Social Classes

This week was a particularly interesting week in Family Relations. The main topic of discussion was in regards to “class”. What is class? We ended up defining class as being the access one has to resources. Classes can be separated into 3 main categories; Lower class, Middle class, and Upper class. Middle class can be subdivided into Lower-Middle Class, Middle-Middle Class, and Upper-Middle Class. I thought it was interesting how on Wednesday, we were able to easily define what class our families of origin belonged to. But the only criteria that we were able to think of to define our family’s class was by our parent’s levels of income. But the more we discussed class, the more I began to realize how complicated “class” really is. It is a sort of demeaning word. It is a method of dividing communities into groups of individuals who make enough money to purchase items that make them looks as though they are in certain social circles. There was a YouTube segment we watched about how someone who has a ton of money will purchase certain products because it is deemed “high class”. Something might be completely worthless, but if it has a French name, someone in the “upper class” will buy it just so they can have the appearance of that class.

We also watched a clip called “Tammy’s Story”. It was particularly interesting. It was about a woman named Tammy who was living in a trailer with her two sons, didn’t have a working car, she walked to her full time job at Burger King which was 10 miles away, and barely able to survive. She was someone considered “lower class”. The sad part about that show was that she had the same dreams that anyone would have. She wanted to go to school and get a better job and be able to spend more time with her family. She wants her children to have more opportunities, but she just can’t seem to access the resources she needs because of her class. On the other hand, her older son hates living with a mother who is "lower class”. He thinks that she is embarrassing, and that he is of much higher status than her and his brother. He wanted to be able to have a better lifestyle for himself when he graduated from high school, and be able to get a degree to get a really good job. Tammy thought that she was stuck in her position in society and that her son needed to just accept the fact that he was too.

It was sad that Tammy was unable to have access to resources to better her life, but the fact that she was settling for the life that she had (yet wanted desperately to change) was disturbing. She figured that she would never amount to anything so she gave up. The most unfortunate part of her attitude was that she wanted her son to settle as well. He had dreams, and had more opportunities to access those dreams, perhaps, than Tammy did, but she clearly did not support him in them. The son on the other hand was very demeaning to his mother, and was almost condemning her for her lack of opportunity. He had a lot of skills it seemed; sports awards, academic achievements, etc. More skills than his mother probably did at her age, which led her life to where it was today. Both were very unsupportive of the other, which did not make their common goal seem possible, unless they worked together.

I think a lot of people in the lower classes settle in their circumstances not because they are lazy, but because they don’t know how to better their lives. They don’t know where to go or what to do to have opportunities of furthering their educations, or job opportunities. In America, we have a unique opportunity to “climb the class ladder” and are able to change their status’. But unfortunately, many don’t know how to go about it. They do the best they can, but sadly their best is often not enough.

I didn’t mean to go on and on about the limits of the lower class. But I find it really disheartening knowing that there are opportunities for those who need them, but are still inaccessible.