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?

All the MC kids round here do loads of clubs.
I did literally none when I was a kid.
They all have private swimming lessons and do a variety of other clubs too. Karate, chess, football, rugby, gymnastics, dance, circus skills, coding, drama. They never stop.

The other thing is camping, it is huge amongst the MC families at school. There are class camps organised by parents each year and you can see that people have spent ££££ on their equipment, a few have vans. The less wealthy families never attend the camps.

Not read the thread but the travel thing is nonsense. My grandma was one of 5 kids in a back to back in Birmingham, they all moved as soon as they could presumably because there was little space and opportunity where they were, she went to London, I presume at 15 for a nursing training job. My grandfather also moved from Kent to London for work, his ancestors were from all over, at least 2 had come from Africa via Caribbean, many of my ancestors on that side were merchant seamen, so well travelled but definitely working class!

It's definitely weird how camping has become such a MC thing. I do wonder about intergenerational wealth and whether that will be a key marker more than uni i.e. can the kids of today get on the housing ladder in ten years time. Though I guess it might also mean there would be more wc kids in south east because property is so expensive than elsewhere.

Just read the replies from a few pages ago and can't believe that "interest in nature" is considered strictly middle class 😅

I do find an awful lot of these things are just dated stereotypes.

A friend walked into my living room and commented my TV was 'council estate' because it's a decent size 56 inch.
I've never understood how people would use things like that to define class, but they did. That watching TV was seen as WC because MC listen to the radio or read more...
Also that TV was something designed by MC to 'control' the WC is something I read.

If having a top of the range TV with a bang and olufsen sound bar that makes watching TV and films an absolute pleasure makes me WC whilst she squints at her small TV with crap resolution but is apparently MC then so be it I say!

Very literally it is working in jobs that provide low pay, require limited skill, or physical labor usually with reduced education requirements.

you might grow up in a working class environment and it might shape you enormously but the minute you’re in a higher paid managerial job etc you are no longer working class.

I don’t know much about Ant & Dec as I don’t like them but Paddy McGuinness was brought up by a single mum working as a cleaner in social housing and Vernon Kay’s dad was a lorry driver. How would you define a working class background if lorry drivers and cleaners are middle class?

This is interesting and I’ll extend the idea a bit

ive got quite a bit of experience of interacting on a personal level with both educated middle class and uneducated working class families

There is a massive level of hypocrisy with the educated middle class parents. They don’t EVER want to acknowledge they made a mistake with their kids - sending them to a ‘bad’ school etc - cos mistakes and bad schools are for the working classes - according to them

When said I hated school in front of a relative my uni educated middle class mum corrected me IMMEDIATELY and said “No! You LIKE school don’t you?!”

My Oxbridge Uni educated Dad said problem drinking was a working class thing. HOWEVER, my doctor mother was an abusive, aggressive alcoholic who would fall down the stairs through drink and because of her consequent embarrassment - would tantrum and everyone else for this! To me, denying that my doctor mum was an alcoholic is like Sid Vicious denying he’s a junkie !!

My MC friends went camping when I was a kid but I got to go to 3 star all inclusuve holidays in hotels in Benidorm !

GET IN!! 🤣

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

So there can’t be that mc then as very few people don’t need to work in some form to sustain an existence.

I think taking snuff and owning a ferret are two of the criteria.

Some of these comments about WC are ridiculous, no books, no ambition, opening all their Christmas presents.

Your DC is wrong. Going for a ramble, the right to roam and public access to the countryside is something we have to thank working class people for.
https://kindertrespass.org.uk/kinder-mass-trespass-history/

May I suggest a very good read about the British Class System?

Class - Jilly Cooper

Its old, around 1980s, its hilarious and still very relevant

@suki1964 thankyou. I guess my question is whether reflections from the 80s are still relevant? Or have things changed enough...

I think it's now a completely outdated concept involving many factors but to name a few....

Trades people out-earning academics, a more varied mix of people affording houses with good schools, more access to university, cheaper travel, people having relationships and starting families with people from other backgrounds...fast forward one or two generations and its a complete muddle. There's also been a huge shift in dynamics of families. Lots of women choosing rather than needing to work. Meaning a huge range of circumstances (1 high earner and a SAHP) , 2 high earners, 2 low earners etc etc).

Purchasing brands and expensive cars or having foreign versus UK holidays are no longer about class and the days of judging others for Sky TV or big tellies are long gone for most. Regardless of class there are people who feel they dont need to prove their wealth with a 'nice' car. But also highly educated people with a large disposable income who want one.

ETA I think middle class was exactly what it's called...the bit in the middle that isn't the very 'top' or 'bottom'. Due to all the things above, the middle is now almost everyone encompassing a huge range, so no real point to defining it.

Why? One class isn't inherently better or worse than the other.

@suki1964 class in UK is fascinating for non Brits because whike everyone has really strong opinions and use class grades as insults, no one actually knows which class is really which and who is who and it's all oddly jumbled.
Like I just said on theatre thread, I cannot understand theatre being MC thing coming from country where culture was important and accessible and encouraged.

There are many odd differences between countries (eg ready meals expensive in one but very much food of poor in other) and some things which make me giggle. Like hummus, the food of many poor people, is MC in UK. Walking, reading... What? I was called MC because I make my own sauerkraut....

It's actually somewhat funny.

Tbh most of this is just a Mumsnet nonsense anyway.

I don't know anyone who fixates on class in real life. In all honesty I wouldn't spend much time hanging out with someone who did.

Tbf to MN I have met quite a few people being very vocal about their (and others') class. Most people are not, though, but the ones who are are sometimes so weird.

The sauerkraut gate happened irl😂

Nonsense, I was called middle class at school as an insult as my Dad sometimes dropped me off at school in his nice company car, and because I worked hard. My school was in a pretty rough part of town, but I chose to go there to avoid some horrible bullies from primary.

Before I went there class wasn't even a concept I was aware from, in my mind it was royalty/aristocracy, and everyone else with some just having more money than others.

The 'working class' (well, not really working class as about half had parents on benefits their whole life, including some of my closest friends) focused much more on what they saw as me being middle class than I ever did on my or anyone else's class. Little did they know that my parents both came from abusive very poor households where they were barely fed, my mum had a really strong focus on working hard to get out of poverty but this was linked to a desperate need for us to not grow up as they did, not to do with snobbery or class

Class matters a LOT in British society.
I think most people know this. Its muddled as its easier if we don't think too much about the unfair aspects of it.

When you live abroad you see how bad class issues are in England.

Good luck working it all out !

Owen Jones writes a bit about this. Maybe look that up.

The few I have met IRL have tended to be generally quite unpleasant people and /or insecure people who are poorer than they expected to be or who have done well for themselves and find themselves in MC circles and desperately want to "fit in" so frantically obsessed over the right thing to wear /say/do etc . I can have sympathy with that to a degree but honestly why be ashamed of your circumstance of birth - be proud of who you are and what you have accomplished. One class isn't inherently better than another.

My WC class kid asked for a microscope this Christmas. We got her a camera thingy that works as both and she spent most of yesterday looking at bugs , leaves, flowers and various other "naturey" things. She obviously has aspirations well above her station. 🙄

Agreed.
Some are the other way around as wwll
I had very vocal colleague who grew up WC, not poor(EVERYONE WAS TOLD), kept going on about it how he is WC and they don't get it while having expensive holidays all around the world, lived in poshpad, well paid job etc. God forbid you would serve him boring cottage pie😂 It was so odd!