Middle Class Conflict

Exploring the three types of middle class person.

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[Gueroizquierda]

I grew up lower-middle class and I always thought of "rich" people as anyone who thought they were too good for Walmart.

[bjs]

This is an excellent analysis. Growing up without a dad in the 1960's, my 5 siblings and I always understood from Mom that we were middle middle class. I figured out by college that we were lower middle class. We all eventually realized that Mom just didn't want us to know we were actually poor.

[yarielrobles]

When I was a kid, I used to think I had a comfortable middle class family, since Puerto Rico's pretty poor; but one day, I went to visit some family members in Pennsylvania, and saw a dish washer for the first time. I legitimately felt like I had seen something out of a sci-fi movie.

[myopinionsarefacts]

My parents we're divorced so I used to swap back and forth between living lower middle class and upper middle class depending on which parent I was living with at the time. One of the things that really stuck me about the kids in the upper middle class neighborhood was the fact that they had unopen snack food in there houses that they could eat whenever they wanted but choose not too. Things like chips, lunchables, little Debbie products, and even things like raspberry and strawberries weren't really openly available in lower middle class households. You could buy one cool snack when grocery shopping and that was it for the entire week. Wealthier household didn't have that problem, so while sets of kids eat basically the same amount of these snack foods, one though they were an amazing luxury product that was inherently special, and one set thought they were food, and often didn't even like a lot of the snack foods that were so coveted by other kids. If food in wealthy houses were restricted at all, it was on the basis that they were filled with sugar and terrible for you rather then any monetary concerns.

[sabastioncarver]

One of my favorite subtle Simpsons jokes was when Homer referred to the Simpson as "us upper lower middle class types". I dunno, it struck me as perfect just because that's how I always conceptualized my family

[scotlawrence]

I was a kid in the 70's in suburban Western NY. As a kid and a teenager my personal defination of "rich" was "any family that can afford two cars and a swimming pool." Now, as an adult who made it into to that class, I still think it's accurate.

[jamesrodriguez]

JJ, I don’t know if you’ll see but I wanted to tell you that you made my heart leap with the beginning of the video with quoting John Updike. I live in his hometown of Shillington PA and would pass his house often walking around town. It’s a museum now with the blue sign that Pennsylvania uses to denote historically relevant places. Sorry for the long comment, I got rather excited seeing a local man get mentioned by one of my favourite YouTubers.

[bentucker]

I'm an upper middle-class student at university, and I loved what you said about the upper-middle class adopting lower middle-class fashion, I thought it was a spot-on analysis. That sort of style and mode of thinking is absolutely rampant in the college setting. However, something to add to it may be that I have noticed that a lot of agricultural students with upper-middle class backgrounds have a tendency to adopt what their idea is of lower-middle class agricultural culture is. Like cowboy hats and boots, jeans with tucked in plaid shirts, fake country accents, and so on, kind of like a form of class based cultural appropriation.

[phonyzebra]

I’m upper middle class that grew up in one of the richest counties in the United States. When I was a teen, I worked at a gas station because of the good pay and there were a ton of lower middle class people that could instantly tell I was upper middle class by my lack of accent, articulate speech, and use of “big words.” I also find it interesting that you point out upper class rebellion because I was always super self-conscious just how well-spoken and educated I was. Like people would see me as pretentious or not fun to be around, so I’d purposely dumb down my speech slightly (use more slang, care less about proper grammar when texting, etc.). Also when you mention that the comfortable middle class wants to appear higher class is funny to me because my family always tried to appear comfortable middle class. We lived in a big house in a gated neighborhood (which my dad hated) and when I brought over one of my poorer friends he called me rich. I found that funny and told my father and he actually found it to be offensive.

[TheSnakebite]

I think what you said about the Upper Middle Class having a fascination with the lower to be spot on, especially in a political sense. Like, I'm involved in the College Republicans and most of them I would describe as being upper-middle in their values. A lot of them will call themselves populists "fighting for the working class" or whatever yet they'll have these really extreme and esoteric opinions that most people would not even really understand. It just feels weird to hear all these well off educated people speaking for a demographic they clearly hardly interact with.

[dylanbaron__]

The last year has been really eye opening for me as a person who considers myself upper middle class. I know an older guy, an author worth upwards of $80m who has kinda become my mentor as I want to be an author too. He lives on a 14 acre forest in the centre of a hilly middle class area. You’d never know if you didn’t know to look for the H imprinted on his iron gate. It makes me wonder if more people like this are just living in plain sight. Keep in mind that this is in Australia and not the US

[ALZulas]

When I was young, we were lower middle. When I was a teen, my dad got a promotion and we moved and became middle middle. Then I grew up and became the first in my family to get an advanced degree and become upper middle (ish). It's hard to shed those feelings about where you grew up though. My parents still find spending to be a thing that makes them feel good. And I still have all the anxieties of spending my formative years in middle middle.

Also I still think upper middles are weird and don't feel like I entirely fit in here. They do things that don't make sense to me, like claim that they want to help the poor and then use every loophole to get out of paying taxes. I don't really understand yet, and I'm not sure I will.

[totalvideofreak]

I grew up working class/lower middle class and have somehow found myself getting a masters degree. I feel like I've been torn in two. I've had to leave a lot of how I grew up to fit into these upper middle class spaces and it's unfortunate and frustrating. Unfortunate because I have a lived experience that's worth preserving and frustrating that they don't want to truly engage in it (nor do I think they are even able to). I've made friends with homeless people and I've made friends with children of venture capitalists, and I can tell you with that living with the possibility that you might not have basic needs changes your entire worldview. When you have a comfortable amount of money you see the world as much less dangerous and unstable—because it simply never has been dangerous or unstable for you. More than anything, I wish people would listen to us who have straddled this middle-class divide because there's good in it: I love how close poor families and communities are because you gotta have someone watch your back in this world. I love how we have fun and the loud music we listen to, I love the way we challenge authority because we see firsthand the effects of policy/government/whatever! And on the other side, I really like the upper-middle class world of art and philosophy and the emphasis on esotericism. It's just fun, and it makes life seem much more wonderful. The lower-middle class world can be tough as we can be pretty mean to people we don't trust, but the upper-middle class can be just as snide. I think the comfortable middle is where I've found most of my base political ideologies, because I'll never be as radical as the upper-middle wants me to be because I've seen firsthand the danger to poor peoples lives that can occur from it. I also won't be as "unaware" as the lower-middle wants me to be because I've simply experienced so much and seen the good that can sometimes come from weird "esoteric" philosophies. I always tell people my political opinion is "poor people": I don't care about the minutiae of identity politics and I don't care about what I'm supposed to think. I want to uphold and ensure that all people who work hard day in and day out can have a stable, safe, and fullfilling life with the comforts afforded to a country as wealthy as mine. That simple.

[TheRedBaron]

As a Brit I love hearing about the ideas and conceptions of class in North America and how much they differ from our own even though we share so much cultural similarity ☺

[KaijinD]

I grew up lower class. Myself, my dad, and three siblings living in a one bedroom concrete apartment. I had school friends' parents who didn't want their kid to play with me. I remember the first time I felt like I had made it when I realized I could buy whatever I wanted (within reason) and not have to worry about it. I even stopped balancing my checkbook or checking my bank account because I instinctively realized it wouldn't empty out. It still amazes me.

[Majextic]

Grew up lower-middle class and that part was just spot on. Still feel like I fit in better in that type of environment than comfortable middle where I am now. To me, "rich" people were people like my cousins, who had a house that didn't need all this work done and they had a garage that both their cars (they had two cars! and they both WORKED!) could fit in, and a pool and all this nice stuff. I always felt like I was breaking some unwritten social rule all the time around "rich" people. Appreciated the hand-me-down clothes, though.

[justinwhite]

As someone who has moved from lower middle to comfortable middle... It's definitely about money. My behaviour has changed a lot now that I don't have to live paycheque to paycheque.

For example - I used to take my pop bottles to the deolpot regularly so I can buy food and more pop... Now I just call a company to pick them up and donate the proceeds.

[neilmaguinness]

I appreciate the fact you identify class as being more social then economic as I think this aspect of it is usually missed. In the U.K. for example, being ‘Working Class’ is now much more of a cultural thing than actually being at the bottom of the economic pecking order. Most of those who most proudly wear the tag ‘working class’ tend to be tradesman or skilled industrial workers who on average, often make a similar if not greater salary than their white collar office working counter parts, many of whom tend to be university educated etc.

[BradyScherbeijn]

I grew up in a lower-middle class household and always had more contempt towards the upper-middle class than the comfortable middle. However, a large part of this came from having an aunt and uncle who were much better off than I was; thus, I could easily observe both sides of the spectrum and saw how comfortable the other class was. Meanwhile, I was too poor to shop at Walmart most months. 😪

[Stjernefodt-]

I was born in 1982, the 5th of 6 children, and I find the difference between my memory or childhood and my adult knowledge of what my family went through at the time endlessly fascinating. It was certainly worse for my older siblings, but I am now distinctly aware that, as I was growing up, we were moving from the lower middle to the "comfortable" middle. My dad worked 3 jobs, my mom 2, and this was necessary for them in the 80s to provide for the household, but as my elder siblings moved out and my parents maintained their work ethic, things became notably more comfortable for myself and my younger sister.

If you are interested, here is a specific example: In 1985, Christmas was tight. We each only received a couple of gifts, mostly through donations at the church that my parents were part of, not that any of us knew the difference. A single toy (Teddy Ruxbin) was my most exciting gift, along with a lot of clothing. Our Christmas dinner was also provided through the church. 10 years later in 1995, My parents took themselves and the 3 remaining kids in the house to Hawaii for Christmas, along with giving us "only a couple" of gifts, which we about equivalent to what we'd been given 10 years earlier.

Having dealt with hardship for some time though, my parents had the firm belief of not providing for or giving much help to any of us once we aged beyond high school (kind of funny in retrospect considering the heavy assistance from the church they'd received years before.) College and beyond had to be provided for solely by us. As a result, I was the only one of my siblings to graduate with a bachelors following high school (two other siblings eventually got a degree once they were in their 30s.)

I think I've lost the plot on this one... At any rate, much of my memory is while we were "comfortably" middle class, so not what you wanted to hear about, but my parents' experiences as part of the lower middle class shaped their views and how they ran their house for the rest of their lives, even once they financially grew beyond.