I maintain that we are working class. Several of my cousins insist we are middle class. One finally decided to end the discussion by insisting that we are working class with middle class issues. I am pretty sure that my family's issues encompass all classes and even enter a whole new class of their own at times.
We were all born into a working class family. My grandmother lived in a two-up, two-down house with her seven children throughout most of their childhood. A few of our parents may have had middle class aspirations, but I still think of myself as working class. I don't understand why any of us would mind being working class and even less do I understand wanting to be middle class.
One cousin insists that we are middle class because 'we do pilates and we shop in John Lewis'. There then followed a conversation about 'up down dog', which is apparently not the follow up album to the "Best of Barbara Woodhouse", but seems to have taken over from 'the plank' in the category 'how to make women look stupid whilst charging them for an exercise class'. I do shop in John Lewis sometimes, but I have never noticed guards on the door checking which social class I belong to. I may have Edinburgh crystal champagne glasses and Dartington crystal tumblers (wedding gifts which have lasted over 20 years longer than the marriage), but I use them for cava and gin from Aldi.
I even took the BBC's 'what class are you' test (link here) to see if that provided any insight. It didn't. When I say it didn't, I mean it disagreed with me, therefore it just isn't a very good measure of what social class I may be. According to the test I am 'established middle class', mainly because of my group of friends and social activities. Although I may have friends who are accountants and university lecturers, I also have friends who are office workers, cleaners, drivers, and unemployed. I find it odd that the more educated friends hold more weight with the BBC's scale. If I earned slightly more, or lived with someone on a similar salary to me and went to the opera occasionally, I would apparently be in the elite class. There is a reason to avoid opera for ever more.
My understanding of social class is clearly very different to the BBC's. I am working class because I was born into a working class family. I am working class because I need to work. I am working class because I vote according to my conscience not because the candidate went to the same public school that I did. To me, being working class is something to be proud of. Workers' unions have provided us with voting, more equal terms for women, reasonable working hours, paid holiday, better working conditions and pay etc. My mother and her siblings overcame huge hurdles and were all determined that their children would have an easier start in life than they had. Their values are not always my values, they cared to much about what other people think, there was a tendency to value designer labels, where you live, the size of house you have and the type of car you drive over education and financial security. They didn't have the education to understand the importance of an education.
But they also taught us manners, decency, honesty, family unity, closeness and a sense of belonging. I will carry on being working class and will occasionally visit my cousins in their middle class nirvanas. I will keep reminding their children that we are all working class really. I am very comfortable with who I am. I do think class distinctions still exist and there is, as has been recently researched, a glass floor protecting middle and upper class children whilst keeping down the brighter children from the working classes. I also think that this is even more of a reason to affiliate with our working class roots. I don't want the next generation to aspire to be middle class, with all the smug, Hyacinth style connotations that has. I want the next generation to be an educated working class, bringing with it better values to society and ensuring a more level playing field for all, rather than selling off all the state school playing fields for the benefit of cronies in property development.
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