Boomer parents

[Freesamples]

Anyone else got a boomer for a parent that a) has no idea how the world currently works and b) loves to put the boot in and c) is absolutely delusional about how much things cost.

me, I love to sniff out a bargain, crowning glory the summer hols I’ve booked for me, dh and dcs. 4 star+ AI, 2 adults 2 kids, package £2k and in summer holidays. Absolute belter. All to be met with a chorus of how expensive that is and how much we’re over paying and how they’d spend no more than £1k on holidays for us (in the mid early 00s). Plus, don’t want to go there, they hate brits, it’s too hot. (All places we went as kids btw)

it can’t be just me

Grow up, stop making a fool of yourself

virtue signal

your precious feelings

Reported. Honey, kindly, I hope you feel better soon. Maybe have a little lie down?

We lived much like this in the 80s. My friends didn't though. It was rough being the poor one in the class. No-one wanted to visit after school when we had black and white TV. Literally everyone else I knew had colour and they didn't want to watch in black and white when they had better at home. I don't think this was the norm for the 80s for most people.

The UK economy was not rebuilt in the 50's. It was an utter mess by the late 70s. It was rebuilt in the 80s until which time we lagged far behind the losers of WW2.

There will always be a divide in thought around the issue of the baby boomers. The world has changed and so has life with it.

My grandparents owned a farm and other businesses. A house and land that would now be worth multiple millions. They inherited through grannie's line in the 60s, due to the suicide of her brother who never recovered from being a prisoner of war. Her other brother was shot down in 1942. After decades of tax was paid my mother, born in 1936, got about a million in the early 00's. That isn't a complaint. But prior to that she and father lived well, they bought their first house in 1963 for very little and when they divorced mother had enough to buy a nice house in a nice village in 1973.

MIL and FIL, both brought up in relative poverty, bought their first house in 1960 for £1,700. A large 1930's semi with garden and garage. FIL was 31, a saver and the mortgage was less than £1000. They always claimed to be very poor but clearly weren't. Born 1928 and 1936.

I'm not sure the argument is about when people were born. Rather it is about what we'll educated people could have then compared to now and what I would call the creep of expectations which seems disproportionate compared to actual earnt income.

Far more debate is required about the impact of working tax credits and the expectation that women would work full-time like men in jobs of equal status, which of course they absolutely should if they wish, but this has had an inflationary impact on house prices which have increased because people have had more money to pay. The curve is not of course linear due to the growth in demand created by a bigger population and higher number of households due to families splitting and single parent households.

In 1971 I was the only child in my class whose parents were divorced. Setting aside the shame, there must have been a lot of girls in unhappy homes that were not discussed in that class. It all has an impact and not all change is retrograde

Sorry but you have to look at the overall picture.

house price
annual income
and the cost of the house as an income multiple
the property you got for the price
interest rates

i dont know you, or if you got a mortgage with a reputable lender as there were lot of a subprime lenders lending to people who couldn’t afford it back in the 90s.

but to use a my parents example. Early 80s, annual combined salary of around 30/35k (yes it sounds low but remember inflation which makes it around 112k today) house was 75 (5 bed detached) in a naice arrear. Today the house is worth 650k but if we looked at it from a pure inflationary point of view it should cost about 280k. But the point is, they literally borrowed less In relation to their income, so it cost them less.

Right I suppose I was thinking about the welfare state, the NHS and social housing. Those were certainly done in the '50s.

I wouldn't be particularly proud of being an architect of Thatcher's Britain- it was shit for many people.

The NHS was 1947!
The welfare state and social housing existed before the 1950s. It was modernised post war. Don't you recall all those tower blocks that helped destroy functional society.

Britain was utterly broken by 1979. It had to adapt to the modern world.

And then came Thatchet who broke the north of the country even more.

Until recently, clothes and lots of white good have been a good bit cheaper that they were 30 years ago.

Thank you I am aware of the inception of the NHS. Slum clearance happened majoritively in the 1950's.

They are certainly cheaper but they don't last anywhere near as long. I'd rather pay a more for a reliable appliance that lasts 10 years or more than a cheap one that lasts two or three years. Clothes were often handed down, so you didn't have to pay twice (or more).

My last washing machine ( bought in 2010) lasted 14 years

Lucky you. Granted my appliances have a hard life. But they are nowhere near the quality they used to be.

I’m 40 something and lived exactly like that. My mum couldn’t afford utilities ( despite working on average 60 hours a week) so our rented washing machine was just something pretty to look at. No central heating just a coal fire and a broken toilet as we couldn’t afford a plumber and the council took years to fix it. Black and white tv on the odd occasion we could afford electricity.No hot water, no lights except fire light, 5lb potatoes to last us 2 weeks and roasting them on the fire if the gas went out. I finally got my first bed at 15, no carpets on the floors etc, etc, etc. . My mum died of cancer young, so left with no inheritance just debts at a time when we had two full time nursery bills to pay and a mother in law who despite never working a day in her life, refusing to help with childcare so my husband could be at my side when I was having to spend my days sitting at my mums beside in a hospice 150 miles away from our home as I’d moved to where the jobs were.
I’d really like to know how my life was easier than any of the boomers I know who grew up in similar conditions, but had full university grants, houses 2 times 1 persons salary, mothers who didn’t work so could help and would be looked at badly by the community if she didn’t help, gold plated final salary pensions in the same jobs that I had that enabled them to retire at 50.etc.etc?

My wasching machine had a very hard life at least 10 washes a week. It was an LG if anyone cares and I haven't bad word to say.

I was born in 1957 and we had a terraced two up two down with an outside toilet in the yard. No bathroom, coalhole under the stairs and my mum handwashed our clothes and put them through a mangle. We lived around 5 miles from Belfast.

I'd a very happy childhood as all my friends were the same. Only posting this as it wasn't out of the ordinary at all, working class in the late 50s early 60s.

We moved to a council maisonette in 1964 and it was lovely having a bathroom and washing machine!😄

My mum was a widow she had to work….. stop generalising.

That sounds v. difficult 💐 poverty is tough no matter when you were born. I remember the boiler breaking at home and DM crying over the gas bill in the '80's. Having said that I cried over a gas bill in 2008 with a 4 year old and a 2 year old and I am sure there are young parents doing it now.

Couldn't you just as easily ask yourself how your boomer mothers life was easier than any of your generation who have grown up in middle class families with every advantage, who's parents gifted them a house deposit and provide free childcare, and who in the fullness of time will benefit from a large chunk of free money in inheritance to enjoy in their retirement? Because surely your own upbringing shows you that social inequalities are rooted in wealth disparity far more than the generation you're born into?

Clothes are massively cheaper than they were when I had my kids. We relied on the grandparents buying our children's clothes until the older was about five.

I still have my account books for those years, and it's just astonishing how much cheaper electrical goods, household goods and clothes are now.

Anyone saying you don't know any boomers who lived like this, allow me to introduce myself. I am right at the end of the BB generation and this was exactly what it was like. My parents bought their house in 1963 - my Dad had also lived there until his late teens. Certainly up until I was 8 or 9, so early 70s, it had no central heating, single glazing so draughty we put books on the windowsills to hold the curtains down because of the draughts, there was a copper in the corner of the kitchen for the washing and I vividly remember when we got a twin tub machine and the mangle was consigned to the garden! My DM worked full time at the co op so shopped there and would bring the shopping home on the bus back. We had no fridge so this was a necessity really.
I'm not writing this as a 'we lived in a paper bag in the street' way but just to say yes, it was like this for some.

Only ten washes a week? lol. I probably have a few more kids than you as we can easily do that in two days if I'm home a lot for two days running. Definitely would in three days.

I'll take the brand recommendation. I have a Bosch which I'm very happy with at present. Got a Bosch dryer too, also very good.

And as 'boomers' (if you really must use that term) who have worked very, very hard for what we have, we help our children because we know it's tough and because that's what our parents did for us, and don't criticise how they spend what they earn themselves.

I was most definitely not raised middle class. Given house deposits? Given childcare? I'm gen x and got none of those. Neither did my boomer parents. Actually my mother was offered childcare by my grandmother, but they moved too far away to take advantage of that. My mother never even offered us the same.

I really doubt it is the norm to be given house deposits. If you get that you're very lucky. I'm sure it has to be a minority get that amazing hand up.

I doubt I'll inherit anything and I don't care.

Well actually I would argue that that generation with its co- morbidities are limiting access to younger generations.

Absolutley pathetic. @GenXSpecs

I always thought my parents came under Boomer, then Me (Gen X) and then later Generations
Turns out, they come under The Silent Generation though. News to Me. (1928 - 1945)