Middle-Class ... Working-Class

"That middle-class students will go to college, strive for professional jobs, and live in typical, middle-class neighborhoods are matters that are clearly assumed by both the general population as well as by social researchers who are for the most part middle-class themselves."

Peter Kaufman- 

Middle-Class Social Reproduction

     As a young child my family was a working class family.  My father was a mechanic and my mother stayed at home and raised the kids; three of us.  Through his experience and connections my father was able to move into management and get a bigger salary.  During the mid 1990's we enjoyed a typical suburban middle-class life because of what my father did for a living.  As a middle-class family we would go on vacations every summer, we had toys, life was good.  After dad lost his job and couldn't find another one, he got sick and was gone in less than 3 years.  Mom had to go back to work and we had to down-size.  There are a lot of 'could'a, would'a, should'a' moments but things went the way they went and it's useless to dwell on what might have been.  

     We are working-class and proud of it.  As a working-class man I have done my best and gone into a great deal of debt to strive for college; completing seven, soon to be nine years of college.  I am still striving for the professional job and the white picket fence, 2.4 kids.... maybe not in a middle class neighborhood, but.... One day I might find it and I might be able to provide a life like I had for my own family.  Until then...