With social mobility downwards or upwards class is hard to define. Is it the class you are raised in or where you end up due to doing well at university or like me having a long term serious disability? Is it more about income and position or also very much about social attitudes?
I’ve lived on benefits all my adult life, but as previously pointed out come from a solidly middle class background. Neither my brother and I have had high powered careers whereas our sister is a director at the interior design company she works for.
I grew up poor for a while then my dad got a teaching job making pretty good money. After my daughter was born I had to work a minimum wage job then I moved and found a good job working for the phone company. Now I’m on disability
My father and mother (more my father) were from an upper middle class fam. Dad left the house when I was 10. We struggled from then on to make ends meet . my mom must be a super woman to have raised 4 kids on her own and still puts up with our crap
Where I live it’s partly income, partly education, partly presentation, and partly affiliation. Visible tattoos make you lower class. Poor dress makes you lower class. Being poor makes you lower class. I think I come across as solidly middle-class where I live.
I kinda think the idea of being a roughneck poor person has a certain romanticism attached to it. Wonder where I get that notion. Prolly because I’m not really poor.
I mean really isn’t it all presentation. It’s essentially how you dress and what car you have to trivial passerby’s. Now to friends and family it matters where you went to college, earnings and house. As they actually know more about you. Then again if you live in a small town it might be all those combined.
Social class is determined mostly by income and lifestyle. I say income and lifestyle because let’s say you make a ton of money, but you have like 12 kids so all the money is spent on them thus you’re broke.
There’s those in poverty who cannot make enough to support themselves, meaning they often have to choose between having a place to live, or food, or other basic needs. Then there is the working class who can afford basic needs, and for the most part only basic needs. Middle class has enough to make ends meet and enough for occasional luxuries. The upper class never needs to worry about making ends meet and can have whatever luxury they want when they want it.
Each of the classes has their own cultures I’ve found. It’s very interesting. Also there is a definite class-ism and divide in the US where the rich see the poor as scary, dangerous, or lazy, and the poor see the rich as entitled, privileged and oblivious. It’s sad really.
I’m below poverty level because of my disability. I never really had a job in my life. I graduated high school during the great recession and had a hell of a time getting a job, especially minimum wage jobs. Things are better now. But I can’t work. I went to a top 20 university and got schizophrenia and dropped out. I wanted to work in banking. I think I was a narcissist. Mental illness humbled me.
My dad is blue collar but is middle class. He has OCD but I call it OCPD. He’s very good at not spending money. My mom practically never had a job in her life. My step dad probably was upper middle class. He has a masters degree. Has a small business.
But we are sort of struggling and are poor now, in my eyes. He can’t manage money at all. It is sad.
My dad grew up poor. My mom grew up upper middle class.
My sister works in construction and my brother is a sound technician.
Honestly, I’ll probably be poor and never work the rest of my life. I’m using my past lives as an indicator. I’ve never had money. I think we live in troubling times, but I really dont know.
Im trying to get an education. I really dont want to work. I hate my life sometimes. I feel subpar, inferior, and I struggle emotionally.
Im more likely to get a degree than work.
I plan on not having kids or having a wife/ girlfriend because i dont want to be homeless or poorer.
I’m not an idiot.
I’m trying to learn computer science but I constantly struggle and have setbacks. I’m slower and I had memory and cognitive decline.
no mater were you come from, life is social, people are friendly on the streets and roads, sometimes, in stores and on planes, sometimes. when you get loans and banking greet you. people in Dr Offices, and dentist offices may be friendly sometimes. traveling over sea’s people say things to you, and more over the internet frees you from a lonely chain of socalites. here at home.