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?

For me it’s entirely down to occupations.

My dad worked in a factory as press operator and my mum as a sales assistant in a shop. Both my grandfathers were coal miners. Solid working class.

I went to university, work in one of the professions, and I’m probably middle class, as much as it pains me to admit it.

Now days growing up in rented housing, and having parents who are bus drivers, cleaners, call centre workers, retail workers - not much different at all from the past.
And as in the past, free school meals means you grew up in a home with little money.
The impact? Restrictions caused by poverty. Its pretty obvious.

Working class : unskilled jobs, pay rent instead of a mortgage.

Working class - you need to work to have money. There may be levels within this but if you need to work to get by, pay the bills etc - you're "working" class.

Middle class - you don't need to work and have various streams of income, choice about what you do with your life day to day, but not minted enough to be excessive and no servants.

Upper class - you don't work, you don't know how much money you actually have, or what funds you're invested in (your team of accountants deal with your affairs), and you gave a team of servants.

Absolutely! People seem to forget the 'working' part of working class.
I grew up knowing people who claimed benefits straight from leaving school that described themselves as working class....they had never showed up for a day of work in their lives!

I kind of agree. Although what gets called unskilled jobs are not e.g. nursery worker is a skilled job but not really recognised as such.

Ha, I know numerous people who are in denial about their firmly middle class lives (family skiing trips, music lessons outside school, significant help to buy homes) and desperate to prove they are working class (I went to state school! etc)

Well if your salary is top 1%, white collar - skilled job, but you still have to work - are you still working class?
I think middle class is white collar and can afford reasonable things - good but not flashy car, mortgage, holidays outside UK, private healthcare.

Such an outdated way of thinking.

This is generational. Gen Z are the ones to look at alternatives to university. I worked with four exceptionally bright apprentices that were earning £30K at 20 years old.

Having a degree just isn’t what it used to be at all.

Maybe I’ll change my statement to the only people who care are the middle class full stop then.

There are kids on estates on the outskirts of my city who have rarely or never been into the city centre.

The same!!!

There are actual cleaners and bin men in the world today...!

Yeah those people make me laugh.

Totally agree. Unskilled is the wrong word but I don’t know the correct word!

Struggle. Fighting to afford a basic standard of living.
Lack of opportunity and financial barriers in terms of access to housing, healthcare, culture, travel, higher education, extra-curricular activities, etc, etc.
Feeling deeply that you are at the bottom of the social barrel and that even if you 'aspire', your attitudes and your experiences mean you will never fit in.
Being self-conscious about your accent.
Caring about 'status symbols.' Wanting to be rich.
Caring about class.

I've genuinely only seen one person in my life talk about class, and they were MC with a big point to prove, it seems. Am surprised they managed to drop in private schools and top and tails weddings without finding it painfully crass.

The only other convos I've heard are here on MN!

I'm definitely working class. Class is usually defined by a mixture of culture and income, surely.

I'd say beyond stereotypes about WC people doing x or y, the big divider is the lack of options for WC people based on lack of financial resources and assets to make large purchases and decisions, such as housing and relocating.

Especially in London and the SE where I live, many families are at the mercy of social housing these days.

I have a friend from a middle-class background and she opens my eyes on a near-daily basis.
She buys clothes from Matalan, she shops in Lidl, drives an old car.. she has money but she does not care about money. Couldn't care less about status symbols or Waitrose or whatever a WC person would see as 'the trappings' of middle-class life. Zero envy of people who are wealthier, zero contempt for people who have less. Zero snobbery. Zero 'aspiration'. Just... somehow untouched by classist bullshit, and I envy that peace of mind, and I think about it every time I see her.

I don't think what parents used to spent on you in the past makes you middle class right now if you work as a bus driver.
It just shows the money were invested in the wrong things.

I was brought up to believe it was all about professions and social mobility.
My grandparents were middle class in that my grandfather was an engineer and his wife a housewife. My parents also went to university. But they also had lots of children as they were catholic and followed the rules - which some would say made us working class.
I would say I’m definitely middle class, educated, well travelled 6 figure salary but my husband is working class despite all the above defining me being the same for him.
It’s a strange thing class and I totally understand a foreigner being interested in it. Shame people on MN are so against it. It shows a lack of international understanding and empathy actually. Not realising that class is a very deeply ingrained cultural artefact in the UK - far more than a lot of other places.

This is being middle class. It is VERY easy not to care about money when you have it.

I do feel compelled to add as a working class person, not all of us care about "status symbols" and "brands".

I don't know if it makes a difference, but my family was never impoverished due to my mums earnings. I myself struggle, but I've never grown up in a household that valued things like that.

Quite the opposite; I find the idea of spending £500 on a jacket for example, absolutely ludicrous. I don't have any worries at all about how people perceive me based on my income or class, and do not attach that to my worth at all.

The real worries we have are more existential, like will my kids have somewhere stable to live.

What about housing ... parents own or rent? Is that significant?

This is interesting. Me and DH earn just over £200k per year between us - which I think puts us in the top 1% of the UK for wealth.

However, we need our jobs to pay the mortgage and childcare. So according to you we're working class despite being in the top 1% of UK household income?

Thats ridiculous, surely. My parents and grandparents were very much working class (miners, mechanics, shopworker etc, no qualifications, often unemployed and on benefits, I grew up on FSM and with no central heating) but now I live in a 6 bed detached home, have a PhD and a professional (and well-paying) career, and my own two children attend private school. No way in the world could anyone call me working class without laughing.

This.

Wearing obviously branded things, flashy expensive jewellery etc. I’ve always been taught that if you’re truly wealthy you don’t want to be showing it off.