Am I middle class?

Question

I found out my parents income, at least prior to my moms death, and it was what people would say is lower middle class. My dad is a factory worker and my mom was a medical assistant. Neither went to college but my mom did do schooling for her career as a medical assistant. I grew up in the hood(working class/poor) neighborhood. I know my parents income wasnt always that high but we were never poor. Only had a few sporadic years in school where I got reduced/free lunch but that was when my dad had a few problems(lost his job, hours cut back).

Im 23 tho and never had to get a job and my parents paid for food and stuff while i went to college.

Im just curious about where I am in life and none of what I read seems to reflect where I am in life. I figured my family is working class in general but since i had both my parents unlike most of my peers growing up i had it a bit better than them but im still a bit confused and its causing me to second guess myself alot and so I was curious if any one could help me figure it out

Comments

what class you're in depends on what definition of class you use.
and class as a concept has gotten a lot more complicated than is acknowledged by most people who emphasize its importance (as your question indicates).

this site doesn't tend to pay that much attention to class because while there is some argument that a person's class (like other things about them) has an impact on how they think, it doesn't tend to be determinative (ie it's not the only or even the most important thing).

which leads me to ask you why is this what you're thinking about? what do you think it says about you? what do you think it says about other people? anarchists and people important to social change efforts have come from all classes.

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The old adage has it right:

What's important is not where you're from, but where you're going

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I was just curious about myself and where I stand in everything. I dont think it necessarily means anything about me unless i use my position to take advantage of/exploit those positioned lower, for lack of better term, than me. I think my parents just used what was at there disposal to make a better life for themselves and their kids and i get to reap those benefits. its just confusing because despite having a larger disposable income(id presume) and access to better things like health care i dont seem to be benefiting in the way a lot of leftist/anti-capitalist presume i am and having a sense of self is important for me to do anything at all esp if i want to help people live better lives

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it is precisely because of that kind of disconnect between theory and practice that some of us call ourselves "post-left" (etc). their theories don't match our experiences, and so we start looking for more accurate ways to think and talk about life.

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I don't think it matters what class you grew up in much. I mean, it may give you a different perspective of things from others and such. I'm apparently of a lot of different classes by merely existing, which all these different classes people put me in start becoming ridiculous after awhile. I wouldn't worry about which class group leftists label you as. It really doesn't say that much about you and what you're doing and what not. Sometimes I think they use these different class labels for people as them trying to get the gold medal in the oppression olympics or some other mumbo jumbo.

I don't know what the middle class means since I've heard a variety of definitions for it, so for your question, beats me.

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anarchy, for me, is primarily about how we relate with others. economic class, social status, skin color, gender/sex, all the various ways people tend to categorize themselves and others, i find to be overwhelmingly (though not necessarily entirely) detrimental to creating and nurturing anarchistic relations. which to me, only exist between individuals, not characterized groups.

that is not typically the way most, especially those on the left, tend to see things.

"I was just curious about myself and where I stand in everything."

i would hope you seek to answer questions like that for yourself. others, especially others that may know you well as an individual, can be great tools for helping to understand yourself. but looking to others to define who you are and how that fits into your concept of the world, is a recipe for co-dependence and other unhealthy (to me), and even authoritarian, relationships. which is not to discourage asking questions of others.

just my 2c.

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Like everyone else says, your "class" is irrelevant, but to more directly address your question, class is vague at best and everyones situation is different. People say there is " no such thing as the middle class" because of the income gap, and the idea of individuals reieving income is not a part of a free, anarchistic life

Answer 1

you are nowhere ... you are nowhere because you are trying to locate/create  that idealistic somewhere that structured information prophecizes is attainable .. that prophecy is the structural lie that welds the masses with hope ... the hope that you (all) are placeable within the structure's system is no different than the hope that the structure gives to its  priests, acolytes, and believers ... it is the false hope of conformity ... in conformity there is comfort ... you seem to plea for a classification as if it would place you in a somewhere where comfort would come ... that plea is best abandoned ... look into the nowhere that is you and accept it as a transitional fulfillment of the past and and an open ended predicate to your future ... by such assessment you will find that you are somewhere .. trust that from this present somewhere you will evolve as an individual with a personal purpose unfettered by any purpose derived from classification

Comments

jack pot i'm going to have to call you jack poet from now on...

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zen poet!