To think middle class people are the most insecure?

[OneCheeryGreenHiker]

The poor don’t have time for pretence, the rich don’t need to prove anything but the middle class seem permanently anxious about schools, cars, kitchens, holidays… AIBU to think middle class life is just competitive insecurity dressed up as respectability?

We're adjacent to an area which is in the bottom 5% in the multiple indices of depravation. Families who are facing homelessness and who can't afford to take their kids on outings over the summer holidays (I chat to the mums so am aware of what's going for them) are still turning up at parties with generous gifts, I find it bonkers to be honest. Even when I invited one of DC2's friends to take a last minute place at DD3's party becuase a drop-out meant I had a paid-for place available, she still turned up with a £20 gift for DD3, even though she wasn't really a party guest as such. I have no idea how they are finding the cash. This is why I made the (offensive) assumption that there's a degree to which these gestures are a form of showyness.

And its not £400 on one gift- people seem to spend around £20- and usually its several bits in a gift bag rather than just one token item. With 20 kids in attendance, I've regularly taken £400 worth of large plastic objects from the B&M toy aisle home from a party. This year will be our first without doing a big class party, and am actually quite pleased to be at the end of all the madness on that scale.

Before we moved here I used to have a £10-ish budget for party gifts and would just give one item- that was with much better off MC friends who were all on high incomes. I daren't spend that little any more as the level of generosity inevitably means pressure to keep up with it (especially when folk know from my job and my address that I'm not struggling economically).

Not everyone who is "middle class" cares about such nonsense.

Oh yeah sorry misunderstood you thought £400 on one gift sounded crazy lol

I don't necessarily think living in a poor neighborhood means someone's poor there's a street I used to live on when I was going through a rough time financially. Big grand houses but 80% of them were split up bedsits or homeless shelters drug addicts and whole families in one room kind of thing. The other 20% were still whole houses with one family unit in worth over half a million kind of thing.

I guess £20 isn't too crazy if you don't know what other people are giving as gifts and don't want your child to be picked on for giving rubbish gifts.
It was a revelation to me when someone got my child just a £1 bag of sweets and didn't bother to wrap it that was the permission I needed to do the same thing for everyone else's brats 😂

Shit and goady thread! Clearly set up to wind people up

The middle class unlike the upper class don't have multiple generations of wealth to fall back on so they worry they're only one maybe two adverse life events away from losing all their status trappings, especially that of home ownership. For most middle class people, not owning a home would be a sign of personal failure and disaster.

What makes you think you’re middle class?

Jesus

In my experience, this is so true..and practically all of them deny it.

The new MC or those who made a lot of money can be.
2nd, 3rd, 4th, generation not so much.
Money is spread around much more so you might have a solicitor, Doctor, living in the same area as a builder or roofer, my Dbro lives in a property worth over a million, he’s not insecure or doesn’t try to be mc, he’s rich but still a wc builder who made good decisions.
My Dsis an accountant has neighbours who are professionals, sham’s or those inherited from their parents, construction workers, a real mix of people can now afford an 800,000 home.