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?

The street I grew up in has completely changed demographically - an average 3 bed semi-detached. It used to be families in which one parent worked - average job - nurse or teacher for example. Now it is both parents working - with very good salaries - doctors and dentists. I would imagine 50 years ago, they'd be able to afford a big 5 bed detached.

My family were poor working class and my lifestyle now would be unimaginable to them.
I was the first (and only) in the family to go to university /none of my siblings or cousins did.
My own DC were educated in the sort of (fantastic) academic indie school that none of v our family would have ever aspired to.
So there has been social mobility, but that started to stagnate with Gordon Brown’s low aspiration for the working classes (give them tax ‘credits’ to buy votes) and the complacency of successive governments (conservatives importing cheap labour and undermine wages,
Labour importing illiterate and unemployable people who will live a lifetime on ‘benefits’ and inflate housing costs and bankrupt the NHS - but they hope will vote (or be instructed by their husbands to vote) Labour.

My lifestyle is nothing like my parents had when I was growing up. They have a large 4 bed detached house which they'd paid the mortgage off by the age of 45. Two kids, my mum gave up work when my older brother was born and then didn't go back to work until I was 15 and even then it was only part time. They had 2 cars and at least two holidays abroad a year

You might find the Henry UK forum on Reddit helpful. There are discussions amongst higher earners who are similarly trying to figure it out! The challenge is that the things many thought were givens if you had a high income (the nice house, private school) are actually no longer feasible by any stretch - private school fees and the property market have massively outstripped inflation so it’s no surprise. It genuinely is harder to make that happen. My father-in-law bought a beautiful family home in the 90s for 250k, they moved long ago, but it’s now valued around 3million. And our parents generation might have been able to scrape together a couple of grand for fees each term, but 10k? No. It’s even more impossible when you multiply the number of children. Most people I know that can contemplate private school either have it subsidised by grandparents or have parental help in other ways that have enabled them to redirect funds to fees. On the social side I completely agree. Perhaps it’s a post Covid thing? Social media giving us a surrogate sense of connection? Or that we’re having children later than our parents so are simply more tired?! I do know hosting is really expensive and I haven’t really found a way around that. Watching Rivals really hasn’t helped me on this front - god life in the 1980s looked fun.

I am from another country, but when I compare the standard of living that my manager could afford ~13 years ago when I first came to the UK, and what I can afford now that I am at the same level, it's two different worlds.

The lifestyle my parents had and my experience growing up bears little resemblance to yours.

You’ve pretty much proven my point.

Live in a cheaper area. 2 children instead of 3 in private school, maybe none and use grammars instead are all lifestyle changes not replication.

To buy the same house and send 3 children to the same school would be totally unaffordable on 1 dentists wage nowadays.

I earn 200k in a completely different field of work which is an amount similar to a higher end private dentist and I couldn’t get close to funding what my dad did and definitely not retiring at 50.

Marking place.

Sounds like your parents spent all the generational wealth

@bumblebugs sounds like your parents spunked the family money up the ballroom wall?

That sort of cash all those years ago could’ve meant generational wealth for decades

are they still around? Could you talk to them about why the balls and dinners stopped? If they have.

The upper classes still have gatherings, big houses and lavish get togethers. Might have a different feel as a chunk of money now is new money so the airs and graces of black tie have been replaced with bling bling.

Invite only private members clubs, exclusive golf clubs, posh gyms, exclusive children’s nurseries, yacht clubs, catering for the rich is a huge industry - that’s where you will find more of these gatherings. Basically where the money has gone.

Spare a thought, OP, for those of us with no generational wealth from our parents. Not complaining. They gave me love. That was enough.
I find all this whining tedious.

I feel that I've only been able give my DC a similar lifestyle to what I had because DH works in an area that is paid well compared to my own DDads jobs. Things are more expensive and several of my friends from bigger families have parents that openly say things like "we'd never have been able to have 4 kids now".

Personally I reckon that it's partly why our birthrates are going down. It's understandable that people want their kids to have a similar childhood to them (if it was good) and some won't want to have children knowing that it's not possible.

I think the big difference in lifestyle is not just money, but time. Both my parents worked in professional, middle class jobs. But jobs were expected to be, and were, 9-5. Now, I am lucky if I work less than 8 - 7 and get a whole weekend off. Everyone I know in a professional role is in the same boat.

And yes, what I earn doesn’t stretch as far, but I wouldn’t mind it nearly as much if I wasn’t working all the time.

Less of the “our”, it should read MY parents and it may well be difficult to have the same lifestyle. Some of us have parents who worked in factories or retail for example and have a much more comfortable life than they had.
I do agree though that nine to five has become a thing of the past and working hours are very long.

My DH’s upbringing sounds similar to yours and none of the children have achieved careers that allow anywhere near that lifestyle, partially because the goal posts have moved but also IMO because they all grew up with a level of insulated entitlement that the world would “just” open up for them so they didn’t try particularly hard at anything.
What has also become apparent is that the appearance of wealth was just that, MIL has a house and an ok pension but it seems FIL spent every other penny on keeping up appearances.

I don’t agree with this. Look at the facts. The super rich get richer and they are not taxed appropriately. Some even say themselves there are so many loopholes to reduce their tax bill!

My grandparents both came from poor backgrounds and didn’t inherit wealth. My grandfather was a teacher at a grammar school and my grandmother didn’t work after marrying. They bought a 3 bedroom 1930s detached house with a large garden in the 1950s when they had a young child (my dad), my grandfather also always drove brand new, quite luxury models of cars and went out often for nice meals with wine etc and was a member of a golf club, although they never went abroad and were careful with money. My grandparents left the house and around 30k savings when they died. I live in the house now and it’s worth 500k. I can’t imagine a teacher being able to achieve that today while supporting a wife and child.

I have a substantially better lifestyle than my parents or grandparents

Our house was repossessed when I was about 12, we didn’t go on many holiday, certainly not abroad except once when my (mostly absent) dad took us. We then rented a house with mouldy dripping walls and (for a while) no central heating. Even that was an upgrade on my mum’s upbringing, her mum’s house didn’t get an indoor toilet until long after I was born!

My lifestyle now (and that of my kids) would be unrecognisable to young me.

I agree that house prices are ridiculous, and fear for my own kids’ futures (I don’t earn enough to create significant generational wealth), partly because our comfort levels now mean they don’t have the same impetus that I did to strive for a better life.

I've had a far better life than my parents and grandparents. They lived through a world war and rationing for one thing, they had to fight for equality and rights in the workplace.

Early 30s. Very much working class. I went from a special measures school to Oxbridge. I worked retail and alongside I worked for free so much in the hopes of getting a good career job with no real network. It didn't pay off. No parental help from age 16 (financial OR just advice/ being there). Am muddling along, but I achieved what I thought was a miracle and I STILL live a life far poorer than my parents.

@bumblebugs

i agree with you and it’s all about the fiscal drag - we are screwed!

ignore the posters who really can’t appreciate the essence of your post - some of them are missing the point entirely or it simply isn’t relevant to them yet they feel the need to be patronising

I've been listening to Gary's Economics. He explains the transfer of wealth from working and middle classes upwards quite well. People who work are worse off, super wealthy are raking it in. There's only so much pie to go around and when one part of the population are getting more it stands to reason that the rest are getting less.

Well, if your family were upper middle class or certainly upper class they would have expected you to marry an upper middle class person, or upper class. Someone perhaps with a title, or a profession such as barrister. Or someone who had been very successful ( them or yourself ) in business. Public school or a very well heeled private school would put you in that bracket. Private school alone would not.

The upper class, and to some extent the upper middle have preserved their money. They always will.

The middle class are finding it a bit harder.

Another one here too 😆. Both me and my dsis have postrgrad qualifications and decent jobs - both of my parents left school at 16.

This reminds me of someone I knew who bemoaned how unfair it all was that she couldn't afford the basics - a 4- bed detached house as a minimum, as that's what she had grown up in.