Class

[Boe]

Just wondered what made people a certain class - I was described as middle class the other day and not sure if I agree.

There are a few mentions n Northerners thread about her parents coming to stay and I can not for the life of me figure out what makes one middle class or working class - I go to work so IMO I am working class - Is this right????

Can u tell PPH Is rolling in it.

well, the duke of northumberland has just had to sell his raphael to make ends meet...

ok, ok, bossykate, you've unmasked me

I am, in fact, the Duke of Northumberland.

Anyone want to buy a picture?

BK, that sounds like a line from Jilly Cooper's Pandora!

janh of course i was being flippent with my comment about being superiour as a northerner - especially during a discussion about class.

princess pea head - not sure what the copy and paste quoting thing is about i have a scroll button but thanks anyway for the effort

on the same level as you ask me to question why i automatically assume parents of said 18yo hadnt worked hard, i would ask you to question your automatic assumption that they had - i was asserting the argument that some people are born into money, it is therefore easier for them to receive or give a mercedes whereas some people may aspire all their life to have one and despite how hard they work never ever get one and how that is unfair.

i am aware that discussing this topic on mumsnet i will not change the world i have little effect on social policy and will not acheive this single handedl. i still like to discuss these things however, so (to help you out)...
"So why don't we focus on improving the lot/circumstances/educational opportunities of those children who DON'T have a good start in life instead of moaning ineffectually about how "unfair" it is that other children DO have a good start in life. And blaming it on that old chestnut, "class". "

whilst i agree with most of your sweeping statement ( who would not) you do not give me the tools, arm me with the knowledge to improve the lot/circumstances/educational opportunities of those children.

i try to do my bit in the life i lead, in the job i do. i firmly believe that the redistribution of wealth would help to solve these problems, whilst at the same time acknowleging that throwing money at a problem does not solve it. however it would go towards much needed resources in some sectors, resources that some in the press juxtapose against benefit fraudsters - not M/C tax dodgers

becuase i have been looking down the settee for money, what i want is for no one to be in that situation and for some ignorant few to understand that there are situations like this.

ok so some people make it out of poverty climb the ladder of conventional success and buy a merc. how many are still bound by poverty? they are still there becuase of the class they are in and the lack of support, educational, health, numerous other lifestyle opportunites that many others take for granted. this society is unequal and unfair and suits a powerful few.
and believe it or not some people do not aspire to be another class, to be rich or to have a merc. some peoples aspirations transcend petty bourgoise ideals to a higher basic level.

and whilst PPH you didnt like what i had written your comments to my "rant" was itself poor. its really great when some people make a counter argument using their thoughts and experiences, their passions. rather than making an attack.
BTW, i would describe it as passion - Rant is such a negative word as i am sure it was intended. i can see you too are also very passionate PPH.

it's true about the painting. it has been hanging in the national gallery for years, and they have been given millions of pounds of lottery money to save it for the nation. went to syon park recently (owned by said duke) and lots of the buildings were looking very dilapidated, so i hope he uses some of it to invest there. apparently his wife is building a huge new garden at their castle in alnwick, so some of the cash is going into that too. i read/heard this on the news btw, i don't know them or anything

This is an interesting thread, I have read much of it, but not all (at work in a hurry) however I use the class system on a daily basis as do all advertising and marketing people. You may be shocked but that ABC1C2 class system was defined in about the 1920's and is still used today! Changes have been made in that the version jahn used is the modern version. It used to be even worse!

When I am selling advertising people ask me who reads my magazine, and I say BC1C2 (mass market) and that puts me in a position of being too downmarket for certain advertisers!! Most magazines suggest they are read by a high percentage of ABC1 people, which means they are slightly more 'upmarket'. There are other forms of profiling for marketing purposes, 'mosaic' profiling goes on postcodes (!) and lifestyles. Slowly new things are coming through such as 'trend setters', 'early adopters' etc which denote their emotional way they purchase, and 'empty nesters' etc which donote their lifestage.

You all would be shocked at the way marketeers use such unsophisticated methods to choose where and how to advertise to us, and how they still place us in our social classes as if that bears any relevance to the way we shop! I am always using he footballers wife scenario (or Essex wife - which I can because I live and work in Essex!). These women by their social class are D (if you go by the husbands job - I know footballers are skilled, but not in working terms), but they have huge amounts of disposable income. Posh Spice is a D-grade, so officially she only reads womens weeklies like Take a Break and Womens Own!!

Has anyone then seen 'Young, Posh and Loaded'? It follows the children Custardo are on about. Their parents have stackloads of cash, and the children just go around spending it. The one I saw featured a teenager who spent £1,000 on shoes, then got home and decided that she didn't like 2 pairs, but she wouldn't take them back, she would just stash them in her wardrobe. She did no work at all, she spent her days with her mother getting manicures, pedicures and shopping. Then when asked if she was spoilt, said "Of course not!" This kind of attitude really makes me seethe!

It's not that they have all the cash they want. Her father may well have worked hard to provide for his wife and daughter. It's the attitude they have with it. This selfish, money-grabbing, spoilt, vain attitude. Of course they know about people who struggle to make ends meet, they know about poverty etc, it's just that they don't care. It doesn't affect them so why should they care?

And anyway, Custardo is definitely middle class as she has a blender!

Sorry, Custy, I can't let you lie like this, you fitted into the Grand as if you lived there, you naughty girl.

Well, I don't think Custardo was ranting. I think she was just saying in her own inimitable way what many others, including PPH in her latest post, have acknowledged on this thread- that class, social exclusion, money etc do tend to make a profound difference to people's life experiences and life chances.

Maybe people are getting antsy with Custy because they believe that they shouldn't have to feel guilty for being middle class, socially lucky and/or rich? I have some sympathy with that- my Dad is not badly off and is very generous to his kids and grandkids. I'm in the position of the despised girl in Common People (I'm amazed that we've got so far into this discussion without mentioning Pulp...) who watches roaches climb the wall but if she called her daddy he could stop it all, though I hope I'm not out of touch with reality in quite the same way, I must say. I haven't actually watched roaches as it happens but I've certainly searched for coins under cushions with absolute desperation before now because we were skint. But my desperation was different in kind from Custy's as I understand it- I was trying to avoid calling my Dad and asking him for a handout because doing that made me feel like a complete failure, even though he is a sweetie. Not nice, but very different from knowing that no coins = no food because no back up. And yes, my parents worked hard to earn their money, but so, I suspect, did Custardo's parents.

I personally think that, as someone who considers herself advantaged, the onus is on me to think about and acknowledge my luck and be very, very clear that it is just that- luck. I don't object to people making money and doing well for themselves at all but I do object to people pretending that a very bumpy playing field is smooth or simply failing to acknowledge that it's harder to play well on the bumpy bits. Yes, it's not my fault as such that my Dad is able to bail me out if he chooses, any more than it would be my fault if he could not, but that and the upbringing I had- and consequently silly things like the way I speak and the expectation that I would go to uni to name but 2 quick examples- give me power and advantages that I haven't earned. I'm not ashamed of being "middle class" at all- I'm very proud indeed of my lovely middle class parents both as people and as parents- but I am aware that I am privileged because I have not known what it is to truly go without anything. I think that fact alone makes my life experiences very different from that of many people I meet in this country. And I totally agree with Custardo that it's not fair.

Teletubby, sorry, but you are not upper class my dear.

Rhubarb - I saw YP&L you refer to. I was gobsmacked at the mother's comment along the lines of 'a woman needs to spend at least £150,000 a year on clothes to be well-dressed'. And the daughter 'this is going to be painful for someone' referring to her dad picking up the bill.

I have been talking to a fair few people about it this week and someone said maybe the father is quite happy to pick up the bills as all he requires is that his wife and daughter be happy and look the part when required to. That it may be important to him that he can bring colleagues home at any time and wife and daughter will not be in a state of undress, rollers in hair, house untidy, etc.

As someone who's parents have died, can I pose a question. Yes I am middle class, my parents were middle class, my dh and his parents are middle class, so things should be very set. Yet what would happen if I found myself on my own, lost touch with my inlaws and fell on very hard times with no chance of recovery (by me or anyone else)?Could that change my class? I have a feeling that a family's class becomes less set each time the oldest generation dies off.

grammar mistake, sorry - I meant as someone whose parents have died...

Hear hear Scummy. Bossykate, I read a Lynne (sp?) Barber interview with the Duke's wife (Duchess I suppose she must have been then) about her garden and the painting being sold to pay for it. The thing is, the garden is horrible and cost something ridiculous like £40m. Now, that's obscene. SueW, it's straight out of Pandora isn't it?

Tigermoth, I suppose it depends on how much you think class depends on money as opposed to values, education, accent, family history and life expectations. If you still had all your other middle class attributes (and we haven't decided what they are here so far) but no money, I think you'd still be middle class.

Life ISN'T fair. The playing field IS bumpy. Some people will ALWAYS be "above" other people. That is the way the world works. The poorest children in the UK are still better off than the children on the streets in (say) Ethiopia. Is it fair that our children get a better standard of education and healthcare than those children simply by virtue of the fact that they were lucky enough to be born into a UK family? If that's how you judge class than the UK is a higher class than (say) Ethiopia. Should we even out the level between us and them too?

Poverty is not the fault of the so called class system. Some peopl ewill always be better or worse of than others. What is at fault is how the benefits system, education & healthcare work/are funded.

I'm just off to buy a Noel Streatfield book to make myself middle class!! Then I'm gonna not wash and let my house get all yucky so I can be upper class!!

Funny but I have these preconceived ideas of class and they are nothing to do with money or where you live. I always look at women who wear tights with open toed shoes, women who smoke roll ups and women who wear too much gold jewellery as being terribly lower class and people who brag about what they have - I never really think of men being lower class but certainly notice when they are upper class.

God - I am horrible and shallow aren't I!!
Sorry not very deep and quite lighthearted but am not really in the mood to get into this and have never thought about it too much to have a view on it that really means anything.

So sorry all you roll up smoking, tight/sandal wearing and gold jewellery wearing mumsnetters. xx

Re poverty - I think Oliver James said it was harder to be poor in an affluent, greed-oriented society such as ours than in a society where everyone is poor, but nobody goes hungry and is clothed and housed and have social networks. It is the difference between what we have and what we aspire to that can make us very unhappy. I also agree with Julie Burchill that in this country it is seen as a crime to be poor, so much so that even on Mumsnet people want to 'fine' or punish poor women by taking their children away from them.

how true aloha.
i never learned how to roll my own ciggy and was laughed at becuse i couldnt do it! i do have a relative who can roll a ciggy with one hand -impresive.

i too think in terms like you boe but rather than a judgement made on roll your own ciggies -
i make a judgement call using earrings. large hooped - drop down bohemian or small studs

Well I roll a mean rollie and I'm posh as f**k

I also believe that we are quite out of touch with poverty in this country, as in all Western countries really. Globalism is thriving, and it benefits the rich rather than the poor. Someone termed it a McWorld, which I thought rather appropriate!
My dh's brother and his wife typify this ignorant attitude. They grow their own organic vegetables in a plot in their garden. They only buy organic and environmentally friendly products, they are vegetarian because of the way animals are treated. Yet they happily drink Nescafe, wear clothes with obvious logos such as Next and Gap and spend a fortune on material things such as furniture, toys, etc. No second-hand goods will pass through their door! It's crazy really!

I guess it does boil down to attitude. I'm glad we don't have much money, because the people I know who do have a lot of money, have had to be ruthless and ambitious to get where they are, and they are not traits I would like to have. A lovely home with beautiful furnishings and designer clothes are all very well, but you can't take them with you when you die can you? What use are they then? They are just symbols to show the world how rich we are, we don't actually need any of them. And sometimes the working classes are the worst culprits, they have run-down houses on sink estates, yet go into those houses and you will find the latest Digital televisions, DVD players, Sky, Hi-Fi equipment with amplifiers, Playstations, X-Box, etc, etc. Maybe they have this illusion that if they have all these possessions, it makes them a better class than what they are.

The class system therefore, is only really relevant to Western societies. In other countries where the gulf between rich and poor is greater, there is no class issue. There is just poverty and wealth.

OMG - just had a blender delivered to my door!!!!!!!!!

V.enjoyable thread, but, why is it that throughout the thread it is not considered pc to make comments/jokes(?-I hope some were!)about "lower class people" but "upper class people" appear to be fair game for every piss take going???.