From time to time my wife, who practices in Child/Young Person Psychiatry, suggests that I'm out of touch with "middle America". Often this statement is made in social or semi-public settings so I frequently feel a bit uncomfortable. I spend the majority of my time divided between working in software engineering, teaching statistics and research methods, maintaining the household and riding my horse. I believe she feels my daily activities don't bring me many opportunities for mainstream social interactions but I'm not sure I accept that. For starters, I have a significant problem with the term "middle America". I'm not sure such a term has any meaning and being a generalization may also reflect some underlying prejudice on the part of anyone using the term, or at least a short coming in critical thinking. Or does it? If middle America is a useful term what are some of the characteristics of middle Americans?

What do you think? Help me out - I'm really curious about how others see this!