Reply #6: Diverse? [View All]

[Nikia]

Class is about more things than your paycheck and how much you have left over. My husband chatted with a guy who made over $150,000/ year and was living paycheck to paycheck. That happens when you live beyind your means. It would be nice to have an honest discussion about this without it turning into class warfare.
I'd classify myself as diverse because I've had a diverse upbringing with diverse family members. I am college educated working in a semi management position in a factory. I make around $30,000/year and am married to a college educated son of lawyer who does sales and service for a small business. I was born to young parents who tried to attend college while working. My mothers parents were an agriculture agent and a nursing assistant. My fathers parents were a police officer and a clerical worker. My great grandparents owned half of the rental properties in the large town that they lived in. My parents divorced and my mother graduated from college. My father didn't at the time and worked in manufacturing his whole career while playing in a rock band on the side. He graduated from college later in life. They were both very poor during my early childhood. My mother worked for non profits and governmental agencies and eventually married a very abusive manager who was fairly well off. We lived in a big house and they belonged to a country club. It was hell for my sister and I and we still wore worn out clothes from K Mart while their daughter got brand new clothes as a toddler from better department stores. In high school, I moved in with my father who had been laid off from a fairly good factory job because I could not stand living with my evil step father anymore even though my mother threatened to disown me. His band split up and he was stuck working for $7/hour. His wife was a teacher's aide. I ended up getting reduced lunches. I did well in school and went to a nice liberal art college. I experienced many different types of people and picked up things off of all of them. I think that people often do things that they do not like or that are not good for them in order to try to fit in with their appropriate class. They also limit themselves in what they do and who they get to know. How do we break down these walls? By the way, what class am I? I don't really feel comfortable with any of the class norms and can come off snobbish to lower class people and low class to upper class people.