Middle-class Life: the Way it Is

Popular actor David Hyde-Pierce, of the longrunning sitcom "Frazier," had a commercial on television. "Once a week, gather your family around the table for a meal." Less significant than the fact that it 'went over my head' was the fact that everyone else I knew had the same reaction-- don't families always have dinner together every night? For most of us, that's the way it was-- with the exception of someone occasionally missing dinner due to an extracurricular activity at school, families had a "dinnertime," families ate their meals together. Middle-class life is most absolutely family-oriented; family is the number-one focus and number-one priority in people's lives; and it is with and for our families that we live, work, and base our decisions.

The other television commercial that was equally mindboggling was the "it takes a whole village to raise a child!" No it doesn't; it takes parents who are dedicated to and devoted to nurturing, guiding, and educating one's youngsters.

The middle-class is also referred to as "the working class." This goes beyond the socioeconomic factor and to the factor of values. Believing in earning what we have is important, but it also reflects in the attitude of taking care of what we have. The notion of treating our possessions in a shabby manner, or being needlessly wasteful, is appalling; the notion of treating the people in our lives in a shabby manner is even worse. The point of taking care of our possessions is based on the fact that we or a family member worked hard for the money to buy those items; the point of being good to the people in our lives is based on the fact that the people-- their existence and their feelings-- matter.

There are other concepts which I've found are generally unique to the middle-class. One which the other 'classes' cannot grasp is the concept of self-restraint. This concept covers quite a range of subjects. Although I've seen experiences without statistics, I'd venture to guess that the middle-class is less inclined toward addictions of the many types-- because "moderation" is a part of life. Unless an individual is specifically predisposed to addiction, it is much rarer than in the classes that believe and practice "gotta have it, gotta do it, now, and more."

The concept of self-restraint also covers the viewpoint that we see "a place" for various actions and behaviors. There's what is and there's what's not appropriate. The middle-class places a much higher value on such things as privacy, boundaries, personal space, and respect for those things which belong to other people. Having a clean reputation is also a middle-class trait; and soiling someone else's reputation is one of those things which simply "is not done."

We "are" exactly as we present ourselves; we mean what we say and we say what we mean. To be otherwise would be, as the older generation would have called it, "two-faced." For most of us, such terms as "playing games" is a totally unfamiliar concept; it only puts us at a huge disadvantage when we leave our familiar realm and attempt to interact with those for whom it is a "lifestyle." Most of us have no idea how to be anything other than who and what we are-- as well as no desire to learn such phoniness and manipulation.

The middle class does not generally have "lifestyles;" instead, we have "lives." The unnecessary complications by which others complicate their lives are pointless and a waste of time. Being practical is a good thing. We prefer to live life, rather than sit around talking about it; we believe that when there is something in front of one to do, one does it; and we don't subscribe to the nonsense of "trying to attach hidden meanings" to life or trying to make more of things than they actually are, for those are factors of the lazy, the bored, those with too much time on their hands and nothing constructive to do with it. Psychobabble, with all the energy-draining time-wasting factors associated with it, did not originate in the middle-class. Most of us are basically content with ourselves and content with our lives, make up for mistakes, deal with what's in front of us, live our everyday lives and plan our futures-- this is called "life." We instinctively know that there is not more than one "reality," that there is not more than one "truth," that there's a difference between right and wrong. We don't need to experiment to "find out who we are," because we already know, and see no reason to question it.

"God and Family comes first," everything else is just the trimmings. For most of us who were fortunate enough to have had middle-class backgrounds, that's the way life is, and we do not "chooose" to have it any other way.