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????

I wonder if the class applies also to foreigners?
I was told that class is recognizable in the accent and in the way people talk... if you are foreigner this doesn't apply to you then?

I believe 'class' exists in all countries and cultures ... it has to as historically most societies have been based on hierarchy where there have been nobility, professionals, and workers .... some countries of course have had revolutions against such systems ... look at France and Russia ....
I am very good friends with a couple who are English but whose parents originally come from India. My friend says that India is one of the most 'classist' societies in the world ... look at the caste system. Her parents in law own a shop in Surrey. Next door to their shop is another shop owned by another couple from the same area of India as them .... they even have the same surname ... but they do not talk to the people next door as they are from a lower caste ...

I totally believe class exists, everywhere. As a description of the kind of expectations and life-experiences that one has that shape expectations. And what you believe that you deserve in life shapes how you decide to live your life.

British (often?usually?) seem to decide the "value of a person" based on their social class, that's what's hideous. Americans decide the value of a person based on success; we get labeled "Brash", "crass" and "anti-intellectual" for judging people on their achievements, not their manners or whether they conform to how our "class" behaves. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

I had a French friend who railed against the British obsessions with "class" & conformity, too.

zebra: It's also very apparent to me that class distinctions are everywhere in this country, perhaps because of the sharp contrast to America. But in America, is it really your achievements that dictate your "class" is or is more simply "money?" Are scientiests who are remunerated modestly and live simply but are nonetheless working towards the Nobel Prize considered to be of the same class as a billionaire financier? Or even a Jennifer Lopez? I think that's where "anti-intellectualism" comes in.

Also there's the whole WASP (white anglo saxon protestant) contingent who remind me of the British Upper Class in manners and values. For them, the longer your ancestors have been in the US, the higher your status. So that's another more subtle aspect to the US "class" system.

happyspider: I've heard that foreigners are exempt, but I don't think they are entirely. sofiaames, another American poster, has some stories about the difficulties of socializing as a couple with her English dh here, because he's considered working class (a builder) and she's considered middle (an architect). He doesn't fit in with their middle class friends, and his working class mates are highly suspicious of her.

Wow this is interesting - and no I do not keep pigeons (have a few wood pigeons in the back garden which DP is obsessed with chasing away - maybe this is why!!) And I really do not think I have ever touched a piece of coal - we have stuff that looks like coal in the grate but sure it is just fake!!!

I do speak kinda posh and have been educated and live in a nice 3 bed house in a not too terrible neighbourhood and I have a good job but I always feel like I am just the same as everyone else.

I go out of my way to speak to the postman and the tealady at work as most people seem to ignore them - to me they are exactly the same as me but have just chosen to pursue a different career.

My father is most certaily working class (although he is self made millionaire), his father was a docker and his mother worked in a factory - he married a teacher and she comes from where I would say is the pits of GB (Isle of Sheppey!!) but she would most certainly say she is middle calss (although as hideous taste in clothes and wears acres of tacky gold jewellry!!) her mother worked in a shirt factory and her father was an electrician!!! So maybe it is about education - Father has no education and stepmother obviously had a uni education.

DP is what I would call middle class - although his family made their money (a generation or tow ago) owning a fruit stall at convent garden, his father worked in a bank and his mother never worked.

Think maybe class is about the way we speak afterall and the way we view ourselves and our wealth and aspirations for ourselves and our children.

Oh well none of what I have written makes any sense to me - Tallulah nt sure where you live but think others attitudes to your husband are appaling.

Oh and Teletubby - my birthday is in about 8 weeks - can I borrow your husband??

(Please do not attack me for anything I have said here - I am none the wiser and a lot of it is just rambling)

I think class is both all-pervasive and utterly fascinating, and that I agree with a lot of the postings here about how it operates and how much it matters.

I'd also like to pick up on a point of Tellytubby's, though: I'd say posh people, notably the aristocracy but not just them - say people I went to Oxford with, from very privileged backgrounds - have much MORE of an expectation that everything will be provided for them. My taxes pay for Prince sodding Charles and a lot of his upper-class mates. And they do rather better than people on council estates.

Not only are they dim - their houses are filthy!!!

Wow - this is a subject we are all clearly passionate about! I would like to think that the class structure no longer exists, but I'm afraid to admit it probably does to a certain extent. If I were to be pigeoned holed I would be working class I guess. I grew up on a council estate, was state educated, didn't go to Uni and never holidayed abroad as a kid. My Dad however always worked - he is a joiner, Mum was a SAHM. I grew up in a loving environment, and was encouraged to follow my dreams. DH is probably middle class, his Father is a self made millionaire, dh holidayed abroad and went to baording school.

However, I would absolutley not change my upbringing for dh's for all the tea in china.

I now live in a lovely area of Harrogate, work as an Event Manager and have a comfortable life. Does that mean I have changed to 'middle class?'

When my parents and dh's parents get together I am aware of a difference, more of a different way of life I guess, but it does not make one person any better than another. People should not be judged on material possessions, professions etc but on whether or not they are nice people.

Teletubby how can you say about your reference to "council" they expect everything to be given to be handed to them on a plate. Sorry but not everyone is like your sister. IMO that was a totally unfair, biased, narrow minded comment.

Here, Here doormat.

I think we are what is now becoming known as "nouveau pauvre".

Apparantly this is an emerging class, usually middle class/professional people who live in London or other big cities, both partners work long hours and are well paid but have no time, therefore have to pay a nanny, cleaner, dogwalker, gardner, ironing service etc to do everything for them. Also due to the price of property have an astronomical mortgage just to afford an average 3 bed terraced house in an area where the kids won't get mugged going to the shops. The local schools are so oversubscribed that they end up paying privately as Jemima and Tarquin can't get into the decent state primary.

So despite the fact that they have a billion pounds a month coming in they end up spending 1.5 billion just to finance their lifestyle.

Ho hum.

(am going part time soon so will get out of this hurrah!)

sounds like too much stress to me sambom ! one thing I have noticed over the years is that people who are born into richer families - and don't have to claw their way out of relative poverty like a lot of us - are stinger and often total tightwads. I was raised on a council estate, no money, single parent family etc, made it to university and went into a 'profession', married someone earning pretty well.Dunno what class I am, don't care. But I will never forget all the tightfisted skinflints at uni who already had their own car etc, whose parents financed their long trips abroad in the holidays who were mean and miserly.BTW telletubby you want to be careful about using the term 'council'as a pejorative label.Your 'council'collects your rubbish, lights your street and so on. Or are you too good for that ?

donnie, we are not really that bad! It was just something I read in the paper as being a new class emerging! We do have a nanny as we both work and a cleaner cos we are sooooo lazy! However I work at home most of the time and dh doesn't work long hours really, we have a pretty chill lifestyle and I don't think I would be suited to being a SAHM full time!

We still have a class system because we still have a monarchy, the French "got rid" (!) of theirs a few centuries back.
I like motherinferior's point because I've always thought the upper class and the working class have far more in common with each other than the middle classes.
I take issue with Teletubby in that people evidently do not have equal opportunities.
Me? I'm definitely classless

Expatkat:
Ah, but you see, achievements count for twice as much in the US if they happen to make you rich and/or famous, too! Charm counts for a lot; & you can come from any class and become the nations' sweetheart. Can you see a star of EastEnders getting labeled the rose of England? Neah, had to be Jill Dando or P. Diana, didn't it?

Carl Sagan was terribly famous & respected for being good scientist & personable. And then again, if a US billionaire marries a poor boy and brings him to a posh party, the odds are no one will notice him for having the wrong manners, hobbies or clothes, whereas he'll stick out a huge sore mile to Brits, for having wrong accent/clothes/pigeon preferences, etc. Quite difficult to move into certain classes here in the UK; you really do have to be raised into it. Not so tough in USA or France, I imagine.

I think I'm right about majority Americans, but admit Northeast USA is more snooty than what I describe.

Race is different from "class"; race is a big barrier in the USA, I'll give you that. I can't assess racism in the UK, it often seems very strong, either blatent or cleverly subtle.

As a relative outsider ( I'm Irish ) I'm interested that none of you have placed yourself in the 'upper class' section of British society. Is it necessary to have royal connections to belong to this stratum? Or does it just sound too conceited to make the claim? I'm just curious.

So Tellytubby thinks we are all offered a good education but we don't all work to achieve. Bollocks! Unfortunatley not all state schools offer a good education due to large class sizes, lack of funding etc etc. So some children through no fault of their own get the shitty end of the stick when it comes to schooling.

My Dad is a local councillor in a North Eastern town and therefore has contact with 'council residents' every day, and yes some people do expect things handed to them on a plate but there are alot that don't. It is difficult being brought up on these estates as crime tends to be higher, schools are not so good, and unemployment is high. But when children have no role models who actually go out to work it is hard to break this chain and more and more people expect to be able to live off the welfare system long term instead of using it as a temporary measure. The difficult bit is breaking the chain.

I appreciate that i do have narrow minded, biased views about this subject and no not everyone is like my sister but i'm always being told that i've landed on my feet or aren't you lucky, it's got nothing to do with luck or being in the right place at the right time, i have worked extremely hard for what i have and as i was growing up i had the choice, as did my sister, as to whether or not i was going to make something of myself. My sister and i obviously came from the same background but have turned out to be very different and i think alot of it is down to the individual and not the circumstances that surround them. I didn't have it easy atall but chose to change my standard of living for myself as i approached adulthood, my sister however did not. Obviously a better financial background can help towards uni etc but i believe that if you really want to move onwards and upwards then very few things should stop you - i worked ridiculously hard to put myself through university and get fed up when people assume that it all landed on my lap.

But there is some luck involved in that you have a driven personality. Not everyone does.

"it's got nothing to do with luck or being in the right place at the right time, i have worked extremely hard for what i have"

Exactly CAM- I don't have a driven personality but am not in the gutter because I'm lucky, which is not fair either.

Tinker

Yes i do have a very driven personality but that's because i wasn't happy with the standard of living that i once had, not everyone does want to better themselves. By the way, it may be an old chestnut but if you have worked hard for something then you do get fed up with people thinking that it somehow just happened!!!