my first meme
Father went to college [A-levels and uni]
Father finished college
Mother went to college [A-levels and uni]
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor. [1 parent and 2 siblings]
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers [i have no idea. i suppose we were all middle-class]
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children's books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18 [2 sets of music lessons and for a couple of months, extra french conversation lessons]
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively [i can't really think of people in the media who represent me, but suspect i'm being overly picky. actually i'm curious - who does dress and talk like me?]
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs [they paid for all my maintenance. LEA paid fees]
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
Went to a private high school [11-16]
Went to summer camp
Had a private tutor before you turned 18 [what, like a piano teacher?]
Family vacations involved staying at hotels
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
There was original art in your house when you were a child [of course! mine!]
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18
You and your family lived in a single family house
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
You had your own room as a child
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family [my parents kept a little graph of utilities useage inside the door to the boiler cupboard]
definitely privileged - thanks mum and dad!
we had a fairly frugal but very comfortable upbringing. no pocket money or many toys, endless recycling of clothes and other materials, very little going to waste. this i think stemmed from my dad's experiences growing up with economic uncertainty, they always wanted to be safe, financially. that and placing things like music lessons and plane tickets to the far east on rather a higher priority than new clothes. quite right too. they also distrusted many 'official' systems, so they never applied for grants and things if it involved filling in lots of extra information about activity and income.
growing up in a smallish safeish town i was allowed to roam the streets, and spent much time in galleries and libraries by myself. in primary school, my mother used to use the local library as a childminder - i would be instructed to go there after school, hang out for a couple of hours until after my mum got home, then go home. of course the librarians knew nothing of it...
i have never felt very comfortable with the class thing. as i came to understand the terms they carried a lot of cultural connotations that i simply didn't know how to key into, as the child of immigrants. people that talked about it talked about ancestry and locality. but now i see 'middle class' as defined by my own upbringing and the values of my immediate family, so yes, i am middle class: i am well-educated and i have had a comfortable upbringing. my family's aspirations are towards academic acheivement, acquirement of skills, and non-hazardous, non-menial ways to earn a wage (rather than investment or property). so long as i don't have to try and map my grandparent's generation or further back onto definitions of class, i don't get too confused.