Count up to see if you have arrived in middle class heaven?
1. Talk loudly to your toddlers in public situations as if they are adults.
2. Being conspicuously always busy, rushing from one appointment to the next, and always tapping away on your phone, even when with friends or family.
3. Kids must be signed up for a myriad of classes, clubs, and groups that they are rushed around to (linked to number 2), including ballet if you have a girl.
4. Unnecessarily super fancy buggies/prams that you need a Ph.D. to fold up and put in your oversized car.
5. Flaunting a healthy lifestyle on social media, a 10k run, expensive mountain bike, gym membership – signed up to the current fad classes, wearing expensive extreme outdoor clothing or gym clothing as casual wear, going in for expensive superfood fads.
6. Proclaiming publicly in restaurants intolerance to certain kinds of foods (gluten) without any proven medical condition.
7. Trying to go grand designs on your kitchen usually involves an open plan, an island, nice worktops, a glass sunroom, a log burner, or suchlike. High-end kitchenware, expensive knives, chopping boards, etc., are a must to chop up your occasional organic farmers’ market produce.
8. At least two holidays a year, ideally a private villa, so you don’t have to mix with the plebes, not a hotel. Skiing is a must, and Aldi ski wear is obviously not acceptable.
9. Going to high-profile concerts, festivals, or sporting events. Have your picture taken drinking beer in a plastic cup or wearing fancy wellies.
10. Conspicuous giving – doing something usually linked to number 5 above for a high-profile charity and posting it on social media to get sponsorship.
Now, how the middle class is you?
0-2 I bet you still call your lunch dinner, and dinner, tea, and you sometimes have it sitting on the settee in front of the telly, usually around 6 pm.
3-5 Ah, you are climbing up the posh ladder. You call the living room the sitting room and will uncork some prosecco there on the sofa (not the settee) after you have your dinner at the table around 7 pm.
6-8 No matter how much prosecco you have on the sofa, you will never go to the toilet, only to the loo.
9-10 Congratulations, you have truly arrived in aspirational middle-class heaven. On a sunny evening, Mummy and Daddy (never Mum and Dad) are served boutique gin on the terrace (not the patio) at the back of the house, never at the front of the house. Socializing in the front garden is vulgar.