What makes you working class?

[Bdueb]

Was listening to an interview with oa well known actor talking about their childhood and growing up working class. For them a key part was lack of travel and having not left their local area much etc. That was 20 years ago. What about now - what do you think distinguishes working and middle class childhoods of today?

I'm wc through and through on anyone's scale. Dh works but comes from a good background etc his parents were professional and his grandad was an architect etc. Dh relocated to the town we live in for his carer (North West).

Ds1 says dh is mc as he will only eat marks and spencer sausage rolls whereas anyone wc would eat Asda's. It's an ongoing joke to wind up dh who gets called posh all the time.

To my mind, class is about different cultures, which are strongly shaped by material factors. I'm not sure it makes sense to talk about a single working-class or middle-class identity, as there are lots of different sub-cultures (often regional).

E.g. where I live middle class means:

• scruffy, straggly-haired gender non-conforming children
• driving a filthy banger or not having a car at all
• valuing 'education' in a wider sense, but sceptical about formal education, therefore children tend to coast at school
• pay for music lessons but never make your child practice so they don't get past grade 2
• gentle/ineffectual parenting

This is obviously quite different to the more affluent and aspirational middle-class culture that I read about on MN. But you couldn't say it's not middle-class.

I think a working class attitude to money is rooted in scarcity which is reflected in how you spend money so I think worrying about losing what you have is part of that.

I grew up in a v low income household supported by tax credits and sometimes, if my mum was out of work, free school meals. I spent a lot of my early 20s struggling to get by, living in awful housing and getting into debt. We’re very fortunate and my life is comfortable now but I still watch the pennies, make gifts, wait for sales, etc. Making very little go a long way is engrained in me, even though I no longer have very little.

There is a sprawling lower middle
Class now. They work in professional jobs but they don't have much in the way of disposable income ( savings of less that £500k for instance, have to get mortgages for houses, etc) It's a broad category and a bit of a limbo land. Proper middle classes have way more money but are still just wannabe upper class. You can't buy that, it's old money.

So middle-class people buy houses without ever needing a mortgage?

This is the ludicrous criteria I was referencing earlier.

This is so judgemental. It has nothing to do with the socio economic categorisations.

@AuContraire
Yes, they do.

You said the "proper middle classes" would not "have savings of less that £500k for instance" or would not "have to get mortgages for houses, etc".

How does a young adult have £500k savings or buy a house (in a not-dreadful area) without a mortgage? How on earth could that be the criteria to be "proper middle class"?

Always bringing up the fact that they grew up WC. Banging on about life in the 70s and how a bazillion siblings shared one bedroom

Constantly joking about sending young grandkids 'down the mines'

Pretending they only like to eat very simple meals eg tasteless meat with a carrot and a boiled potato but then scoffing all the 'middle class' food we cook.

Saying Tuesdee Wednesdee etc instead of Tuesday Wednesday.

@ChevyCamaro I recognise your description above many in here.

@AuContraire family money, inheritance. Parents have bought properties in their name.

Yes agree with all these signifiers particularly the last one

So proper middle class means massive amounts of wealth (millions) going back generations.

To me, that's not middle class, that's upper.

So regional accents then, with a sneer that the middle class way is the right way to speak.
Christ middle class people can be insufferable sometimes

I am sure you are well liked etc and are accepted by your social circle but that doesn’t change the fact that you were born to a working class family and had a working class upbringing.

Tbh I love RP accent, if you will, and I also love the ‘Blimey, Guv’na!’ accent

They’re both the ‘right way’ , to me

@AuContraire
No, that's not what I said at all. Money going back generations is upper class.
There's nothing unusual, however, about young middle class people inheriting large amounts or having property bought for them when they are young. I have known lots of people in that situation. I am not one of them but many of my friends have been. I am of working class stock but pretty much lower middle class. Professional job, husband also professional job, what some would consider a nice house but no significant savings and still only a few big disasters from losing the privileges we do have.

You are either taking the piss, or living in the film Mary Poppins

I know a lot of very established middle class people and while many of them were bought a flat when going to university, all of them had a mortgage with it.

Truly, having enough money to give all your children/grandchildren a property that costs hundreds of thousands each is very unusual. This is not the mark of the standard middle classes.

No truly

I love both these accents

There's no point at all in trying to apply an outdated concept to today's world. Many academics have attempted to redefine 'class' in recent years.

Another example.

You're right, of course I was born to a very firmly working class family and had a working class upbringing. That is very obvious and clear-cut. The point I am making, however, is that it is ridiculous to now refer to me as working class - I am now far more wealthy, educated and privileged than the majority of society. I would see it as insulting to working class people to call me working class these days. As a previous poster has stated:

There's no point at all in trying to apply an outdated concept to today's world

Class mobility wasn't possible in the past. But now, a girl on free school meals with parents on benefits can grow up to get a PhD from a top university, a high salary in a professional career, marry a wealthy middle-class man, live in a very large house, go on a month-long honeymoon to Hawaii and put her children through private school. So it's ridiculous to try to define someone's class by their parents' career or education level - it's far more fluid and complex than that in the modern world.

How odd - of course I'm not 'hiding' my background ... I'm posting about it on a public forum! My point is that my life is the polar opposite of my upbringing. I've spent the majority of my life living in a very different way than the way I was brought up (we didnt even have a shower or central heating for instance). I don't see my background as a source of pride especially; it wasn't an achievement IYSWIM so why would it be? I'm proud of my PhD though.

Sorry you are still working class. My children are privately educated- still can tell which parents are new money and which aren’t. Class has nothing to do with wealth or houses or material things. It is your parents and upbringing. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Maybe. Not sure - many of them went to private school so doubtful. To be honest, now I think about it, most of my friends were privately educated too.