Taboo Subject (Page 2)

and why is the person somehow more acceptable if they're in a "service" role in society?does this somehow excuse their lack of income or education? please.

education is not the same as intelligence and i think its unhealthy to define people by the money they make or the jobs they have. people are not their bank accounts or their jobs/careers, they are people.

just my opinion.

sorry, on laptop, hit the thing twice

I come from a middle class family.  Both of my parents are college educated, and worked desk jobs.  My dad's dad was a part-time farmer and carpenter.  His mother was a homemaker who worked PT to support their large family.  Of his siblings, only he and his sister went to college.  The rest work in the trades.

My mother's father was a state policeman and her mother was a nurse.  I guess that makes them middle class.  My mother's sister and oldest brother went to college, while their other brother worked for the power company as the lineman (want to talk about back-breaking labor).

Family gatherings as a child were always interesting.  I think of all my cousins, it was about evenly split in terms of whether we considered ourselves as middle class or "working" class. I have a tiny bit of recognition that my sister and I and couple of my other cousins were different than the others.  It became very evident as we grew older.  The so-called middle class cousins all went to college and waited until their late 20s, even into their 30s to marry. 

The so-called "working class" cousins pretty much to a T married young with those 9 pound *premies*.

My ex was like me and probably had a more exciting childhood since he lived overseas for a while growing up.

Eric and I make exactly the same amt in terms of salary.  He has more college education than I do (since I'm a college drop-out ).  I think if I worked closer to home, or he worked in the city, he would earn more than me.  He's a licensed engineer, and I'm just a production manager.

As for background, that's an interesting subject.  He comes from a very different background.  But not really different, when you get down to the nuts and bolts.  His father was a journeyman electrician, as was Eric until he went to college in his early 30s.  His mother worked for the school district.

But they lived in a type of neighborhood very very different from where I grew up.  My parents sacrificed spending so we could live in a very affluent neighborhood and attend the top-notch schools there.  I grew up with old money people.  I always felt a little like the poor kid in school, even though I'm sure there were kids there even "poorer" than me (read: less wealthy, more middle-middle class).

Does it bother me?  Not really "bother". It's weird when I think about the fact that I'm living with someone who used to drive a B!tchin' 68 Camero and wore a mullet (yeah, I just 'outted' him here in CoJ).  I was a semi-preppy, semi-New Ager in HS.  And only one guy at my HS drove a camero-type car... and he was the scummy drug dealer (although thinking about it now, he must have had a good business to afford the car...).

 OK... back on track...

My cousin Sue is a pharmacist and makes VERY GOOD MONEY.  She married a guy who worked for the phone company installing phones.   They've been happily married for 15 years now.  But the first couple of years, her mother just annoyed the crap outta her about "Tell Greg he needs to be a man and get a good job.  He can't let his wife wear the pants."  Yes, that was in the 1990s.  You've come a long way, baby.  Not.  I think she's over it by now.  At least I hope so.

Would I ever date a guy who was of a different class than me (God forbid Eric and I don't workout)?  I'd like to think so.  But I'm sure it would depend on his other attributes (hobbies, personality, etc -- get yer mind out of the gutter, Spokes).  And whether our respective futures were compatible. 

Thanks for bringing this up, CS.  This is something that I think about often. 

If you do care what other people think, you need to go by their standards. If you don't give a d*mn what anyone else thinks, you get to go by your own. That's all I've got.

I've never really wrestled with the class issue in my dating history -- pretty much everyone I've dated has been middle-ish class, and thankfully, in America, that is plenty broad to cover a wide variety of incomes.  

Parental habits (anger management, volume/yelling, alcoholism, and affection-displaying both with their spouse and their kids) have proven to be far more divisive than class.  I just cannot relate well to people who came from angry and loud homes that witheld affection, but I have found that parental alcoholism isn't a deal-breaker when I'd thought in the past that it would be. 

You're right here - I need to examine WHY it matters to me, then say, "okay, does that reason represent a value that I really hold?"  If we're going to dig here, a lot of what I've done - maybe including that fancy law degree - has been about trying to seem okay to my parents... and maybe not even conforming to what they want, but to what I THINK they want!  I think part of what I'm going through now, career and elsewise, is untangling myself from those expectations.

Madkat, thanks for your perspective too.  FWIW, my brother-in-law didn't finish college and is a top-10 husband and father.  Even my Dad would probably admit that by now.  Plus he knows how to fix and build stuff... there's a LOT I would trade in for that! 

And dear Bill, as usual, you sum up up succinctly. 

well there are certianly real issues within the relationship, once you get past the insecurity or awkwardness outside the relationship.

I pretty much grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth (shudddup) and my partner grew up on food stamps. Now she makes tons more money than I do (or she will in one more year) but we do have issues around money due to how we grew up. We rarely agree on the value of things (I'll spend anything on food, don't care too much about cars, she is a cheapo about food, and is snotty about cars...) We also tend to disagree about how much debt we care to go into, she loves getting things on credit "interest free for 2 years" and that scares me to death. She always manages to pay it off in time, and I think, because she grew up struggling and counting every penny and saving up for 6 months to buy racing flats for HS Track, she is much better at budgeting and planning, whereas I am kinda lazy about that.   My dad always took care of my $$, even through college.

In the beginning there were awkward moments, uncomfortable even-- When I am with her family, I have to be very careful about what I say, because things I think of as not a big deal (a family trip, say, or a golf course I played once...) makes them cringe and scoff at the "waste"  And when she is with my family, she is always nervous about not having the appropriate clothing, or not knowing how to choose a wine...

I am not sure how relevant this is, but we have come pretty far in being able to call each other on sh!t and on being really honest. It is about calss, and money, and being flexible with what our expectations were going to be about our life. We made the decision to be our own family which means that our mutual comfort comes first, and screw her parents if they are hyper sensitive, and screw mine if they are hypercritical...  (I will say that with time, both inlaws have mellowed and seem happy with their daughters' choices...

You're right, but things come up in realtionships all the time from our childhood, and  our backgrounds, and we need to be able to talk honestly about it even if it reveals thinsg about us we might not like to acknowledge. Example. I LOVE finding cool stuff at thrift stores, it is a game, I get stuff that would have been really expensive new, and I come home and am so excited-

One time I found a pair of Patagonia Baggies (very overpriced but well made, sturdy shorts you can run in and hike in and anything else for that matter) with the tags still on in K's size at a thrift store. I brought them home to her, and she was really rude about it, ungrateful, wouldnt even try them on.  It came out about a week later that she spent her whole life wearing someone else's clothes, and she never wants to have to do it again. I went nuts and said that was silly, they were perfect shorts!  Who cares?  How could she not be psyched that I found her such a cool thing for 2.50? And she lit into me about not understanding, and about how I take new thingd for granted, etc and she doesn't even want me buying used clothes because it makes her feel like she is unable to provide for me.  This sounds so petty as I write it, but it was several months beofre we figured out where all this resentment and hostiliy came from, on both sides. So yeah.  Am I even talking about the same thing anymore?

Ah, BT as therapist... 

Just to be the Devil's advocate here....

From a practical standpoint, I hope my kids marry well and have many options open for them for the future. the higher the class of their spouse, the more likely my grandkids are going to have options in life. My dad is an orthopod and my Mom a perpetual student.  While my Mom gave me a lot of wonderful qualities my spouse enjoys (sensitive, caring blah blah blah), it was my father and his income that gave me the freedom to go to any college I could get into, pursue any sport or hobby that I felt was worthwhile etc.

  while I see the downsides of having to "climb the social ladder" and the unspoken imperative that I be driven to succeed, by marrying my wife of a similar social background, we have given our kids a great advantage in life. It doesn't make success a forgone conclusion, but it sure helps.

  I've had friends of different backgrounds my whole life, and living with my dirt poor Mom after my folks split up gave me some backbone I might not have had otherwise.  I think it's about balance. I don't think you can completely disreguard class when it comes to relationships. If you do, there should be a darn good reason (e.g. strong love).

Just another side of the coin. Some thoughts I had on the subject rather than my total opinion, which mirrors most of the posts here.

Hmmm, interesting.  Now that my hubby is making more money than me, HE is the one that seems to be doing more housework, and helping the kids w/ homework (I work at night).  Could I be trying to wear the pants in the family?  Food for thought.

This makes good statistical sense - very Freakanomics (the success of a child is statistically linked to what the parents "are" as people  rather than what the parents "do" as parents).