Are you middle class?

I think this is how OH sees our situation, and he thinks we're more middle class than working class. I can see what he means when it's explained like this.

Absolutely agree, but given the 'pyramid' shape of the class system, you could find that you are perceived by the vast majority of the population to have climbed a class, whilst it not registering at all on the radar on the smaller group of upper/ upper-middle class people who operate by a different set of objective criteria (and on a tangent, I find 'upper middle' far more of a quagmire than 'middle').

Hmm, i d like to answer this, but my blue collar is itching my neck ?

I find this whole topic fascinating. My H's family are upper class in all aspects. He is related to the Queen; he was privately educated at an excellent school; they 'summer' abroad; they have servants (proper live-in servants) and certainly have that 'air' about them. Of course, they are all rich too. My family, however, are definitely middle class.

I think it is down to attitude. H doesn't have the money that his parents and grandparents have, but he still retains the 'genteelness' I suppose (for want of a better word). I guess he's just quite posh really, which is a constant source of amusement to me?.

The differences between H and I are quite marked from the way we speak, our terms of reference for things and our experiences of life. However, I do feel myself being dragged slowly up the class scale now as, by dint of our marriage, I am moving in very different social circles, and my outlook and experiences have very much altered as a result.

Another thought occurred to me while typing, in that I suppose I am treated differently now by other people, for being Mr K's wife. Maybe how people perceive you has something to do with it as well? I don't know.

Hmm, not sure. My paternal grandparents were proper working class - she worked in factories and as a cook, he worked as an ambulance driver, and then a lorry driver. They were actually relatively well-off. My grandfather was a grafter, and a tight git, making for lots of savings and their own home. My maternal grandmother was divorced from her first husband, and then widowed by her second, and was skint. I bet she'd have said she was lower-middle class: she'd been an officer's wife in India, and had servants, before they came back to England. She was always a bit 'distressed gentlefolk'. By which I mean barking, obviously.

My parents? My Dad was in management till the 1980s when it all went belly-up, he was made redundant three times, and ended up working in John Lewis in security till he retired. Mum left school with no qualifications, but got herself a fistful later, and ended up as an HEO in the civil service. I think they'd call themselves working class too, though.

I'd don't really ally myself anywhere. I 'think' working class, a lot of the time. I suppose I don't really care what people think of me, which might exclude me from middle-classdom anyway. Mr JK and I were talking about this the other day, specifically about the defining of those not-working-and-never-planning-to as the 'Underclass' rather than the working class. My father nearly died of shame when he had to sign on for a fortnight when I was a child. In the working class I know there's no glamour in handouts.

I think your husband wins in the poshness stakes Katchoo? I think of
MrRache as posh, but he's a rung down from that - upper middle definitely - major public school, third or fourth generation oxbridge, family all professionals, inherited home.

Me - lower middle I think. I was the first in mum's family to go to uni (mum's family are underclass/notworking class), but the second in dad's - and he is a professional who got into uni to study architecture from his farming/servant background on a student grant in the 60s.

The reason I know I'm lower middle is because I say "pleased to meet you" rather than "how d'you do" like MrRache?

Oh the British class system; it's a hoot.

No idea! and not really that bothered. my parents are working class, i believe Dr L's being teachers may be middle class traditionally? Our lifestyle is very different to our parents' but i don't understand why that would make us a different class to them...

I think that unless you stick to the traditional indicators there are too many variables in society nowadays to define anyone accurately, and i think the traditional 'classes' aren't relevant to today really.

i think Zebra is 'aristocracy' - am i right?

No, only lions can be aristocracy tsk!

I'm deffo (hard) drinking class.

The way I've always understood it is

Upper class - actually related to royalty, or perhaps some 'private' (as in no need to work) families whose daughters would traditionally have been presented to the queen for 'coming out'

Upper middle - not quite in that circle but nearly, probably very well off in terms of inherited wealth, best schools and connections. Diplomats and absolute top level civil service/forces/church

Middle middle - top level professionals, heads of business, doctors, lawyers, high ranking academics etc.

Lower middle - teachers, not-quite-traditional-professions but with degree, emphasis on schooling, education, good behaviour etc

Upper working - less educated but highly skilled roles, strong emphasis on respectability and being seen to do the right thing, often entrepreneurs and successful self-employed

Rest of working - less bothered about being respectable but with own standards and expectations

Subclass (sorry, sounds awful) - no shame, often no jobs for generations, not much awareness of world existing above their group.

i'm not saying i'm correct, but that was how i understood it - probably mostly cobbled together from reading jane austen at a formative age and various inherited prejudices... by this grading i'd say my parents are lower middle (bank manager, teacher), their parents are upper working (successful tradesmen, apprenticed and successful businesses), i'm lower middle, and my husband is middle middle. I went to private day school, he went to a good boarder, his parents are both oxford academics, his dad's a professor. but i've married up so perhaps i'm middle middle ? A friend of mine is getting married to a diplomat's son this summer, i think they are upper middle.

Moomoo, that list accords almost perfectly with the ideas of different classes I have in my head (apart from the fact that I would definitely call teaching a middle-class, traditional profession).

I think, for many of us, considering our grandparents' background will lead to confusion re. class. My grandparents had very traditional working-class jobs (my grandpa was a travelling salesman, etc.) but at the time of my parents' generation (born in the 50s) there was a great expansion in university education and a corresponding increase in the middle class (then of course there was the big expansion again in university education at the beginning of the 90s). This is coupled with a general move in the last 30 years or so away from manufacturing industry to the sort of semi-skilled job where you don't get your hands dirty, again confusing the issue - are those with non-degree-requiring admin jobs middle-class because they might wear smart clothes to work and sit in a comfortable office? Perhaps. Certainly many more of us can claim to be middle-class than 40 or 50 years ago.

Equally, there's quite a big gap in social expectations, pastimes and mannerisms etc. between the lower and upper middle classes. H's family are what I would call upper middle class (diplomats and military top brass), whereas my family are more lower-middle, possibly middle-middle, and there are certainly lots of things that are different (I remember my MIL quite innocently asking if I had been to a "day school" ?). "Middle-class" is such a wide category as to be pretty meaningless.

And yes, it is all a load of balls!