I grew up lower middle class and the first time I saw a friend's parents throw away leftovers I understood we were different-here are 9 other moments that made it clear - Silicon Canals

"When I was fourteen, I spent the night at my friend's house after football practice. His mum had made this enormous roast dinner with all the trimmings. There was enough food left to feed another family of four, and I watched in genuine shock as she scraped it all into the bin. "Aren't you saving that?" I asked, unable to hide my surprise. She looked at me like I'd asked if she was planning to keep the used napkins."

"That moment hit me like a brick. In our house outside Manchester, leftovers weren't just saved; they were strategically planned. Sunday's roast became Monday's sandwiches and Tuesday's bubble and squeak. My mum could stretch a chicken across four meals like she was performing some kind of culinary magic trick. Growing up working-class shapes how you see the world in ways you don't fully grasp until you're older."

A teenage visitor witnesses a friend's mother discard a large roast and is shocked by the contrast with a household that saves and repurposes leftovers. In the narrator's working-class home outside Manchester, leftovers are strategically planned: Sunday's roast becomes Monday's sandwiches and Tuesday's bubble and squeak. The narrator's mother stretches a single chicken across multiple meals. Growing up working-class shapes how people perceive the world, creating different assumptions, routines, and notions of normalcy. A factory-working father returns exhausted from physical labor and finds purpose in union activity, teaching lessons about endurance and power. University peers' fathers often come home energized from office jobs, highlighting stark class-based contrasts in experience and outlook.

Read at Silicon Canals