What did "middle class" mean to you when you were 20-30 something?

[Proud Public Servant]

15. We thought of ourselves as middle class growing up

This would be the 60s and 70s. My father worked as a section chief in a factory -- white collar, but with an office in a cubicle on the factory floor; he'd gone to a commuter college in Chicago (Roosevelt U) on the GI bill. We lived in a neighborhood of post-war tract houses; our neighbors included other low-level white collar workers (salesmen, mostly) and blue collar workers with good union jobs (a garbageman, a construction worker, etc.). No mothers worked. Everyone drove big American cars and got new ones every 6-7 years. All the kids went to public school. We got central air and color television in the 1970s. My sister and I went on to good, private universities (most kids in our neighborhood did not go on to college, but that seemed to be more about choice and aptitude that family finances).

So what did middle class mean? I think, more than anything, it meant that you had enough money to provide basic comforts for your family and a future for your children. Once upon a time that was possible without having a college education or a high-level job. Today, it seems like you have to be upper-middle class just to afford the same quality of life that the middle class had 30-40 years ago.