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?

@surreygirl1987 although plenty of working class people in Essex and the Home Counties for instance haven't had to move away. Commuting into London and job opportunities (blue or white collar), can be found without having to move across the country.

Yes very true. Actually, I currently live within an hour of London and I'm struck by how many of my social group grew up round here. I think it's quite different for the rest of the country though.

To me it’s how your born and raised
I don’t think you can really shift classes for yourself however your children can be raised mc

I work. I'm probably upper working / lower middle class.

My working class credits:
My family; my GDad was a miner, my DM a nurse. My Dad was born in a council estate to WC parents. No one in our family ever went to private school other than a Great Uncles children when he married into the Upper Class. My DH has a blue collar job as an engineer in manufacturing.

My Middle Class credits:
My Dad worked his way up to Director, we had a big house and travelled abroad every year, visiting Hawaii, Australia, Bali, USA etc. I have a senior white collar position at work.

It's not something I think about often but I do feel like I'm in the middle of the 2 somewhere.

That's because in the traditional British sense of the class system, there was no social mobility. For centuries, what you were is what you were born - workers or gentry or Baron von such-and-such. I'm not saying you have to adhere to these ideas now (or class theory in general) and they are divisive, but that's exactly what the OP means by 'old money.' You are self-made, and no matter how you 'feel' - it's not just about money, it's about the history and connections and the family 'name' and all the other things you just won't have and they will. And as much as it might seem outdated and archaic now, those connections are what the aristocracy is built on. That is what class is all about.

And yet well established MC /UC people will be comfortable enough to run the day the way that suits them. It's quite arriviste to feel there is a rigid set of rules you "have to" abide by.

I remember my ex's first gen MC mum being full of all these "rules " about how everything had to be done, totally oblivious to the fact that families that have been MV/UMC for generations are far less obsessed with the rules. I'd grown up in a very solidly MC /UMC family and was utterly baffled by her obsession with how things "should be done" till I realised it stemmed from insecurity . It was an exhausting house to be in

I much prefer being around people who don't give a monkeys about rules and class markers and just get on with enjoying life whatever their "class" and background.

Yes, I fully agree that that is what class used to be, but times have changed, society has changed, and class theory has evolved. Maybe I'm an anomaly who doesn't really 'fit' anywhere.

No ambition

Surely your different upbringing is a source of pride though? Or at least a neutral thing? You aren't better or worse, you just had a different upbringing.
There will undoubtedly be clues to those people and that's fine,.it shouldn't be something you need to hide.. surely you're just living life the way you want to live it not box ticking MC interests?

DH is from a similar background to yours and very professionally successful too. He loves opera and art and sailing now. But we also do bits from his childhood that he loves and I had never experienced, like bowling and crazy golf and opening all the presents first thing on Christmas morning rather than waiting till after church

You don't have to try and hide your background, or deny it is part of you. That's when it becomes fake and uncomfortable

I know plenty of professionals with a similar story but they all have kept aspects of their childhood cultures too, whether that's continuing to support a favourite team or trips back to a favourite holiday destination.

There's no "better " or "worse" about being MC/WC. There's no shame in being MC who has fallen on hard times. Or anything hugely extraordinary about WC made good. It's just a different starting point and luck and genes and tragedy and health and happenstance and hard work all play a part in where we end up.

I know truly dodgy ways people have got wealthy, so I don't worship wealth. And harrowing stories of how people have ended up poor, so I don't feel better than someone with less. I just am. Me with the childhood I have and the life I have now. DH with his own childhood and the life he has built. And we have tried to merge our favourite bits of both to give our children a childhood that feels true to both of us

WC and UC have lots of similarities, love of zero-sum competition - particularly involving trained animals. Personal connections matter more, focused on benefits over costs or risks, preference for immediate gratification.
MC worry about their place, most likely to pursue activities defined as intellectual, whether they enjoy them or not. Worried about losing their foothold and costs or risks over benefits.
I've known WC folks worth £30m+, poor UC to eat fish fingers with fish knives and anxious MC to ruthlessly cull associates who found themselves outside a 'wealth-window'.
Poverty exists in each class - both literal and relative.

I'd say the opposite. Most people's lives oscillate across social strata and even among your husbands oh so MC friends some of their parents may have been newly MC (in fact, the ones who most rigidly need to be MC at all times almost certainly were)

Working class - those who have to work for a living in order to sustain existence.

Middle class - those who can support themselves through inheritance, not having to rely on work to sustain existence.

I agree - I don't think the education element is much of a marker for the generation who had high standard comprehensive schooling and access to maximum grants and free tuition. Many of my peers at university were just like me; parents worked in non professional jobs, often the first in their family to go on to formal higher education, maximum grant funding plus could claim benefits in the vacations. And many of us had had the benefit of inspiring, motivated teachers not ground down by bureaucracy and disenchantment and therefore university was a real possibility. Ended up in pretty decent jobs.

Sadly, for many, they were the first and last to have that opportunity.

The working/middle/upper classification is out of date, but I believe it's disingenuous to say that "class" doesn't exist. There are people who have significant capital and don't really work for it, there are people caught in the spiral of benefits, poor quality housing, or poor health who can't or don't work. Neither group work, but what a huge chasm in their living living standards.

Maybe access to capital is a signifier of "class" these days? I inherited the grand sum of £5k from my parents' house when they died. My DCs will get a six figure sum - but perhaps (hopefully!) not until it's too late to make significant impact to their lives.

I agree with the PP that said class is both cultural and economic. I also don’t think it’s fixed, social
mobility happens.

My work defines it by parents profession and if you received FSM which places me firmly as working class. I grew up economically working class (aka we were properly skint) but felt culturally middle class (free museum trips, lots of books, etc). That cultural capital helped me build a career and I’m now middle class passing but with quite a working class attitude to money, parenting, etc.

The clearly defined groups and associated viewpoints don’t exist in the same way now so I don’t think class can either.

Replies like this are what differentiates fot me.

Solaire18381 · Today 01:07

Working class - those who have to work for a living in order to sustain existence.
Middle class - those who can support themselves through inheritance, not having to rely on work to sustain existence.

So class is all about work/money in the UK? What about the untitled gt-granddaughter of a duke, in DeBrett's, with a PhD in Russian Literature and working as a primary teacher? As the descendant of the family on the distaff side, she is virtually penniless apart from her teaching salary, drives a 10-year old car, owns a few valuable pieces of jewellery from the duchess, kept in the bank, is cultured, well-educated, but dependent on her salary. Upper-, Middle- or, Working-?

This depends on where you live and the state of the economy, though. If there are no jobs, you move to where there are, and if the entire economy is fucked, you emigrate. Around a third of my classmates emigrated within months of leaving school with unemployment at 18% in the middle of a bad recession.

Poverty and lack of opportunity can be a significant force for movement, too.

Middle class people generally have cultural capital. That's usually what people really mean by "middle class" in UK.

I earn bugger all, grew up free school meals etc., but have all the middle class cultural capital. Education, social connections with other professionals, tastes, values etc.

Seeing this allows you to see that "lower middle class" is just working class people once they're earning a bit more. And "upper middle class" is when they have serious money and cultural capital.

I have no idea about the class system in this country even though I’m born and bred British. I always classed myself working class because I had to work for everything I had before I had to stop working due to my ill health however I’ve been told that as we own our house (with a mortgage), had decent education (A level and above) and have two cars we were above working class.

I don’t give two hoots about where we are and definitely don’t aspire to be anything different class wise. It’s all foreign to me!

John Lennon called himself a "Working Class Hero".

Yet he was a multi-millionaire by his 20's. So once working class, always working class?

I would say it’s all about your parents and upbringing. Your class (in my books as a person that would have been in the working class bracket) is mostly determined by wealth, work and education which then impacts the choices you can make and the social circles you end up in. So I’d say working class would be -

blue collar work
Education below undergrad
Household income (I’d probably say £25k and below?)
Minimal savings
zero to little generational wealth

I don’t understand why people are saying things like going to family gatherings and parents not being invested in education - as this can happen in middle class and wire families - elite families just pay their way out of caring.

In comparison to Middle class or the elite

middle class/elite
White collar work / large sums of wealth through businesses or other income streams
Edication above undergrad / ditto + paid off all education
Household income up to a million / Millionaires and billionaire
Large sum of savings / unthinkable amount of savings
Some inheritance passed down and ready for own children / generational wealth and old money or self made with riches

Would you describe Wayne Rooney as middle-class?

Well, I can sum up my own experience:

• Council house
• Parents a bus driver and cleaner
• No interest in education nor encouragement to further myself
• Parents worrying about money constantly - food was Tesco basics
• No holidays - although I did have a weekend in Blackpool once, and a few days away in England somewhere, but never went abroad until I was 18 and could afford it myself
• I was offered a university place but my parents couldn’t afford to finance it
• No generational wealth whatsoever

But then, working class is literally defined as working manual jobs with a lower level of knowledge, whereas middle class is working more ‘professional’ jobs with a higher level of knowledge.

I am now a nurse living in my own house with a mortgage (first in my family as everyone else had a council house). I’m not really sure where that puts me, as that’s where I came from and what I knew but I worked hard to get where I am.

London cabbie Dad and a secretary Mum, living in Catford in SE London in the 1980s and having to wait for eg new school shoes...I have no idea really though, as our house was massive and beautiful, we had a Volvo estate, went to National Trust places for fun and my parents valued education. I've typed that out as it's all true but kinda highlights that 'class' is incredibly complex...and doesn't matter a jot!!

I had parents who were a teacher and a nurse, working class jobs, mortgaged semi growing up. Definitely working class. They proudly wouldn't describe us an anything else.