was an offspring of the great and good, got the job. Despite that, we both got where we wanted, but it took longer in my case, and in dh’s case he took a career deviation which fortunately turned out well.
So generally in the 90s we felt optimistic about the world. There were far more women in the work place. People seemed to have hope that we could save the planet. Society was becoming more diverse. Access to the internet democratised knowledge and people could seemingly get further on merit alone.
But in the past twenty years or so while we were busy raising a family, it’s like the world has gone backwards while we weren’t paying attention! The top echelons are richer and more powerful than ever before, the division between rich and poor is greater, nepotism is rife, misogyny has increased, the planet is wrecked. And blow me, people are once again overtly signalling that they are part of the “club”. Even frilly collars and gilets are back in fashion fhs!
With more experience of life, we have grown much more aware of the huge advantages that a British public school education brings. Not so much in the academic sphere, but in who you know. And we feel rather foolish that we weren’t aware of this all along!
We’ve become much more conscious that lying beneath overt social interactions, there is an extensive hidden layer of unspoken rules and unacknowledged privilege. It’s taken a lifetime to fully realise the extent of it. And despite economic strictures, the “club” seems stronger than ever.
I worked in the arts and so many introductions started with “oh are you related to a and b” or “do you know the so-and -sos” and when you had to admit that you weren’t related or connected in any way, you were quietly dropped . As mentioned, it didn’t appear to damage our career trajectories too drastically, but it is obvious looking back that it did change them, and it was really confusing at the time. Like you were knocking on an invisible door.
Obviously, those who benefit from this hugely privileged and beneficial establishment “cushion” have fought and still fight to maintain it. And it’s for this reason we are really worried for our dcs and their futures.
Everything seems much harder and more competitive now but also more “closed”. The housing situation seems impossible. And many graduate jobs seem to be obtained through family connections alone. There are more nepo babies in the arts than ever before! In summary, the British class system with all of its fundamental injustices, is alive and extremely well. The same old establishment figures who had power and wealth in the eighties and nineties have hung on to it and trebled it!
I hope and pray that somehow the young can do a better job than we did of making society a fairer place in which to live. I fear we have failed them miserably.