How the other half lives, what and when you learned

[tomorrowalready]

Reflecting from another thread made me realise it was not until my 20s I found out some people expected to have a private bathroom. I went to university then and shared with another mature student who had been married, divorced and said she found having to share a bathroom with unrelated people unpleasant. I had always taken it for granted as had live in jobs and rented bedsits before. She was a lovely person and also the first person I knew who had a glass of wine every evening and she introduced me to many new things - cooking with garlic, sherry, owning and using a car for shopping for example.

So what did you take for granted that surprised other people you met?

Sorry I can’t find the [tugs forelock] emoji.

@HaveringWavering

“Know your place!” eh *@korawick12345*?

Okay then.

Well that is basically what the whole class system is based on! I'm not saying I think it is a good thing but just because you don't like it doesn't mean it doesn't exist!

And just because you talk about it doesn’t mean you actually understand it. How about you answer some of the questions that @sassbott put to you?

I don't think you can change class in your lifetime, class and wealth are distinct and class is based on far more than just occupation

I'm not sure. My mum grew up working class, changed her accent and got a "middle class" job and always considered herself as middle class. Nobody would say she is working class - yet all her siblings are. What would make her still working class?

@HaveringWavering

And just because you talk about it doesn’t mean you actually understand it. How about you answer some of the questions that *@sassbott* put to you?

Bit of a chip there @HaveringWavering I hadn't actually seen *@sassbott*'s post but am happy to respond

I think class discussions are a whole new thread but needless to say MIL and FIL who became a deputy headteacher and engineer respectively viewed themselves as working class - even if they thought they were a cut above the poor in the back to backs half a mile away. It's a peculiar status quo. On the one hand MIL thinks she's a cut above her hairdresser but still talks about toffs and "people like your family" whilst believing herself to be intellectually highbrow. DH regards himself as originally working class and very poor (they weren't but they were so mean the children remember being hungry).

My friend’s dad grew up wc and is now a highly educated and well travelled QC. I’d say he became pretty solidly mc in his lifetime and people would certainly read him that way.

[quote sassbott]@korawick12345 on what basis are you making that broad brush generalisation. Based on what you’re saying, social mobility wouldn’t be a thing.

I would say I grew up in a WC background. Certainly not middle class. Now? I would say I am towards the lower end of the middle class. By no means am I comfortably wealthy (i still worry about money), but my children’s upbringing could not be more different to mine.

I would say I’m the epitome of social mobility. And I have come from a family of one class and moved into another. I would say I’m not alone and friends who would firmly put themselves as WC backgrounds are now very similar to me. None of us would say we’re working class, but we weren’t middle class growing up.

So how does that work?[/quote]
So you will all have children that will be middle class - that's how the social mobility works IMO. You are wc albeit with a greater level of resources and possibly education than your parents but your children ar mc.

@PattyPan

My friend’s dad grew up wc and is now a highly educated and well travelled QC. I’d say he became pretty solidly mc in his lifetime and people would certainly read him that way.

You can be highly educated and wc, you can be very rich and wc, you can be bankrupt and mc. As a poster suggested above within each grouping wc, mc etc there are plenty of subsections! There is a reason people write theses on the English class system. But this is a bit of a derail which wasn't my intention.

So I’m still working class? Just to be clear? Based on your description?

@sassbott

So I’m still working class? Just to be clear? Based on your description?

Yes

i'm basing that on what you have said about yourself, nothing else

😂😂😂😂. I’ve heard it all now. Firmly still middle class as thesis have been written telling me so.
I mean doesn’t bother me either way, couldn’t give a rats ass if people try and put me in WC or MC bucket. So long as me and my kids have manners, empathy, consideration for others and enough money that were not going without good and other necessaries, I’m good.

@korawick12345 your hilariously simplistic approach misses two massive points:

1. If your class is derived from your upbringing, how do “WC” parents bring up MC children when they (according to your view) display none of the cultural, professional or financial characteristics that mark out the middle class?

1. “Working class”- the very label refers to what someone does for a living. So to say that the job you do is not relevant to the class label for which you qualify is logically incorrect.

You can be highly educated and wc, you can be very rich and wc, you can be bankrupt and mc. As a poster suggested above within each grouping wc, mc etc there are plenty of subsections!

I don’t disagree about money not really impacting whether you are max/wc, but my point was he is completely indistinguishable from anyone else mc because he has all the markers and if you didn’t know about his childhood then you would never guess. At that point isn’t he just mc?

@sassbott

😂😂😂😂. I’ve heard it all now. Firmly still middle class as thesis have been written telling me so. I mean doesn’t bother me either way, couldn’t give a rats ass if people try and put me in WC or MC bucket. So long as me and my kids have manners, empathy, consideration for others and enough money that were not going without good and other necessaries, I’m good.

Yet you felt the need to post about yourself and asked a stranger to validate or otherwise your view of your social class

I would really hope that you don't care, about my opinion re your social class because it is of absolutely no consequence!

Interesting about class. My father was a medical professional, my mother didn't work except for 'pin' money. I went to public school and speak with what some of you would call a 'posh' accent although that is a word I hate. We had plenty of disposable income. I considered my family upper middle class. I trained as a secretary/PA because I didn't 'need' (or want) a high-flying career paying a large salary. Probably you would class secretarial work as working class, but that did not make me working class because of my background.

I’d consider most office work, including secretarial, to be white collar and very much MC.

[quote HaveringWavering]@korawick12345 your hilariously simplistic approach misses two massive points:

1. If your class is derived from your upbringing, how do “WC” parents bring up MC children when they (according to your view) display none of the cultural, professional or financial characteristics that mark out the middle class?

1. “Working class”- the very label refers to what someone does for a living. So to say that the job you do is not relevant to the class label for which you qualify is logically incorrect.[/quote]

You can change all sorts of outer markers, you can learn all sorts of social codes, you can change your financial circumstances but you can't just discard everything that has come before. So you can be wc but live a very mc lifestyle so you children will only have a more mc experience as part of their make up but you will have both your early experiences and later experiences in the mix.

Well technically speaking working class would apply to everyone who works for a livings rather than say living off inherited wealth, but that is not what the term has been used to mean in common parlance for at least the last 100 years

Why do you care so much about my opinion of what class people are?

It seems to me what korawick is describing is a mix of a feudal/caste system.
Which is how I believe the very wealthy and landed gentry in the UK views the population.
Yous are all serfs!

It is a very odd dynamic to witness from the outside.
Having said that, I sort if witnessed it from the inside too when I lived in England. My job was very niche, and I met many very wealthy people, but I was poor - with an alcoholic and abusive partner to boot.
They did not know that, and the gap between the way I was perceived vs my reality was a chasm. Very strange.

More derailing here, sort of. But it is such an important conversation to have, so I really enjoy reading the different opinions and perspectives

Because you are telling me that my own assessment of my own parents’ class is wrong, and you know better, with a huge side (snide) order of keeping me in my place. However as you are clearly just some amateur sociologist on a parenting forum you’re right, I should not care.

The way that sociologists used to divide us up was according to education/occupation. This was based on the premise that the better educated one was the greater the probable income. Most of us would have been in the lower B (professional workers - those who've had some higher education), C1 9-(white collar workers) C2 (blue collar workers) then D (manual workers) then on through to unemployed/unemployable.

Nowadays, since becoming more of a meritocracy these 'definitions' have come to mean less, and it has to be said people can be rich as Croesus but still have no class.

class and wealth are distinct

I don't think they are. It's all about money. Other countries say they don't have a class system but they do, it's just based on wealth. Rich people do well, poor people do less well (generally, there will always be exceptions).

For me there's no such thing as "middle class". You either live on benefits/state pension, you work for a living, or you have a private income. Or a mix of any or all of those things! You can be poor and read books and like opera and you can be rich and like Love Island. Hobbies and interests don't depend on birth, they depend on interests and having the money to do them.

@supperlover

I was brought up to hold my knife and fork 'properly ' ( not like a pencil). When I was a student nurse I mentioned to a friend that someone didn't hold his knife and fork properly and she thought that I was talking nonsense. Had never heard there was a 'proper' way.

I was also brain washed in this. Now if people hold their knife like a pencil (or horror of horrors, in the ‘wrong’ hands) I get a visceral reaction. I can’t help it, but realise it’s effectively nonsense!

@korawick12345 I wanted clarity on your thinking. Not to validate who I think I am. Trust me, I don’t wake up each morning wondering if I’m MC or WC. 😬