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?

My parents had a lifestyle like your parents and were a teacher and a lecturer who saved a lot. We have a similar lifestyle but work in finance and law. Costs have certainly gone up and you need two people in highly paid professions to achieve what people used to be able to achieve with savings and hard work. And because both people tend to be working now it’s much harder to organize and host social events like in our parents generation.

What you describe is certainly not a lifestyle I recognise from my unremarkable middle class childhood

My son was talking about this the other day. Homer Simpson is a bit of a loser in the show and has an unskilled job. However he has a single income family, has three kids, two cars and owns a double storey house. Wayyyy beyond the lifestyle we can afford.

I am Australian and he is American, and of course fictional which helps.

Neither of my parents were qualified past O level. My dad had a public service job and my mum worked full time once my younger brother started secondary school.

I'm have a first class degree, a masters and a professional career. My partner earns a similar amount to me. Individually, we each earn more than my parents did combined. We both work full time.

We can afford a similar lifestyle to my parents.

@bumblebugs I think it’s still possible but… not on the same terms as our parents. For example the life you described that your parents have was very similar to my husband’s upbringing. Multiple holidays a year, 3 kids in private school and all that. We also have a similar life than your parents however the big difference is it’s supported by 2 salaries vs 1 salary (my mil became a SAHM once her first baby was born) and… we moved away from the UK a few years ago.

This article is from 2010 and so quite possibly very out of date!

So much derailing on this thread

But we now have much more leisure with labour saving devices/ massive exposure to interesting opportunities with the Internet /cheap travel (£15 on Ryanair to Nice) -no longer trapped in small judgy communities.
My life is infinitely richer than that of, say Eleanor of Acquitaine, wife of two kings, mother of three kings and two queens. I have freedom to enjoy life like she with all her wealth and power and influence never had.
We have clean water coming out of a tap, heating/aircon on demand, entertainment of all types at a click - we are fabulously privileged above anything even our grandparents had.

I wouldn’t even think to compare my life with my parents, we are completely different people. I can’t see for example what my husband’s and my career choice had got to do with what my parents or their parents did for a living.
My brother and I are both multiple times richer than our parents, the same with my DH.
I can’t imagine commenting like the OP that the house deposit she was gifted was only enough for a flat. She’s been so fortunate in life.

Ok, so take the assumption that it’s not longer possible to live your parents live, why do you think that is? I don’t mean “because house prices have gone up”, yes they have hugely, but why has that happened? In the case of housing, the price has ballooned across Europe so not just here. If wages are dragging in real terms since 2008, why is that?

My experience is nothing like this. I grew up in the 70s and 80s in near poverty. My parents could only have dreamed of having the lifestyle I have now (which is nothing out of the ordinary).

Hopefully! My mum slaved her arse off working for a guy and he shafted her and my dad survived getting bits of part time work. We on the other hand are both professionals earning a good wage.

I consider I’m way above what I had growing up in the 60s. You only have to
look at old newsreels to see deprived neighbourhoods and families.

So: we lived in a private rented house. No bathroom, just an outside loo. 2 bedrooms for 5 of us. No central heating. Just a coal fire. No hot water tap in the kitchen, just a gas heater. No fridge but we had a twin tub washing machine. No one had a freezer! In the winter, ice formed on the inside of the bedroom window. All vegetables were home grown and I didn’t know what going out for a meal was until
my boyfriend’s parents took me. We hardly had a roast dinner and DM wasn’t a great cook. Never had a holiday with my parents. A child at school asked me along and I was allowed to go. I was 14 and it was my first holiday. It was, frankly, shit!

I was determined this low level of existing would not be my future and left school to work. I now have a very decent lifestyle and my DDs went to a boarding school. They are never going to know a life like the one I had, even if they cannot afford a boarding school. We can pay for that should they be interested for any dc. I guess we were middle class (DM was a qualified nurse) but DM didn’t work and that caused money issues and DF wouldn’t spend a penny. We have spent generously on our DDs. My DH ran a successful business and it’s made every difference in the world to my life and to that of my DDs. They do know they are lucky.

Partly due to people historically not living as long and not living to an age where dementia comes along with the inevitable care home fees .

My parents inherited from their parents in their 40's, none of my Grandparents made it into their 80s so never needed care.

DHs Mum lived to 88 with modern medical science basically keeping her existing for 8 years and her £300K life savings went in care home fees.

We're all living longer but not healthier so our wealth will be spent on our care not passed to our descendants.

I think expectations are so much more now. I grew up in the 60s and 70s. No one I knew went to private school. Life was a lot simpler back then. We didn't have a landline although some of my friends' parents did. Most families only had one car, we never went abroad on holiday. Only after school club was Brownies/Cubs. No one had Gym memberships, no internet, no tv channels to subscribe to only the BBC. There were less bills because life was simple.

Both dh and I worked in multinationals in the mid 90’s, lots of balls and socialising through work. It didn’t cost us anything really.
I had a good education but we didn’t do extracurricular activities, there was one car in the driveway. I don’t remember eating out very often and nobody went for coffee, spa days or the like. I think we spend more on non essentials now and outsource more too, cleaning, ironing etc

I know plenty of people who live like this in London but they all work in the city and are successful in finance.

Things do change and the jobs tha got you a good lifestyle in the past no longer give the same quality of life. Likewise the amount you had to earn to live in a certain place changes a generation on.

The number of households has grown at a faster pace than the population as household sizes have reduced. We have more women working after marriage/coupling up - I had kids and kept working as did most of my friends. I have rolled my eyes at those who said the dual income would increase house prices by increasing the what those households could afford until it the norm and then it becomes a necessity but maybe it did? Super low interest rates for years makes borrowing cheap so people can afford to do more of it. There has been a massive value shift between assets and labour - you can see that in the price ratios.

I have just a fraction of the wealth my parents had at my age, but a MUCH richer life.

It's the house prices.

I LOVE this! Good for you!

I completely agree. I was having a conversation the other day saying that when I was a kid the job that I have alone would have made us extremely wealthy, leave alone the fact we both work. In today's money we can just about get the children into private school (but if they're going to go private for secondary they will need scholarships) and I will never be able to give my children the lifestyle that we had as children. I will never be able to put my children in the position of having the choices that real wealth brings.

Essentially the middle class has been gutted by two things: (i) the super-rich and both the geographical and personal "stockpiling" of wealth; and (ii) the taxing of the middle class as if they were super-rich. Now the second might be the right thing to do, to provide for others, but it obviously feels desperately unfair to those who feel like they are bearing the brunt of it because they didn't have as much "spare" anyway.

The only consolation: it will probably even out, as things have a way of doing. But when, and where any one individual will fall in that evening out are both worrying prospects.

I think regardless of the upbringing your parents gave you, it's harder to recreate it now.

You had a privileged childhood - there's no way you can give your kids the same.

I didn't have a privileged childhood. My Dad was a manual worker, we had one UK holiday a year. I've struggled to pay for even that for the last 3 years.

The expectation that each generation will have a better life with more opportunities than the last is no longer reasonable. We find things more difficult than our parents did. Our children will find it more difficult than we are finding them.

It's bleak.

Also when I was growing up no-one were me was divorced and only knew one person (teacher at school) who was an ‘unmarried mother’ so much less pressure on housing and many fewer people on ‘benefits’

The thing about social mobility is that movement happens in both directions.

My background was very different. My parents were very working class - both had multiple jobs, often working 7 days per week for long stretches, and I was 20 before I left the country.

The one things my parents absolutely prioritised was giving me the opportunity to do better. And as I result, I went to uni, and live a massively more comfortable life, which I am very grateful for. However, I am realising, that while that worked out well for me, it is not a permanent status change for my family. I look at what I can give my own children, and actually, it isn't that much more than my parents gave me.

I will help support them through uni, but it is so much more expensive now, they will still have the same student debt that I did. I will be able to help them with a house deposit, and driving lessons, which is help that I didn't have. But I bought a house at 23 with a 5k deposit, so really they are no further forward. There is not enough of a safety net for them to follow their hearts and e.g. become an artist, or take huge business risks, as there is no "family money" to fall back on. My DC are hard working and clever, and I am confident they will do well, whatever they choose. But it will be down to them, and their hard work and decisions - I have not done enough to guarantee the next generation won't be back in a council house.

My parents really believed that it was the responsibility of each generation to make things a bit better for their children. But I am not sure that is very easy these days.