Pandagon: Class and marriage

Amanda Panda talks about cross-class marriage, and the way our interactions are tempered in subtle ways by class identifications. It's an interesting post, and links to the interesting NYT series on class.

I was trying to think of what class I identify with, and I realized it's really a non-trivial question. See, my parents split up when I was in about sixth grade, and divorced a couple years later. As is often the case in these scenarios, my dad moved out, we only saw him every other weekend, and my mom rapidly became destitute. We lived off child support payments and AFDC for a year or two, while she finished school (AA in architecture), then started working as a drafter in a local architecture firm. She was laid off around my senior year, but has built up a decent reputation in her community has a talented house designer. Meanwhile, my dad's income continued in the low six figures, and he bought a house the fall of my junior year, along with new cars every couple years. I got to report just her income on my FAFSA, while he actually paid the gap between financial aid and tuition.

On the one hand, I grew up and continue to be lower middle class, living from paycheque to paycheque, worrying about what happens if I get sick, trying to figure out how I'm going to afford the car I'll need to buy this fall. But I live in a neighborhood of Chicago that's predominantly upper middle class (and white), and I really don't know what to do with myself without cable, broadband internet, espresso bars, and box stores.

I'm a cross-class relationship all by myself.