Working Class Posters Thread

@fmf said
Thanks for your response.

You said:

"I was born middle class and stayed that way ..., but was never in denial about my working-class roots."

I am sure the apparent contradiction here is due to a misunderstanding on my part. Can you explain?

I am sure the apparent contradiction here is due to a misunderstanding on my part. Can you explain?



I don't see working class and middle class as a contradiction.

@mchill said
I don't see working class and middle class as a contradiction.

So your perceived working class "roots" were in fact the lives lived by your family before you turned up and were slotted into the middle-class life you perceived they had created for you?

-Removed-

He might he is a Yank,where I came from Middle class kids new they were going to 6th form then on to uni or art school, My parents were prepaird to let me stay on for 5th year but at 15 i decided that I would get a job , knowing even if I had done well in 5th form my parents did not have the cash to send me further, my wife did 5th form and art school but again her parents didnt have the cash to send her further she ended up taking her first job in the co-op .we made sure our kids had the cash to go to uni but they both worked part time to help out. I must admit that when my daughter recieved her degrees( in maths & economics) she for a short time thought the world owed her a living, she soon found out that a degree didnt get you a top job , thats when she did a year at teacher training...I think that brought her back down to the ground.

@fmf said
So your perceived working class "roots" were in fact the lives lived by your family before you turned up and were slotted into the middle-class life you perceived they had created for you?

Yes, I do see my working class roots as the lives lived by my family before I turned up. I don't think they "created anything" for me though. My parents made the transition from the agricultural age to the industrial age, just as I made the transition from the industrial age to the information age. They were just different ways of doing the same thing.

P.S. I wasn't "slotted" Many middle class kids from the 60's and 70's have become very successful, with lavish incomes, but payed for this success with workaholic habits and no social life whatsoever over many years. I never wanted this for myself, instead preferring a more balanced life.

@mchill said
Yes, I do see my working class roots as the lives lived by my family before I turned up. I don't think they "created anything" for me though.

You said: "I was born middle class" to working class parents. It's surely them and not you who created the middle class environment into which you were born?

@mchill said
I wasn't "slotted" Many middle class kids from the 60's and 70's have become very successful, with lavish incomes, but payed for this success with workaholic habits and no social life whatsoever over many years. I never wanted this for myself, instead preferring a more balanced life.

I get what you are saying but I've got no idea why you are quibbling the word "slotted". Every human baby that is born gets slotted into some sort of human environment, like a family for example.

@fmf said
You said: "I was born middle class" to working class parents. It's surely them and not you who created the middle class environment into which you were born?

It's surely them and not you who created the middle class environment into which you were born?



Obviously, since infants rarely create their own environment. Your point?

@fmf said
I get what you are saying but I've got no idea why you are quibbling the word "slotted". Every human baby that is born gets slotted into some sort of human environment, like a family for example.

I get what you are saying but I've got no idea why you are quibbling the word "slotted"

It was not I that first mentioned slotted, it was you. I just responded as accurately as I could.

@mchill said
Obviously, since infants rarely create their own environment. Your point?

My point, for what it's worth, is that you aren't being very coherent.

@mchill said
It was not I that first mentioned slotted, it was you. I just responded as accurately as I could.

I don't get why you are quibbling the word I used.

@fmf said
My point, for what it's worth, is that you aren't being very coherent.

I've tried to be as accurate as possible.

I'm leaving now- -

@mchill said
I've tried to be as accurate as possible.

I'm leaving now- -

Thanks for contributing to the thread.

@fmf said
While posters on this thread may have become middle-class thanks to social mobility and the actualization of personal aspirations, they need to have been born to working-class parents in order to contribute. Middle-class posters in denial about their working-class roots should start a separate thread.

Could you clarify what you mean by "working class" and "middle class" for the purpose of this thread?

@kevin-eleven said
Could you clarify what you mean by "working class" and "middle class" for the purpose of this thread?

Ask the Googler.