Family and Social Class

Hey everyone!

We discussed some cool topics in class this week and the one I want to focus mainly on is social class. I watched a really interesting video where interviewers showed people one of two pictures and asked which class they belonged to. One picture was of an older man dressed roughly standing in front of an old-looking house. The other was of an older couple very nicely dressed, standing in front of a fancy-looking house or building. What I noticed from watching people’s reactions to the pictures is that they seem to resent or find one class or the other humorous. If the person giving feedback appeared to be lower class, they would make comments like, “They look like the type of people who inherited all of their money and never had to work.” The way they said those things made it seem like they look down on those people. On the other hand, when seemingly upper class people saw the picture they would make negative comments about his clothes or even describe him as “pitiful”. Each class seems to look down on the other which I think is super interesting. Here is the link to the video if you’re interested in watching! A Nation of Tribes - People Like Us SD episode #1

I watched a few other videos too and one of them was about a woman whose profession was to teach other women how to marry rich! Isn’t that crazy? I thought it was haha. It only showed an example of one woman, and she was taught how to dress fancy and do her hair and makeup to fit current styles. At the end of the video, she went to a social event with a bunch of other upper class people. She seemed uncomfortable and nervous at first, but as time went on she seemed to gain more confidence in talking to the people there. I think fitting in with the upper class is most greatly affected by a person’s confidence. Some people have the money and all of the nice things, but they are shy and not very good with talking to people. While others don’t have much material wise, but are really good at socializing and making people feel comfortable. I think those are the type of people who can really work their way up. I’ve seen examples of this in my own life, especially in high school. The popular kids that everyone seemed to know were the students that had a lot of confidence. I think high school kids are especially drawn to that because it can be really hard to have confidence in that stage of life. How To Marry The Rich - People Like Us episode #3

Another video I watched was about a woman from the lower class named Tammy. She lived in a very small run-down house with her sons and worked at Burger King. She seemed proud of what she had and like she didn’t want pity, which I honestly admired. But her older son was very ashamed of the life he lived and talked rudely to her and was ungrateful for everything she did to provide for their family. I get that he might think life was unfair and it’s totally reasonable for him to want a better life, but he wasn’t doing anything to change his circumstances and blamed everything on his mom. In the earlier interview he said he wanted to go to college and have a career to build himself a better life, but sadly in the interview a few years later he had dropped out of high school and was working a job he hadn’t wanted for himself because his girlfriend had gotten pregnant and he had to provide for her and his daughter and wanted to choose either school or providing for his family because he didn’t want to do both. Tammy's Story - People Like Us episode #5 Tammy's Story II: 2013 Update - People Like Us ADDITIONAL SCENE

Those are some different perspectives on class and a little bit on how they affect the family. The way I see it, class doesn’t have to have an effect on a family’s happiness or closeness. I think families can be strong whether or not they have a little or a lot, if they are willing to love, sacrifice and work together :)