Social Class and Cultural Diversity

This week, we have taken an interesting perspective on the role of social class and culture in family life. In one way or another, our families are influenced by the social class we belong to, and the culture that we come from. We have discussed the pros and cons of raising a family in each of the respected social classes. As a part of our discussion, we were asked which social class would be ideal to raise a family. Many said that middle class would be the ideal social class to raise a family in, seeing as they would have sufficient resources to succeed, but not too many as to spoil their sense of hard work. While this makes sense to me, I disagree with the assumption that one social class would be superior to another.

I had the privilege of climbing the social ladder throughout my life. As newlyweds, my parents were very poor, and in a large amount of debt. When I was a child, my parents were working through debt, and my siblings and I did not have as many resources as our middle class friends. Regardless of the fact that we did not go on annual family trips, and we lived a paycheck to paycheck life, I believe that my siblings and I learned all of the necessary characteristics to being successful adults. As we grew older, my parents worked hard enough to afford a larger home in the suburbs. Were were then considered "middle class". Although we had climbed this social ladder, my parents still required that we all worked jobs to pay for our own things, even though they easily could have. Regardless of our social class, we always maintained proper family values. Whether in a budget crisis or not, we always kept sound priorities and learned the things that we needed to in order to succeed in adulthood.