Let's play a game: Are you really middle class if you can't afford to...

[Bonobo]

OK, I'll start:

Are you really middle class if you can't afford to get your teeth taken care of?

Try it! It's fun and might illuminate some of the deceptions that have been practiced on us.

I don't know about all of you, but compared to the way my parents spent money, I am poor as hell. And THEY were middle class as hell. But they could buy boats, indulge in expensive hobbies, buy new clothing, etc. It just doesn't feel the same.

[Cronus Protagonist]

1. Buy real estate

(on DU we renters get the short stick - maybe we're lower class than middle)

[seabeyond]

3. i think location has something to do with it too. nt

[undeterred]

2. Yeah, the standards are different.

My mother never worked again after she got pregnant the first time. We lived on one income and had all we needed. How many families of five can do that now?

[seabeyond]

4. we also had one tv, one landline telephone, no cable, no fast food

didnt go to restaurants hardly at all. we rarely did vacations.

i mean the whole style of living was different too.

i hear what you say

we need a living wage, one worker family if a family chooses

[Bonobo]

8. And that ONE worker should be either a man OR a woman.

Why is it that when women don't help to push for men's liberation, understanding it is part and parcel of the same problem.

Men aren't born wanting to be wage slaves you know.

[Berry Cool]

10. I am with you.

Both boys and girls should grow up from the cradle being taught that working is a necessity, not an option, for them. If they marry each other, then they should be able to choose to have one of them earn a salary while the other stays home raising kids, but it should not automatically be the man who works and the woman who stays home. They should also be able to switch roles if they choose.

We should not raise boys to believe that finding lifetime work that pays enough to support them plus one or more other people is essential, while raising girls to believe that they need find only work that pays enough to support themselves, and that work is optional if they marry.

[seabeyond]

16. who is arguing with you here. hence why i did not say mom stay at home, to make clear

one parent, gender not relevant.

[Bonobo]

18. I didn't mean to suggest you were arguing. nt

[pitohui]

25. not true abt the vacations, in the 50s and 60s vacations were a standard

everyone went on vacation, if you had no money, you still went to the beach

today's vacations, where everybody thinks everybody can/should be able to go an expensive gambling resort for a week or something even more expensive like a fake place like disney...not the same

now people might go on vacation for their honeymoon or once every five years but when i was a kid, dad got two weeks off a year and both of those weeks were spent "on the road again" even if we were broke and had to stay in a motel or a tent

middle class people weren't so wimpy and luxury oriented as they are now -- real people did not stay in "resorts" -- but they went on MANY MANY more vacations because it wasn't really more expensive than staying home

hell in addition to the two weeks a year of official vacations we had many a weekend drive to a grandparent's or another relative

[WCGreen]

5. Have to worry if and when your car needs major repairs.....

[Bonobo]

7. That's a very telling one.

And a car is not exactly a luxury, especially if you only have one and it's a beater.

[JackintheGreen]

15. I'll do you one better

Have to leave a vehicle parked for 8+ months because you can't really afford inspection.

[Bonobo]

19. Ouch! That is rough! nt

[freeplessinseattle]

26. yep, got both car and teeth issues right now

no light in sight

[Brickbat]

6. ...support a family on one income.

Generally.

[rucky]

11. That rules out a lot of us.

[Brickbat]

12. Yup.

[TygrBright]

9. ...trust the education you can afford to give your children will give them a better life than yours?

[Bonobo]

13. Good one!

$40,000 a year?
Our best and brightest are graduating as indentured servants with a mountain of debt over their heads too!

[Stinky The Clown]

14. KnR

[MrSlayer]

17. Take a family vacation once a year.

The family vacation is a staple of the middle class. At least it was.

[n2doc]

20. +1 n/t

[kevinbgoode]

21. It has been six years for me now. . .

and the last one was only five days and nothing exotic. But I did have Diana Ross tickets. . .:)

[Stinky The Clown]

22. Are you really middle class if you have to consider selling your ten year old car ........

..... because the cost of that new clutch exceeds the value of the car. You hope you can find a low mileage fifteen year old car on Craigs List with the proceeds of the sale.

[blueamy66]

23. I dropped my dental insurance

this year, as it was going to cost me about $35 a month.

I figure that if I go to the $39 first appt, cleaning and checkup, I'll be saving money. If they find something ominous, I'll go to Mexico.

And I ain't buying any real estate.

Talk to me in a few months when the child support is done...yeah 18....we'll be investing then. Cannot wait!

[pitohui]

24. middle class and they owned boats, erm, don't think so!!!!

sry, but people who owned boats had $$$$ unless you just mean a pirogue or a flatboat!!!

we were middle class supposedly and my parents couldn't afford to get us dental care, and we weren't the only ones, in some areas, only the really upper middle class kids got fancy braces, for the rest of us, hell, it's not like it was our permanent teeth, right?

[Bonobo]

27. Well this was almost 40 years ago.

And yes, they were middle class.

My whole point is exactly what your post brings up!

The definition of middle-class is so amorphous as to be meaningless!

It is a term used, cynically, to control the population. People always WANT to self-define as middle class, whether they are or they are not. THAT is how the people are kept in line. Think about it.

[Igel]

28. My best friend's family owned a boat.

20+ feet. Had a small cabin. He supported his family; his wife didn't work but took care of the 3 kids. Working class with middle-class income.

They also took the traditional 2-week vacation: Disney World or the beach (they also had a sort of camper, not really a RV), alternating years.

Otherwise a radically different lifestyle: a van + "normal" car, nothing fancy, and a very short commute; one tv; no cable tv; few frozen foods; simple clothes; and never eating out.

It was all a question of priorities. Most people like his family these days have cable or satellite tv with multiple tvs and DVD recorders, broadband Internet, computers, eat out fairly frequently, commute longer distances and have a house much larger than his.

[1monster]

29. I have dental insurance for which I pay $100 per month and I can't afford to get mine or my family's

teeth fixed.

Dentists have such cute little fund raising tricks these days. Go in for a cleaning (the insurance pays for one cleaning per year) and they will clean only the uppers in one visit and insist that you come back another day to clean the lowers. They call it "deep cleaning" but I can't tell any difference between "deep cleaning" and the regular cleaning of the past, except that I get charged twice for a cleaning once for the uppers and once for the lowers. Since they charge is the same for a "regular" (uppers and lowers) and a "deep" cleaning (upper or lower) and since the upper and lower cleaning takes place on different days, the insurance company will not pay for one of them since they only pay for one cleaning per year.

The dentist then insists that the client who has a cleaning also have the cleaning inspected by the dentist, the client is also charged for an office visit with the dentist... both times.

A simple filling costs $200 to $250; a root canal is $900 plus, and a crown $750 and up...

It cost me more now to get my teeth done than it did ten years ago when I didn't have insurance and paid everything out of pocket...

on edit: left out an important word==crown