Actually, I DO have something to contribute. My mom (the one who comes from poverty) very deliberately schooled us in norms for different settings. She even encouraged us to change our speech, what I now know as code switching (recently learned that term), depending on who we were going to see. She VERY specifically would walk us through who we would be seeing, what would be expected of us re behaviors, clothes, speech, activities, shoes on or off, how to greet people, EVERYTHING. So I feel like I view class behavior almost like play acting. It’s something to be put on like an outfit to suit the occasion, and it’s something you do out of courtesy for the comfort of those you’re going to see.
This doesn’t add much to the discussion I now realize other than to highlight that when some people hop between classes, they do it very deliberately and mindfully. Or at least my mom does.
You’re right, I think I overstated my point there. Or rather, I’m conflating some different behaviors like pride/not taking handouts, “taking care of your own” (family /community) before Others, local rivalries/gangs with more toxic rich people individualism, and that isn’t right.
I still think there are overlaps in terms of what is admired/valued but would need to think more about specifics…
ETA and this probably dovetails in somehow with the “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” mindset preyed upon by Southern conservatism, alongside racism, but I digress…
Ohhhh this resonates with me so much! My parents were the same, especially my Mom who came from much worse poverty. I recall one of the first times we went to a nice restaurant and I dropped my fork and I went to pick it up and my mom grabbed my arm and was like “stop! don’t do that here, they’ll pick it up for you.” Actually there were a lot of things like this now that I’m thinking…and I do speak differently too. My body language even shifts. She also told me to always act like I belong even if I don’t feel it, if I don’t know what to do in a setting to look at what an older well dressed woman is doing and copy her. etc.
Damn, I feel like I owe my mom a thank you note now.
This is a really interesting convo. The Hidden Rules handout is … fascinating.
I’ve spent big chunks of time in low, middle, and high class American contexts. Wealthy culture still freaks me out the most because I know I’m missing cues.
Some of these keep cropping up in my own family. Discussions about things like leaving lights on in the house vs keeping a dark house, how much food we keep around, repairing things asap (and how much to worry about it), holiday decorating as a status thing but also as a fun pursuit in its own right…
Do you mind expanding on this? This is a current source of tension between my husband and I, and I’d love to know what some of the undercurrents might be.
Sure! I’m still feeling it out myself. I had a solidly middle class family growing up, but in the context of a mostly lower class town. My metamor grew up very very poor.
When something breaks, my inclination is to fix it immediately - we can afford it. I might wince but I have a gut reaction of “the responsible thing to do is to keep things in working order.” Versus I think my metamor’s instnctive reaction is “welp if we can’t fix it DIY cheaply, the responsible thing to do is to cope with it being broken until we can save up the money to fix it.”
I’m simplifying here a bit but I think that’s where it comes from? And long term consequences of, say, putting off repairs don’t really figure into it if you brain auto categorizes paying for it as “not gonna happen”.
My wife and I read through the “Hidden Rules” over lunch and couldn’t get over how middle class we are. Fascinating stuff! Almost everything in the “Could you cope with a spouse/partner who came
from old money (or had that mindset)?” section makes me want to scream, which may help explain why the one relationship I had with someone with that background imploded so spectacularly.
My husband had never seen it. We have some checks in all 3 sections, but are so firmly middle class in this sense.
It was also interesting to talk about the difference in how our parents raised us.
One lower class thing that garnered a lot of discussion was serving food from the stove. Except a big meal like thanksgiving, we always do that, since I’m too lazy to wash dishes. But growing up my Mom and my best friend’s mom always put all the food in serving dishes on the table. Apparently his family always plated their food at the stove.
He speaks 4-5 languages and doubted my claim that I can read a menu in 3 languages so I also got quizzed on food words. I won. (This involved him trying to think of words that sounded as close as possible to the food word or variations he knew I wouldnt eat, and asking me which one was the dish I wanted. Because I can read a menu, but don’t speak Spanish or French)
Reading that doc made me wonder how much my (wealthy family of origin not quite as wealthy as the questions for upper class) husband resents me covering so much for my parents. However I also don’t want to ask in case it turns into a thing.
I read that hidden rules thing, and it just underlined that one of the privileges of the various jobs i’ve had and places I’ve lived is that I can seamlessly discuss getting kids into board school (thanks to being a fundraiser), and which local judges are most lienient for folks on paper with a violation and which houses are owned by which slumlords. I appreciate that gift, I guess.
I wish I could contribute more to this discussion since I did a fair amount of reading economics literature on class-modeling (you cannot, ever, in the united states, exclude race and ethnicity from a class model - due to systemic discrimination) but I had a ton of work to do.
A while ago I heard a podcast that did a short series with a financial therapist and I was immediately like holy shit financial therapists need to be a common thing. It’s never just about money/numbers, it’s about values, family baggage, etc etc.
I think that hidden rules thing has convinced me that our whole concept of a middle social class is so broad as to be almost meaningless.
I feel like the gap between middle and upper as well as the middle and lower was too cavernous based on that questionnaire, and that it doesn’t at all capture the hugely meaningful difference between lower middle and upper middle, which I think deserves the most attention. Isn’t it those lower middle people that can so easily slip downwards into poverty? Don’t they have some of the slimmest margins? And aren’t many of them one generation out of poverty and just stepping up a rung? But yet, we’re sticking them in culturally with people who have lived their entire lives in six figure households.
Good thing y'all don't charge by the word
I think the social difference is huge between lower middle and upper middle, but it isn’t captured or discussed as much as the difference between the top 10% and top 1%. It’s interesting the things that were included and how they could be taken so differently based on income level, like ordering in a “nice” restaurant. What’s a nice restaurant? Applebees? Because that was a very fancy place where I grew up, but that’s not what I think of now when I think of a nice restaurant. I think of a restaurant that costs several times that. There are a whole lot of people who are comfortable splurging at Applebees but who would absolutely not feel comfortable at my version of a nice restaurant now.
The other ones are “I talk to my kids about college”, but to what extent or end? My husband’s family “talked to him about college”, so they could check that. They talked about how it made people snobs and forget where they came from, and how it was a waste of time. Planning vacations is another one that feels too vague. We planned our vacations well in advance: our domestic driving vacations to visit family and our camping trips at the lake had to be saved up for. My high school friend’s family also planned her vacations: their vacations were to Europe or Asia or for her to go to oceanography camp. Piano lessons and soccer too. My family knew how to do that: you went to the YMCA and signed up on a sheet of paper and it was like $20 a kid, lots of families could check yes on that who did it that way. Families whose kids do a $15k sleep-away soccer camp could also check yes. They can both get their kids into sports…but is it really the same?
Knowing how to decorate a house for holidays is another one. Anyone who decorates for the holidays thinks they know how, but what is socially acceptable in a lower middle neighborhood (giant inflatable stuff, for example) might be considered totally gauche in an upper middle. Belonging to a fitness club is another one. Again, we did, we belonged to the YMCA. You could get half price membership if you worked in a school and if you volunteered to do classes you could get in for free. I think a full cost membership was like $75 a year for a family. I also had a fitness club membership as an adult, it was $120 a month and there was a full spa inside. Both check yes as if they’re the same thing. Children knowing the best names in clothing, that’s another one. I knew the best names in clothing as a kid: Kmart and JC Penny. That shit was fancy AF and where the richest kids in town shopped. Then I moved, and the best names in children’s clothing were things like Longchamp and Lacoste. Those prices are worlds apart.
IDK, does anyone else get what I’m saying here? I guess the question is: to what end are we designating these social classes? My hope would be that the end goal is to make it easier for people to move up the ladder, and easier for people who are already up to realize where they are. It seems like this does the opposite?
Can we also take a moment though to call out how that Hidden Rules doc contributes to the sense that most folks are “middle class”?
My in-laws are rich as hell. Like 500k salary plus inherited generational wealth plus own lots of property, just sold one for $1M rich. But they never sent their kids to boarding schools or fly private or collect art…etc.
By any economic measure my in-laws are upper class. Not 1%ers, but close. But they live a relatively middle class looking life. Sure they buy some designer clothing, but Target is the store they most visit. They paid for private school for both kids, costing more than the average home purchase price, but so did everyone else in their social group. They did a $1M reno of their house, but squabbled with the builder over the cost of lighting. They worry about being able to retire, but legitimately have worries about the estate tax(only for estates over 11M y’all).
How can we have a good discussion about class inequality when folks like them think they have the same experience as a couple making 60k a year?