feel middle class here.
I think people have an idea of what poverty looks like and what wealth looks like, and those ideas are distorted by media depictions. So until they're choosing who in the house eats and who doesn't, they don't feel poor. And until they hire someone to keep the indoor pool clean, they don't feel rich.
These days, what puts you (and I think most the Americans here) in the upper echelons of society are not visible, large-scale consumption items. It's health insurance, breastfeeding, shopping farmer's markets, sending your kids to college and having retirement savings. If you have all those things, you're likely not part of the "middle class" in America anymore, though it is possible that you still have a middle-class income.
That is very, very roughly the gist of this book I'm reading currently
The Sum of Small Things: A Theory of the Aspirational Class (2017)
by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett
http://amzn.to/2F2qXj2And just recently read most of this:
The Theory of the Leisure Class Kindle Edition (1899)
by Thorstein Veblen
http://amzn.to/2BMfylCThe latter, by the way, is where the phrase "conspicuous consumption" comes from.
Currid-Haklett pulls together a lot of thoughts I had been having but couldn't quite articulate, such as
- why is wealth associated with working more not less for so many in modern America.
- what is the obsession with food and certain chidl-rearing practices (her chapter on breastfeeding alone is worth the price of the book).