After spending a great Mother's Day helping my Mom open cards and gifts, it occurred to me before long that the method my family chose to prepare our gifts and cards for my Mom was not unique at all to our area where we live. Unfortunately, we pulled the classic "Dad-buys-the-card-and-signs-for-everybody." I remembered talking about this with my friends before, all of them being from upper class families, and they had all said that their family does the same thing on holidays and birthdays. Then, I remembered some of my friends from middle class families saying they made homemade cards, and spent a lot of time arranging them with brothers, sisters, and parents.
While rushing to the store and buying a picture frame after making this realization, I thought about in what way this could be considered a class marker. A distinction between the holidays for upper, middle, and lower class was clear, but I had never thought about the cards presented on the holiday in different families. In upper class families, we need hallmark to phrase things for us, while in middle/lower class, cards are much more sentimental and intimate.
Why are cards usually not as personal in upper class families?
This could be for a few reasons. Maybe a typical upper class family isn't as close to each other because of work schedule for parents (traveling, long hours, etc.) and a common use of a nanny in wealthy families, causing a lack of communication. It could also be the general high tension in the family due to things like pressure from parents which is common in upper class families.
I am not in any way intentionally belittling or judging any type of family, so if you have an exception to this thought, please feel free to comment back and elaborate on it!
I'm sad to hear this, Elizabeth. I'll start by saying that I consider my family upper class. My mom is really crafty and artsy, and makes beautiful scrap books of photos for each member of our family. She also makes cards. Birthday cards, thank you cards, get well cards, you name it, she makes it. She has stamps, punches, ink, special pens, papers, and all sorts of bows, embossing dust, and stuff to make them look cool. Because of this, every card that I have ever given to someone was hand-made. For a birthday, I make my own card. If it is for someone outside the family, I might have some help making the card, but I write my own message inside. I'm sad that other families don't put in the extra effort; my mom is always happy because she knows that whatever we made was entirely our effort. One year I made a paper airplane card for my dad. Another year I made a trumpet card with a message coming out of it. My sister made a strawberry card for mother's day this year. We get creative. We all appreciate it on our respective days. That said, I think that upper class families may buy a card because it takes less time. There tends to be this kind of trade off: spend time OR money. In upper classes, they have more money, and they spend it so that they can save time. In lower classes, they spend time so that they can save money. In my case, Mom appreciates that I spend my time more than if I had spent money. Usually, upper class people are short on time, so they can spend the money to buy time. Unfortunately, that may end in the gift being impersonal.
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