Any other millennials fancy a moan?

[MoscowMules]

I know everyone says, the generation before you had it harder, all the way back to the Crimean War probably.

But

Is anyone else who is a millennial just a bit fed up? Fancy a pity party?

I reflected this evening on things that have happened.

I was born in the very early 90's, so am pretty much smack bang in the middle of the millennials.

We've lived under pretty much unstable governments in adulthood. Mainly conservative.

We've had 2 global recessions

An illegal War

Brexit

A global pandemic

Housing Crisis

Cost of living crisis

Possible collapse of the NHS or if not collapse it continues to limp on with poor care

Russia invade Ukraine and global tension.

To mention but a few calamities, and now here we are, trying to raise Alpha Generation typically, in the midst of all this.

I just feel a bit like "wtf" how much more can we take?

Yes there were good things on a social level, we were the first to learn and grow from the internet and become digital. LGB rights moved forward with same sex marriage, education improved especially with the removal of Section 28 from the education act towards the end of some of our schooling.

But my god! What a generation to belong to and try and navigate in.

I totally accept if I'm having a pity party for one here tonight though 🤣

Oh yes sorry you’re right. It’s not because house prices have risen so much compared to salaries. It’s because they enjoy their lifestyles so much. 🙄Why are you even on this thread?

”In 2011, only 6.8% of people with mortgages had an income of less than £20,000. In 1990, 61% of people with mortgages had income less than £20,000” - source - ONS House Price Index May 2012

You can take your avocado on toast lifestyle bullshit elsewhere.

And of course people base personal decisions like having children on the economy. No one wants to provide a worse life for their children than their parents provided for them. What a stupid statement.

Millennial here. I think the generations under us are starting to view the millennial generation in the same way our generation has viewed the boomers.

I think there is a misguided view of how "nice" the 80's were from nostalgia in TV shows.

In 2011, only 6.8% of people with mortgages had an income of less than £20,000. In 1990, 61% of people with mortgages had income less than £20,000” - source - ONS House Price Index May 2012

That’s an absurd comparison. A £20k salary in 1990 was a very good one, it certainly wasn’t in 2011. 21 years makes a vast difference.

In the words of Mike and the Mechanics 'Every generation blames the one before'. Twas ever thus.

went and studied maths at uni now a well paid actuary. Some HE courses are worth doing some are a start of a life of debt servitude.

The people on here intent on denying the huge disparity between house prices and incomes today, compared to the 90s :S It’s a basic proven fact. Widely reported. But okay.

Why come onto a thread which was made by millenials for millenials, if you’re not one? Ruined what was a perfectly good thread.

I was born in 84.

Im now 38 and by this age my parents owned their own home, had well paid jobs and life was comfortable.

I'm the polar opposite although so of that is due to a cheating ex husband.

I feel like the world we live in is so precarious at the moment

You have never ever been involved in a world war.
Faced conscription.
The Blitz.
You live in a centrally heated house.
Probably have a car most people did not even in the 60's.

You have more educational and job opportunities.
Life is hard.
Always has been.
Always will be.

My 2011 born Gen Z daughter thinks you have well and truly messed up the environment for her and her Gen Alpha cousins. Like the generations before you, you did nothing. Their struggle will be worse than yours.

Not directed at the OP quote above, but if millennials believe that the previous generation has really funked it up for you, what are you doing to ensure you don't screw the next generation over? Or are you solely focused on yourself? Will you become what you dispise?

I’m an older millennial and I think I could cope with all of the shit life throws at me if I knew I could retire in my 60s and have a reasonably nice standard of living on the pension I’ve been paying into since I was 18. I know I’ll be working until I die, probably of a cardiac arrest at my desk. Hopefully anyway, it needs to be quick because there won’t be any NHS or social care by then!

A bit of compassion from the older generation wouldn’t go amiss either. Instead of telling us they had high interest rates (for 5 mins) and didn’t waste money on Starbucks. My Mum is 68, retired (from her very very part time care job) at 58. Lives in a 4 bed detached house worth 600k and has more money coming in with her state pension and my Dad’s bog standard civil service one then I earn in my half decent, full time, degree necessary job. She tells me if we saved a bit harder we could afford a 4 bed so she has her own room when she comes to stay. We couldn’t!

Which generation is responsible for identity politics? I’ve no idea but it’s not the Boomers. This is one area that is really messing up generations and fingers will be pointing at the culprits.

@LuciferRising That's really interesting as I see us as quite an eco conscious generation. I've grown up watching (learning about and participating in) the rise of recycling, buying second hand, the eschewing of soft plastics in favour of recyclable materials, the comeback of reusable nappies etc, etc.

My household is certainly more eco friendly that my parents house is.

What does she think that we've done exactly? I'm interested to hear how the younger generations think we've messed up the planet.

@LuciferRising Ah I've just reread your post. She thinks we've done nothing? 🤔 Politicians from the millennial era are barely in power yet (Rishi Sunak is only just a millennial I think) so we haven't had the chance of a platform for change in that regard as yet.

What generation is Nicola Sturgeon? Eddie Izard? Those who should understand how their actions impact young minds?

I am a millennial but I was saying that our area in London wasn't affordable for my DH's parents and even their professional counterparts either. They had to start with little flats like DH and myself in 2019. They also often had parental help and rent free living with parents.

I think the big difference now is that there aren't really any 'cheap' areas to buy in London. or social housing. DH's mum says that z2 used to have so much social housing stock. Today, they are mainly rental or bought by the children of rich people. Its also lack of supply, and you can see that from the prices. its 50k less for me to buy a flat in a traditionally poor area of north London compared to my z3 leafy suburb. Even if you go miles outside London, you get a 2 up 2 down for the same amount of money. The large houses are all 800k to 1 million so same price as a terrace in London. You can just see the middle class sprawl all over the UK and it costs so much because they are all chasing the same thing- 3 bed semi detached with extension opportunities and big garden and hence it is overpriced. And people have more buying power due to low interest rates, cash rich Gen X/Boomer parents (i know of three millennial friends whose parents bought them houses) and also some industries do pay very well relative to other industries. DH and I earn combined 110k which is apparently the top 5% in the country and other mumsnetters have said this is low for London and encouraged me to move to leicestershire. If i did move to leicestershire, it would not be shocking that I would push up house prices. And if i was a bit older and had a bit more equity, the effect would be even more stark.

This is my mother's cohort. The pension age has been raised 7 years further than they expected, but in their 60s, it's a struggle to be re-employed when the goal posts change. She was in a better job 15 years ago, but public sector cuts and technology changes removed that role and she's reverted back to where she was 30 years ago before she trained to move up when her CSEs no longer cut the mustard.

She finally saved up enough to buy her modest home unfortunately hitting the peak of the early 90s prices then spent the next 5 years trapped in negative equity paying off dead money into a shitty endowment mortgage so lost a lot of the benefit of property prices looking relatively low compared to now. That was after spending her 20s in grotty house shares, and tiny subdivided flats that would be classed as substandard now. I remember the 50p jar for the electricity meter.

There's a lot more I could say about the difficulties of early adulthood in the 80s. Each generation has winners and losers. Each generation has their boom and their bust. I wouldn't have liked my grandma's childhood of war and rationing- and they were the prime years of my great-grandma's adulthood after her WW1 infancy and coming of age in the early 1930s. Many of the older gen Xs I know graduated into recessions and how they've fared on property has largely been their luck of being able to buy at a fortunate moment. It's not been universally easy and many hit a lot of issues 2008-2012 at the point when they thought they were ready to stabilise.

We've had a crappy decade compared to an unusually golden late 90s to 2010, but there were prolonged crappy phases before that. I count myself as a Xennial and have more in common with gen X than an arbitary cut off generation descriptor. The news of my childhood was bleak. Strikes, recessions, political corruption, AIDS, frequent H&S disasters, plane crashes, high profile abductions/ murders, cold war, war in Yugoslavia... not so different to now, but easier to turn off the 6 o'clock news or put down the newspaper than now. I can understand younger people feeling like they work hard for few gains, but that's not a new, unique problem. Hopefully more stable times will return. The world moves in cycles, and it is the world, not just what Blair/ Cameron/ Johnson etc did.

We are in a decline and can see that things have been better in recent times. But older generations have a different perspective having lived through previous cycles, and often life in those previous declines was more uncomfortable, dangerous or limiting than it is today. It wasn't all amazing opportunities, just as today's difficulties are difficult for people going through them now.

Do I hope things will be better for my children as they go through early adulthood in the next 10 years? Yes, I do, but historically speaking, there's not many eras that have been substantially better.

I see eco behavior from my boomer parents, through me as a Gen Z, my Millennial DSS, and my Gen Z daughter. And many households are. But not enough. Waiting decades for a platform is not enough either.

On an 11 year olds level, she believes the message should be reduce. Reuse and recycle isn't good enough. She doesn't know what generations are, she thinks any adult isn't doing enough.

Yikes lots of finger pointing and blame being thrown around here. I mean everyone has up and down times in life; most of it has to do with pure chance, some of it is to do with attitudes and perceptions and a tiny little bit of can be due to hard work.

These posts are getting like the "when I were a lad" Monty Python sketch! 😂

Hahaha this says it all for me. What a time to be alive

One thing I never see mentioned is that a house price correction is coming naturally - once the boomers pass away, you’re going to see an awful lot of spacious homes coming on the market over the next decade or so…

And an awful lot of six or seven figure inheritances.

Yes she would, she doesn't know we watched cartoons like Captain Planet!

You could go back and blame the boomers not doing enough and the generation before them and those before them.

Then again which generation is responsible for fast fashion? Hmmm

@LuciferRising Totally agree with the idea of reducing. She is right there.

Then again which generation is responsible for fast fashion? Hmmm An 11-year-old really doesn't have access to money to buy fast fashion. She is nearer to gen Z though.

But can you see how posters have gone into defense mode when younger generations start to blame you for all the wows in the world? You start to look for fault with them. Fast fashion, identify politics. People point to the generation above and below them. It is never them. And so the cycle continues, and progress is never made.