To ask what class you think you are?

[IHate]

People always say everyone on MN is middle class, but are we?! I honestly think it’s a pretty socioeconomically diverse mix.

What class would you say you are? Curious how people map themselves when you take both background and current life into account.

These are the rough descriptions I’m working from (from Reddit - I didn’t write them, so please don’t come for me 🤣). Heritage first, income last.

Upper class
Old families, land, inherited wealth, public schools, Oxbridge, connections that run through generations. Sparse vowels, quiet confidence, and a sense that everything important happens in drawing rooms you will never see.

Typical household income: irrelevant, wealth is inherited.

Likelihood of two parent families: very high.

Age at first child: early thirties.

Upper middle class
Professionals with long-standing pedigree. Parents and grandparents were doctors, civil servants, academics, barristers, consultants, senior military. Private or grammar schooling, strong cultural capital, instinctive ease in elite spaces. This is the group most people mean when they say “middle class”.

Typical household income: often £150k plus.

Likelihood of two parent families: high. Age at first child: early to mid thirties.

Middle class
Educated, comfortable, but not posh. Teachers, mid-level civil servants, senior nurses, managers, small business owners. Cultural capital is mixed. Grandparents may have been skilled workers. Big on gardens, National Trust, and well-behaved children.

Typical household income: around £90k to £150k.

Likelihood of two parent families: moderate to high.

Age at first child: late twenties to early thirties.

Lower middle class
Clerical, admin, retail management, entry-level professional families. Polite, aspirational, very aware of class boundaries. Parents or grandparents often from working class backgrounds. Transitional rather than settled.

Typical household income: around £60k to £90k.

Likelihood of two parent families: mixed.

Age at first child: mid to late twenties.

Working class
Manual trades, industrial work, care work, service work. Strong community identity, distinctive humour, bluntness valued over polish. Heritage is key. You can earn millions and remain working class because class is about where you come from, not what you now earn.

Typical household income: usually under £60k, though can be higher.

Likelihood of two parent families: lower than middle groups.

Age at first child: late teens to mid twenties.

Precariat
Insecure work, unstable housing, gig economy. Identity varies, but the instability itself defines the experience.

Typical household income: under £25k.

Likelihood of two parent families: low.

Age at first child: late teens to mid twenties.

I’m solidly working class. Also, if discussions about class make you cross, this is probably not the thread for you.

I found on MN everybody wants to be Middle and Upper class 😂

I am working class. I rely on my salary to leave, not on family inheritance and trust, the amount of degrees I have and the amount I am earning are completely irrelevant.

I did have my kids quite late, but I don't really know anyone who didn't, make that what you want.

That sounds more light-hearted and fun!

Where do different classes put their fruit bowl?

FWIW I think the whole notion of a fruit bowl is probably a bit middle class. At one end people can't afford to pile it high enough to need a bowl; at the other surely the staff keep it in the kitchen and just bring a changing daily selection to the dining room!

Solidly working class. I was raised on a council estate by a single parent. My parents did manual jobs.

I suppose I’d technically be middle class now due to my education and job but I still consider myself working class.

Somewhere between upper-middle and middle.
My family have been farmers as far back as can be traced, so landed and comfortable but not highly educated. DH and I were both privately educated but both with scholarships. I’m Oxbridge educated, he went to Bristol, both first generation to go to university. He’s a medic, I’m a teacher (SLT) so good joint income but I don’t think we’ve got nearly as much disposable income as we would have done with these careers a generation earlier. Our children are privately educated but with a substantial staff discount. Some interesting thoughts on this thread.

Fruit bowls are not for the likes of me 😂😂😂

Middle to upper-middle in cultural capital and education, working to lower middle in income.

I'm in Ireland and class division isn't a thing really, but per your definition I'd be middle.

Never sure.
Like my parents before me. The male has a working class job in local industry, semi skilled. The female senior management. DM private sector (she had a grammar school education but no university)

I’m senior management in public sector. Live in our own home, end of terrace house? I read, DH only reads about sport. Reasonable well travelled but don't speak other languages.

Oh god, I think the exact opposite! The new money on here always think they're MC but they're just WC with money. Our village is full of them. Transit in the driveway, massive house but not a book in sight, huge garden completely devoid of plants.

I grew up in a working class family but am firmly middle class now.

I don’t really think about it, and often click on these threads as I’m so bemused by the obsession on here with it, and wonder if people are so obsessed in real,life.

my your definitions I’m upper middle. I guess I’d have thought middle if I had to put a label on it without the help of definitions.

I do know what it means. It's just another hackneyed way of dividing society though. "I can trace myself back to the Norman conquest" So what?

Started as slap bang in the middle. Parents were working and middle class. Cultural capital has gathered with my generation via education (incl Oxbridge) and professions. Now an addition of inherited wealth through the hard work of the generation before me. I don’t know where that leaves me! DH and I were not privately educated, and nor were our Oxbridge and further degreed children.

we’re definitely a long way from grandparents’ working class origins. Our family story over the last four generations is a story of a journey from service and manual labour (my great grandparents and grandparents). I think it’s a credit to the twentieth century that this was possible.

Middle class by the definitions above and I feel that's true.

It would be interesting to find out when everyone first became aware of being in a class.

For me it was in interviews for my first job when I was asked what my father did, I said he was a teacher, as I was considering why it was important to the job and then it dawned on me I was being put in a box according to my dad's job, and hence my social class..Its always stayed with me, the experience of being pigeon- holed for something I hadn't seen as related to me.

Middle by your criteria but with income and the 2 parent family/age of 1st child in the next one up.

I'd personally say working class with middle class interests and outlook , my parents left school at 15 and worked in manual jobs , i went to private junior school. We never visited galleries or museums as a child or places of historical interest on holiday (my teenager is agog at this) my dads hobby was the pub.

I don’t really care I’m just happy with
my lot don’t need a label sorry

I don’t think I match any. Dad was working class, mum lower middle. I left home at 17, travelled the world by myself in late 20s. I suppose I regard myself as cultured and relatively intelligent, I had DS at 38.

I’ve had very little to do with either parents by mutual neglect and I have absolutely nothing in common with either of them.

Upper middle class - parents were doctors, grandfathers military personnel, private schools, etc.

Upper middle.

Given they're not legit descriptions, that I don't think really help, somewhere between upper middle, middle middle, and lower middle.

Middle, shading into upper-middle.

I'm privately educated, now an academic, with a fair bit of cultural capital, but have a very socially-mixed background. Maternal grandparents definitely upper-middle, paternal ones definitely working class.

I transcend class.

That's not me, I want to be middle - but my experience of growing up in a working class family was a dad who went to the pub every day, only things read were the paper and being berated for wanting a non manual job when he was drunk as that "wasn't a proper job". And both parents not interested in anything enriching , mum being into tarot cards and other stuff like that. Dad took his shirt off when it was sunny.

My husband is happy to be working class but he didn't have the same parents, they read and did stuff, went to night school etc.

So depends on what you deem working class I suppose. I probably deem it as a bit rough which I know isn't right.

Lower middle class
Clerical, admin, retail management, entry-level professional families. Polite, aspirational, very aware of class boundaries. Parents or grandparents often from working class backgrounds. Transitional rather than settled.
Typical household income: around £60k to £90k.
Likelihood of two parent families: mixed.
Age at first child: mid to late twenties.

I probably fit that on paper - didn’t go to uni, first kid at 25, married at 22.
But
All 4 of my kids’ aunts and uncles went to Oxbridge.
Household income >£150k.
We are ‘strict’ according to our kids and seems we are given some of the parenting I’ve seen. Expect good behaviour, great manners and brilliant grades.
A lot of people assume I’ve been to private school (I didn’t)
Well travelled, good general knowledge.

People don’t know which box to put me in and it’s interesting to witness the cogs turning when I meet someone new (if they’re the sort of person who needs to categorise people. Basically there’s a lot of snobs around here and I perplex them but that’s ok with me, it’s nice to have a snob filter 😁)

And my (wooden) fruit bowl is on the (wooden) kitchen table but my dad does take his shirt off if it's hot (only in the privacy of his own garden though) 😉