Do you worry your children will not have the same lifestyle or job opportunities as you?

[mids2019]

I was reflecting that over the course of their childhood my children have had a reasonably affluent lifestyle, 4 nd detached house, 1 or 2 foreign holidays per year, (including Disney Florida), fair amount of after school activities etc. They have had this lifestyle partially because we are late(ish) parents therefore professionally advanced and rsecure fiancially. Over the years we have Chad frees higher educattion, parental assurance with house deposits, low interest rates etc.

I look at the costs of modern living for the young with expensive housing, high interest rates, paid for higher education and an increasingly cut throat graduate job market and I wonder if ever my children will experience the same as us? Will out children notice the contrast in lifestyle especially with housing and holidays when they join the workforce?

It's the contrast I worry aboit. I grew up relatively poor in a lot of respects so I getting a semi detached house felt a real leg up in life as well as visiting foreign capitals in my twenties. It just seemed I had somehow scanned a little in terms of lifestyle and it could be the reverse for my children

Does anyone feel the same?

Sorry for the many early morning typos.

Yes I know what you mean - I doubt my children will be able to afford the lifestyle (particularly housing, we live in London) that we do.

Similarly, my husband and I must be a similar income level to my parents at my age, but I cannot afford the lifestyle they gave us!

It's one of my reasons for only having one child. I had an affluent upbringing and my DD is having one too. She will have money as she embarks on life because we can pay university tuition fees and house deposit for her.

Money is really really important to me - not for its own sake, but it gives you choices in life and eases the difficult bits.

I have friends who feel differently though - much more relaxed about not paying uni fees etc so I think I'm a bit of an outlier.

Yes, I have teens and I do think it will be harder for them than it was for me and DH. Like you we have benefited from free uni fees and house price rises.

On the flip side, we'll be able to give them more financial help than we got from our parents.

Also, I think that happiness is mainly relative. As long as they're doing okay compared to their peers, they'll hopefully feel happy and successful.

I think unless your from a poor family and raised as a poor kid, doing better than your parents is out of reach.

I grew up in a 3 bed terraced on a council estate by parents who didn’t work and chose benefits as a lifestyle. I own (mortgaged) a 4 bed detached and have worked since 16, so I am better off, I have done better than my parents. Do I think my children will own a 4 bed detached in a nice village with just 60k left on the mortgage in their mid 30’s, no chance. Not even close.

completely agree.

I don't think the children (early teens recognise this). They have no concept really of mortagges , rent, flight and accommodation prices and it feels a little uncomfortable discussing this with them. In terms of careers I don't they appreciate the difference in pay between say a nurse and a consultant doctor where non can determine your lifestyle to a degree.

One thing that I have found is that I can be quite concerned about such things as academic performance as (maybe wrongly) I do see good qualifications as the only realistic door into more well paid jobs.

I do think the children are aware of the spectrum of affluence at least within our town and I think it important for them to appreciate some people are poor especially during those early job years.

I think about this all the time. And I warn my DC's too. It's all very depressing.

And just so it doesn’t sound like a stealth boast, the house we are in now, that was purchased 10 years ago, we wouldn’t be able to afford to buy today. Prices have risen far beyond our salaries.

We've chosen to stop at two kids and stay in the same house rather than move to something bigger, so that we can save save save to give ours a good start in life.
University fees will be paid, and they'll have sizeable house deposits when the time comes. We wont be letting them get saddled with 10's of thousands of uni debt that only compounds and would cripple them in their 40's and 50's when they are earning better.

I do! I've got one child who is probably heading to be a high earner with her career plans and one child who is happily pottering around. I keep trying to tell him that he won't be able to have the kind of house and lifestyle we have on the kind of jobs we have but it's hard for them to realise at this age. Even my potentially high earner, the impact of student loans, high mortgage rates and deposits, I can't see her affording her own home for many years.

I do constantly tell myself that they are both happy with their lives, and that's the most important thing, but I do worry that it will be a struggle for them.

I definitely worry about this. Sorry but “the kids currently doing well at school” doesn’t mean anything so are most other kids. The issue is the jobs market and the cost of housing.

Dh and I both earn more than our parents did and are from good but quite modest backgrounds so had quite low expectations when we were young. Our teens have the life of Riley with us not sure how they will be able to replicate this for themselves.

That they are unlikely to own a home in the area that they grew up in, and that the world will look different in terms of careers/income for their generation than it did for ours. Not trying to scare them, just to prepare them for reality.

We’ve had the same discussion.

Grandma owned a 4 bed house brought with cash so never had a mortgage she worked and saved.

Her mother never worked but had 14 children. Owned their own 7 bed Victorian detached house.

Mine and DH parents worked, paid a mortgage and paid it off in their 60’s.

Me and DH both worked full time, still have a mortgage and will pay this off in our 60’s

So the question is -how can we be in a situation where both adults need to work to afford a mortgage - have to consider how many children they’ll have for financial reasons, knowing they’ll have to be in childcare until secondary school.

Where previous generations could afford a house on one wage, raise their own kids and be mortgage free eventually.

Life sucks for our kids.

I’m not particularly worried about it. We live in an expensive area and have a reasonable mortgage on a 4 bed and have fairly normal holidays a couple of times a year. We had no family help and didn’t get free university education so have high student loans. We are saving heavily for our DCs, we know life is probably going to be more expensive for them and so will help them with university costs and house deposits. We are prioritising that help over things like private school as we wouldn’t be able to afford both.

Yes. I worry about this.

it was easy for my generation to improve on the life they grew up with. I grew up with a single mum who worked as a teacher and we were comfortable but had to be careful with spending and always had cheap supermarket food, old banger cars etc.

i was awarded a full grant and did well at uni. I got on the housing ladder by buying with my best friend two years into my first job because there was a property crash. The flat we brought for £200k in London in 2001 is now worth £550k and no first time buyer young graduate in the public sector could hope to buy it.

DH and I both work in the public sector but we are successful in our fields so have decent salaries. We both benefitted from getting on the property ladder early and selling at canny moments. my kids have grown up in a nice house in a nice part of London and had three holidays a year and eats out lots. They will never be able to afford the same if they choose similar careers to us. Maybe if they go into financial services but otherwise no. We had so many more options at their age.

I feel the opposite, but perhaps it's because we live a good hour North of London. We haven't done Disney or holidays abroad. We've worked hard, DH and I have built up our own businesses and given our dc a strong work ethic. We've economised and saved so that they can enjoy driving lessons, first cars and uni comfortably, and they will be able to use their since birth savings to help them with a house deposit. They've had greater access to higher and further education than we did, so their worlds are wider. They will also benefit from generational wealth. We are from hard working, working class families, so we are all home owners and this will eventually pass down to them.

It's being brought up in a terraced house in the North East in a relatively deprived out village that has meant any sort of larger house or foreign holiday seems like a bump up the financial status ladder. I don't think we have applied our children but they have benefited from going abroad quite frequentlyx , fed and clothed well, given a lot of opportunities for extra curricular activities etc. I don't regret this for a second but as they age I am acutely conscious that things like home ownership is becoming more diffcukt, university fees will increase, there is more professional job competitiin generally etc. etc.
I think it may be difficult one day for them to fly the nest as I don't know who's they'll feel about starting from the bottom rug as it were but it will have to be done.