Upper Class or Working Class

[Tulipsroses]

Please only reply if you comfortable put your self in either Working Class or Upper Class with a short reason why.

BBC quiz says I’m established working class, and I’d agree with that. Parents both manual workers. But I have two postgraduate degrees, love the theatre, opera, jazz. Own my own home, don’t own a television set, and have private health insurance. 🤷🏽‍♀️

i dont really know how to classify myself. I come from a working class background and went to state school. I did however go to Oxbridge and am a high earner with a professional job. I would say my DH is from a lower MC background. My DC go to private school (although if there was a state school half as good as the one i went to within reach they would have gone there). We go on nice holidays and have a nice house in a nice part of London. My friends are mainly professionals (most of them are friends from uni, work or school gate - lost contact with most of my school friends over time due to distance) and have mainly middle class lifestyles (but a mix of backgrounds). My family have a mix of working class and lower middle class lifestyles. I have developed some middle class tastes (e.g. in food and holidays) but am generally more low brow than high brow in my tastes (e.g. much prefer musicals to opera or ballet). I do not suffer impostor syndrome in a work context but definitely do in a social context with people I do not know well.

The link above classified me as elite, mainly due to earnings/house. The description does not really describe me (e.g. it refers to having been to private school) but probably does describe my DC.

If pushed would probably say i am working class living an upper middle class lifestyle.

My father was a farm labourer. I became a schoolteacher and married a chartered surveyor. I have never worked out which class I belong to and really don't care. I am me and that is all there is to it. If people look down their noses at me then that is their problem . I always thought that you were middle class if your father went to work in a suit.

Emergent service worker and proud! 😂💪

“I'm an upper class old gal. I live in a draughty old stately home that has been in my family since 1792 and am descended from nobility. I can trace my family tree back to the Norman invasion. I'm filthy rich, keep horses and ride to hounds and I let my dogs drink from the lavatory bowls and sleep on the four poster beds. I like the working classes, but despise the middle classes and their insistence on using pastry forks, they also insist on putting those damn blue tablets in their lavatories and it's bad for my dogs”

Bloody hell, the loo thing is most annoying. It goes with the tendency to clean. Add to that the insistence on talking shoes off when you visit their abode. Most recently, I have been offered slippers on arrival by such a person. How very peculiar.

If pushed would probably say i am working class living an upper middle class lifestyle.

Same, except I'd phrase it as 'from a working class background living an upper middle class lifestyle.'

You are middle class. You are a person in your own right. You are not your parents, you are from a working class family. But that doesn’t make yoh working class as an adult. You are further educated and in a skilled role. You are middle class. That’s what social mobility is.

…I’m elite too according to the BBC ‘thingy’ … if you use the term thingy, I would class you vague or lazy.
Thankfully I am both 👏🏻

So what is your perception of “working class”.
In your previous post you say “filthy rich to filthy poor” when quite a lot of working class people (particularly tradesmen) can earn upwards of £50k a year but may class them selves as WC.

You can’t be upper class unless you are at least a bit scared of the Labour Party and WhatsApp. The latter because at least one childhood friend/family member of yours has been hacked/done for tax evasion/stories sold in some rag. Upper class has proper assets and is still directly or indirectly connected to the Royals or Government. That is the whole point. You are in the inner circle. If you are not, you are middle or upper middle at best. Plenty of born upper are downgraded when they marry out or nobody works on maintaining influence.

According to some on here I’m ’filthy rich’. (Net household worth c£6-7m). Would never consider myself upper class, maybe middle class at a push but prob lower middle class.

Not being born or raised in the U.K. but having lived here for over 30 years, I find how you define where you fit is extremely nuanced and money plays a v small part in that. Where I’m from originally is much more straightforward; loads of dosh = upper class, no dosh = lower class.

I'm firmly working class. We tick along nicely day to day but realistically with only a small amount of savings we're only ever a few pay cheques away from being poor.

DH believes he’s working class because he had to work. His father was a solicitor in a big London firm, bought a new build large detached house in Kent, 25 minutes from the City in London, in the 1960’s, retired aged 50 with so much private pension that he didn’t get a state pension. Holidays were in B&Bs. Went to the Algarve for the winter each year once retired.

I also had to work, my parents were council tenants and only afforded to buy a house - terraced- with a huge discount on right to buy in the 80’s. Father worked for the post office, not a postmaster, mother did early morning cleaning and we lived in Hackney. Small pension from father’s work and state pension. Holidays were always camping in the UK.

When DH left home he bought a second floor flat in the same village as his parent’s house. When I left home I had a 15th floor council flat in Hackney.

You are confusing class with wealth. They are not the same thing at all.

I grew up in a small village where I and my friends were all children of farm labourers. We had an idyllic childhood with the whole countryside as our playground. We were never conscious of being poor as we didn't have TV with ads constantly telling us what to want. However, grammar school education was considered 'not for the likes of us' and when I passed the 11 plus the greatest objections were from neighbours. 'Going all posh, are we?' and 'Aren't we good enough for you now?' The saddest thing was that all my playmates with whom I had picked flowers, paddled in the stream and gone for long bike rides, never spoke to me again and the girls at the grammar school despised me for being poor. I have never felt that I fitted in with any class, and quite honestly no longer care!

It's more about wealth than class if it's on income. Yes there can be overlap. I think a better way to gauge would be how many homes, if they are mortgaged, if the person is working and could afford not to/chooses not to work, how educated they are and how educated their family was. Personally I don't think culture always signifies class; speaking another language maybe, but not what type of music you like or if you enjoy ballet over watching musicals or bands on stage. People's tastes change along with the social norms and someone who is working class could enjoy classical music and want to see Tosca. Class also does not always equate to "classy" which in itself is speculative. Class has all lost a lot of meaning in the last 20 years - Debretts for example is clung onto by people who would probably insist ballet and opera are only for the UC but probably not their children. Influencers can read Debretts and do all they can to project the image of class but wouldn't necessarily have the background of an UC family to fit in with the kids of the real Debrett lovers. It's not an easy thing to quantify and as each year passes class is less important to the majority.

That say I'm Precariat but the description is not me at all. I'm not from a working class background and most people I know are professionals. I do rent and I am poor though.

Wayne Rooney could afford to send his kids to private school. Doesn't make him middle class!

Working class. Always worked, and so did my parents and siblings

Well, being "poor" or "rich" doesn't signify whether you're working class or upper class.

Richest people I know who are very middle/upper class send kids to a grammar, because it is more advantageous for job prospects in modern day.

That’s a whole new level of un-nuanced.

As, in fairness, is the OP if she thinks social class is purely about money.

Nearly everyone works. That does not make you working class.

Class and wealth are not the same thing. Particularly not or any individual person.

But being (filthy) poor is not the same as being working class.
and being filthy richt isn’t the same as being upper class.