I grew up in a low-income household on a working-class street but went to a comprehensive school where I socialised with numerous students from better-off homes than mine. A new study suggests that I might have benefitted financially from this experience. Poor children who have richer friends (according to research on “cross-class friendships”, conducted by Meta) are likely to earn up to £5,100 more in adult life.
Social mixing also benefits well-being, says the study – those with many wealthier friends reported 5 per cent higher happiness levels and 23 per cent higher trust.
It’s hard to calculate if I am richer or happier because I hung around with some middle-class students at school. But I certainly know that I can raise my own children in a more secure environment than the one I grew up in. Do I really have to thank my old schoolmates for this outcome?
If you’ve never been poor, you might assume this is all because rich friends instruct you in the ways of finance or enlighten your mind by introducing you to science, art, poetry and nice restaurants. But not only does that sound like a horribly boring friendship that would be worth remaining poor just to avoid, it’s not quite the point. Of course, socialising with people who are different from you increases your social adaptability, which probably increases your chances of future success in life. It means you can relate to, understand and communicate with a diverse array of people, which is easily the most underrated skill set on LinkedIn.
While “rich” doesn’t necessarily equate to “clever”, “hard-working”, or “ambitious” (often, it can equate to the very opposite), it often goes hand in hand with a stable home environment. Children from financially secure households are more likely to have at least one parent regularly present in the home, which usually means more structure to family life, more of a consistent routine and more parental monitoring.
My mum raised my brothers and I as a single parent and worked as a secretary, then a carer, on low wages supplemented by state benefits.
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We lived in a council house that, while full of love and laughter, was anything but stable. Various lodgers came and went, kipping on the sofa, throwing up in the sink, bringing their dogs and cats to our already overcrowded home. There was drinking, drug abuse, the odd fight and very little in the way of a predictable routine.
My mum was intelligent, kind and extremely hard-working. But when your back is to the wall financially, and you have to work all hours to get the rent paid, you have no choice but to sometimes let your children fend for themselves. I think she just hoped that I would have the discipline and self-motivation to succeed at school. I did not. I was a lazy kid who spent most of my time bored and lonely, whiling away long afternoons in the house while my older brothers and mum were at work. I was a latchkey kid, as were most of my local friends, and the temptation – and opportunity – to sack off studying and live a feral lifestyle was huge.
Then, when I was eleven, my mum fought hard to get me into a well-regarded comprehensive school in our neighbouring borough, half an hour’s bus-ride away. It might have been state-run under the yolk of Thatcherism, and featured all the underfunded, crumbling infrastructure that implies, but a large part of the demographic was drawn from its leafy surrounding streets. This was a time when wealthy doctors, lawyers and journalists who regarded themselves as somewhat left wing would send their young ones to state school in the spirit of community and social progression.
It wasn’t like I had no experience of the middle classes. My dad was from a working-class background but had elevated himself into the yuppie lifestyle after walking out on us when I was still in nappies. While we got the bus to school dressed in uniform funded by payday lenders, he drove a flashy company car, ate lunch out every day and lived in a posh flat with his new family. When I saw him on weekends or at Christmas, he would expose me to things like broadsheet newspapers or the occasional foreign cheese. But that sort of fleeting sojourn into the world of the newly bourgeoise was alien and intimidating to me. It is your everyday life – not occasional glimpses of other people’s – that defines your reality and forms your sense of identity.
The middle-class students I met at secondary school soon became part of my everyday reality. They liked the same things as me: football, music, comedy, mucking about. They demonstrated that showing at least some interest in learning, handing in homework on time and getting decent grades was not the embarrassing preserve of nerds and weirdos. These were fun lads and girls who went on to be lifelong friends. None of them were exactly Barron Trump but their parents were homeowners who drove Volvos or Volkswagens. I noticed other little details about their lives that were different to mine: they always had meals at the same time, usually while sitting at an actual table with their families, and they had their own bedrooms with tidy desks that allowed them to do their homework with ease and in comfort. Sharing a room with my older brother amid mess, noise, and drug paraphernalia was not quite the same thing.
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But I didn’t resent the privilege I saw in my friends’ lives and it was not something any of them rubbed in my face. Rather, it disarmed me to the idea of being somewhat more studious than I would have been otherwise. The stability they enjoyed at home gave them a natural confidence when it came to academia. They helped set a bar for me. I was trying to keep up with them – and, unlike anyone in my own family or down my street – they took it for granted that they would go to university one day.
My brothers had all gone to our local comprehensive which was rougher, more unruly and less demographically mixed than mine. Despite being just as smart as me, none of their academic outcomes were the same. I became the first person in my family to go to university, something which I think I owe in part to the clever, creative and funny students I hung around with at school. In adolescence, your peers have an enormous impact on your outlook and your behaviour.
None of this means that children from working-class homes are less intelligent, less loved or less academically able. And it certainly doesn’t mean that working-class parents are less likely to encourage their children to succeed. But poverty dictates circumstances that are often obstructive to getting the grades you are capable of or the life chances that follow. And if you’re surrounded solely by people in a similar situation, getting good grades and pursuing long-term career ambitions can seem a bit far-fetched.
‘Stop Shitting Yourself – 15 Life Lessons That Might Help You Calm The F*ck Down’ by Sam Delaney is out now in hardback, audiobook and Kindle edition, published by Constable
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