Has the lifestyle our parents had become impossible?

[bumblebugs]

My parents had what I suppose you’d call a very privileged/upper-middle or upper-class upbringing. They went to fancy private schools, there was family money around, and when they married they were able to buy a lovely big family home.
Growing up, we went to private school, had nice holidays (often a few a year), and generally had a very comfortable lifestyle. My parents would go to balls, have dinner parties, entertain friends etc. None of it seemed particularly unusual in their circle.
Now I’m married with a child myself, I’m realising that recreating anything close to that lifestyle seems almost impossible.
Between us, my husband and I earn roughly what I would have considered comparable to what our parents earned, and we both work hard. We have a nice life and can just about afford the things that matter to us, so I know we’re fortunate. But private school, a large family house and three nice holidays a year? Absolutely not. Even the social side seems different I don’t really know anyone regularly going to balls or hosting the sort of dinner parties our parents did.
I always assumed if I worked as hard as my parents did, I’d be able to give my children a broadly similar upbringing to the one I had. Now it feels as though the goalposts have completely moved.
Has anyone else from a similar background found this? Is this lifestyle simply much more expensive and inaccessible to our generation, or am I looking back at my childhood through rose-tinted glasses?

It think it depends on your lifestyle and personal choices.

I do agree that our generation, millennials and below have it tough. It seems like we have been constantly hit with some sort of financial crisis since the recession in 2008 and we just haven’t caught a break. So it does feel like our generation live to work, as opposed to what the previous generation looked like where I believe that they worked to live. Also I think the culture of side hustles and constantly chasing wealth means more people may appear to work more than leisure? Or work is leisure?

I grew up working class, people would say I’m middle class now. But when I think back at my parents they had a roof over their heads (council), they had a decent enough car (these days even a car is a massive expense with the price of insurance and upkeep), I remember my parents being out every couple of weekends (not necessarily balls but they had a massive community of people and would go to weddings, birthdays, community events - some were family friendly and they would take us. But also rules around leaving children at home were way more relaxed so you could go out without the worries our generation seem to face around bc childcare - or you’d just leave the kids with the neighbours and people weren’t as rigid).

I do think money went further. Whereas now, even the average earners among us are really struggling. As everything that comes into our pockets seems to go straight back out in bills, mortgage payments, children activities (they are so pricy but it feels like it doesn’t matter what class you are these days, all kids have activities), and general cost of living. If we read the threads everyone’s feeling the pinch, from people on lower income trying to make ends meet, to people on £100k salaries that get zero benefits and have taxes everywhere.

We seem to have less disposable income, less community and less “fun” maybe.

I do think you really have to be intentional about the social life you want. At one point whilst raising my children my job gave me opportunities to go to black tie events (is that my version of a ball?) , and I was around that social crowd. Now I am in a more creative sector and I guess black tie have been replaced with openings and launches - still fun but I swap out the ballgown for a smart casual outfit - I get to go out, meet people, and have a social life. I do know people that organise galas and stuff - but I haven’t made friends with them.

I think the lifestyle you want is out there, it’s just a case of finding it. Amongst making sure all our high costs are paid.

Black tie events sound very posh and middle class. As do openings and launches.

What is well documented is a large decline in entertaining at home. People used to pop round for a coffee or have a meal with friends at home far more than in the past. There used to be much more small scale volunteer organised community events. But volunteering is in decline. And it's not about sahp. Far more retired people used to volunteer, but many of them are now providing childcare for grandchildren or still working.

Taking aside your parent's life style which was clearly fortunate and not typical for the time and turning to your central point of whether your generation has it tougher than your parents and in turn whether your children will have it tougher than yourself and so on, then looking at UK Purchasing Power Parity (basically how well off the average person is) then the data show a clear managed economic decline in the UK, that is continuing.

I think the key is actively thinking about family size in relation to your income and financial resilience.

Given that the global financial crisis was eighteen years ago it seems naive to have 3+ children on fixed public sector salaries and then be surprised (or even indignant) that you won’t be able to give them all flat deposits or take them on regular overseas hotel holidays once they are past the room-sharing stage. Someone who is brilliant at budgeting and saving may be able to do so, but it’s not going to be easy. But I have seen many such a thread on Mumsnet.

The world is changing and the old certainties of children growing up and leaving home to live independently at age eighteen or twenty-one are no longer the case. It may be the case that people should only have the number of children whom they would be prepared to house and support into adulthood.

I think I agree with this. I feel I only managed to achieve a reasonable adult life by the skin of my teeth as someone who became an adult around the 2008 crash. After going through that you can't take for granted that your children can make it without parental help and a big family feels risky.

Talking to some slightly younger cousins and their friends the vibe I get is a real cynicism about having kids then having to work all hours to cover housing and childcare. It doesn't sound appealing to them so they don't want to do it.

Nailed it. As an aside, I'm quite envious of the OP, who seems to have grown up in a Jilly Cooper novel!

YANBU of course.

Just to add plenty of the very poorest 18 year olds do live independently. People who have been in care or whose families are homeless and in temporary accommodation or abusive families. It is possible but a hard life.

In the fifties adults lived at home usually until they married, and often even then for a few years. Living alone was unaffordable for young people. It is historically quite a short period of time where people could afford to leave home at 18 and live in a house share. Rising damp and Rhoda were TV sitcoms highlighting this new trend of adults in the sixties but especially the seventies, living away from home when they were single.

What made that possible was a massive council house building programme that lowered private rents and house prices making house shares affordable.

We are going back to what was the norm. Adult children living at home until the6 can save up to move out.

I'm only up to page 9 so somebody may have already posted this, apologies if they have, but I just saw this article and thought it interesting and relevant.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/oct/08/dreadful-decline-hosting-home-shame-friendship

Said this on another thread but I've been unable to invite people over for years. I try but it always ends up turning into meeting in a park or cafe. I think my friends worry that I'll expect to come to their house so it's safer to say no.

I've also started questioning all the Christmas dilemma threads where OPs claim that their homes are too small to host Christmas. I don't remember many ordinary people having particularly big houses when I was a child and yet most people seemed capable of hosting a roast even if you were a bit cramped or someone was sitting on a garden chair.

I read research which said social media like Instagram is making people think their house has to be perfect and they have to host people like posts on Instagram show. Whereas it used to be put the kettle on and make a cup of tea and put out a plate of biscuits.
Or at Christmas borrow some extra chairs from neighbours or ask people to bring a folding chair with them. Put up decorating table to extend table and throw a tablecloth over. Make more Christmas dinner. That was it.

I have eaten dinner with friends in a studio flat round a foldout IKEA chair and tables with the sofa pushed back. I have attended parties in a tiny two up and two down.

It's true if you have 25 family for Xmas dinner you need a bigger room. But again I have hosted 23 people in a room equivalent to two terraced living rooms knocked together. Borrowed folding tables and chairs and bought paper tablecloths to sling over them. Made a big pot of veggie and meat curry and lots of rice.

People used to do all sorts at home. I have been to friends for film nights. Watching a film on TV with popcorn. Or games nights.

I still occasionally go to a home party, but few people do these kind of things any more.

Our economy though still hasn't recovered from the last financial crash, and Brexit made it all worse.

my parents were poor. I’m far more well off than them. Not every boomer is well off

No surprise there!

That affects everyone except the rich though. I am in my sixties working full time. My salary in real terms is much lower than what I was paid ten years ago. I still have bills to pay.
I know house prices affect younger people disproportionately. But everything else affects us all.

And then Covid was an another economic catastrophe that we're not even starting to recover from.

Agree with this. DH and I (millennials) don’t have kids, but if we do go down the baby route, we are aligned at stopping at one. Both my nephews are onlies as is DH himself. Reduced family size is one way to ensure lifestyle can be somewhat maintained post-baby. For example, with one child we would be able to continue living in our current (eye-wateringly expensive) city where we can just about afford a 2-bed apartment. Any more children and we would be priced out, because 3+ bedroom properties are a real step-up in cost versus 1-2 bedrooms.

I don't think we should really be looking at the Global Ranking. Other less developed countries are on the up to our standard as they develop, so it is to some degree natural we will fall relative to everyone else.

That said the GDP PPP per capita is falling.

One reason that the GDP PPP per capita has fallen (IMO) may be because over the time period we have imported substantial amounts of people that do not contribute to increasing the GDP per capita. They may increase the GDP, but their contribution is lower than average as they work in lower paying jobs, and that pulls the GDP per capita down.

These macro figures are interesting, but IMO don't really say much about whether someone having a rich middle class lifestyle in say 2005 can still afford that lifestyle now, given an equivalent position in the income hierachy.

No GDP is falling because we have as a nation largely abandoned skilled manufacturing, Some countries with a high gdp set a minimum target for skilled manufacturing and work to ensure this is met.
The public are largely economically illiterate

Nail on the head.