to think the baby-boomers had it easy

[Ionderog]

Is it me or did our parents' generation have it much easier than us?

My mum and dad never had the opportunity to go to University. As my mum says "I was on the scrapheap at 11 because I failed my 11+."

YANBU

My mum is always telling me how they 'chose' for her to stay at home and raise us kids. Those were the days when a social workers salary could get you a 3 bed semi with a huge garden in a nice part of town. Unfortunately that 'choice' is not open to me and DH, most reasonable sized houses require 2 incomes nowadays.

I am astonished how many of that generation think it is their right to retire at 60, to have a holiday home, they really do live the good life and I can't see that any generation before or since has had those benefits.

I'm genuinely not bitter though - it doesn't make them better people, just luckier people.

Thise born just before the baby boomers didn't really get it that eay - the war and rationing - though the rationing was the best diet ever and thus why we have so many 65-85 year olds, they layed a good foundation for heath

I think it has a lot to do with property. Many boomers have reaped the benefits of rampant HPI and have been MEWing for England (literally!!). However, they have also had to provide big deposits for their kids in order to help them buy houses or accept that they may never leave home!

They will certainly be one of the last generations to be able to retire!

I'm not sure any boomer would agree they've had it easy though

My mum was severely limited by failing the 11+, the free uni education I mentioned was hard fought for - she was only allowed to go to teaching college because she'd failed the 11+ so the choice was teacher/secretary/nurse she did the teaching course, then did an extra year to make it a "B'ed" - a degree but not a BA/BSc...
My dad 'won' in the 11+system - he ended up on a full scholarship to Oxford.

BAFE, I think you are confused. I'm technically a Boomer (born in 1961) and even my parents who were born in the late 1920s were too young to have seen active service during WW2 . So no, we don't claim to have held back the Nazi invasion single-handed.

True BelleDam - outrageous! I suppose I'm referring to the ability many had to have a traditional nuclear family, wife at home, 2.4 kids etc etc.

Mingg - "And even worse are the ones who sell up, go to spain and piss every penny up on cheap booze, leaving the kids nothing" You are so right - how very selfish of them

Presumably you mean that if its their money, they should spend it how they want, and that the next generation should not have a sense of entitlement to their wealth.

Would it change things if hypothetically there were no welfare state? No tax credits, no housing benefit, no jobseekers allowance, and still they spent this wealth in this way?

Presumably they would not leave their children and grandchildren to be homeless so they could piss it up in Spain. However, is it selfish to society to "waste" this good fortune, leaving the next generation little choice but to drain the state's resources, bearing in mind the present state of the economy which in some part is due to the unprecedented rise in property prices which gave them this wealth in the first place?

I think SOME baby boomers had it easier with regards to SOME things eg. education, property. I definitely think social mobility was easier in those days.

However you could say our generation / younger generation are much more materialistic than our parents. We buy and own much more than they ever did. I think they were much more frugal in general, than we are. When it comes to belongings (not including property) we are probably better off

We also have a lot more freedom / choices than our parents - to be who we want to be and do what we want without (or at least with much less) sexism, racism, homophobia, discrimination against disibility, mental illness, single parents etc. Divorce is much easier, especially for women. Domestic violence or abuse isn't as accepted as it once was. I'd much rather be a women now than in the 50s / 60s / 70s anyway

Yeah, good points. Maybe you have to look at the individuals in different families on a case by case basis - not just because of the different ages of us, but because different people had different experiences and made different choices.

"they just bang on and on all the time about the fact that they have pay FULL council tax, bus fares, yada yada yada."

I think you may be thinking of particular individuals, not all baby boomers

"And if it wasn't for them, we'd all be speaking German ya know!"

As tethersend has already pointed out, the baby boomers were born post-war, so whoever you have in mind here, they are not baby boomers.

"And even worse are the ones who sell up, go to spain and piss every penny up on cheap booze, leaving the kids nothing."

As a working-class baby-boomer (tail end of) I grew up in a world where inheriting happened only in the upper classes. You came into this world with nothing and you leave the same way. And isn't the person expecting/anticipating an inheritance the one who is being selfish, expecting to receive something they have not earned?

That said, I will agree that in some aspects, baby-boomers had some things easy - but some things harder. Sex discrimination was still quite overt when i started work, equal pay was a law which was paid lip service only. Rape happened because you 'were asking for it' and wife-beating was still a dirty secret.

Plus, for the future - we are the generation who will be looking after our elderly parents whilst still supporting our children - we are morphing into what I believe is called 'the sandwich generation' because of this, sandwiched between the two generations we must support.

My dh's parents retired in their late fifties, own four properties (two inherited) and a yacht in the south of France. They often complain about having no money because it is tied up in assets. There is little possibility of us being able to afford a second property, never mind retire in our fifties. I am not bitter about that, though it intensely annoys me when they bang on about having no money when they lived through wartime (though only just) rationing and know what to lack the basics is really like. Fortunately they've finally sold one of the properties and I hope they can start enjoying their lives now they're in their late 60s.

Wasn't there a survey recently whereyouleftit saying that many women still believe that a woman was 'asking for it' if she's raped? It was a ridiculous portion who thought that, though I'm not in the UK and can't remember which website I read it on

YANBU.

My dad retired at 55, my mum at 60. Both still dip in and out of consultancy / locum work, for crazy money, as and when they feel like it.

Both have big pensions, a huge mortgage-free house that they bought for just 34K in 1980 (I know things are relative, but still, that would mean their house should really work out to half its value if it had risen in value in line with inflation).

They also have savings.

I think they look at us though and think we have a lot more than they did in terms of consumer products at their age.

I don't mind the fact they have lots of money but I do wish they'd stop complaining about how tough their life is sometimes. My dad goes into a bit of a spin if his routine of Sudoku, coffee, Working Lunch (the irony), and dog walking gets disrupted.

I've got a friend who's a boomer, but wasn't well off. She got lucky and married a wealthier boomer. They both retired in their late 50s. She's forever preaching about how important it is to travel.

On what, lady? Brass buttons?

I was born in 1944 and became a mum in 1970.
I had a grammar school education.
I had a grant through college.
I was teaching at the time of the Houghton award.
I was able to take ealy retirement at 52.
My dc just got through uni with grants and small loans.
I now have no mortgage.
YANBU

My husbands parents are in their 70's and have assets we could only dream of, hopefully they will find there way into DH's pocket though.
My mum is in her 50's and she'll have to work until she's 67 for her pension but then she did get a 40% discount on her council house (peanuts, my overdraft is more) and was on the dole for 25 years so not much sympathy there.

I am not sure how old you are and wether you are talking about me or my parents.
But I think the mistake you are making is comparing your life as a young woman to that of your parents as an older woman.

I was born in 1962 When I got married I had three jobs and lived with inlaws to save a deposit. DH earned £80 per week and we had to save £4000 to buy a flat for £21500. We had an old sofa Mil gave us and a cooker. No carpets. We had to watch every penny. We worked and saved for 25 years, now we have nice house, two buy to let properties and all the trappings of a middle class lifestyle.

My DDs who are always "poor" can't save for anything. Want it now. They have sky TV, Mobiles, laptops. They expect to have what we have without the 25 years hard graft.

YANBU, although perhaps not expressed in the best way.

I think a big issue now is what happens in terms of old-age care for the Baby Boomers, i.e. who will fund it. There are a lot who seem to be arguing for the state to pay (which it wouldn't at the moment), but arguably the Baby Boomers are the richest tranche of society so best placed to pay for it, rather than it being added on to taxation.

Agree with you Lynli. As I said on my last post, we have far more 'stuff' than my parents could ever have dreamed of having. My mum had to make her own clothes and they would often forgo car journeys to save on petrol.

I agree they worked bloody hard back then, it's only now that they are feeling the benefits.

We however are living the reverse - easy (often borrowed) money now, holidays, weekends away (actually not so much us now, but certainly before dcs) - and chuff all pension, savings etc later.

Perhaps it'll be our dcs bailing us out then.

I'd happily make my own clothes if my house was going to cost £80k and one day I might actually own it instead of renting it from the bank.
Same with the savings, I do have some but you can see why people don't bother when the banks are paying 1% interest and then you are taxed on that too.

well they deffo had it easier with children,most were out any spare hours they had,not hanging round the house etc

unlike now where there kept in and we have to provide entertainment etc

would prefer there method on that one

I think we are luckier now. I get to do a job I love as I have free childcare from tax credits. I got to go to uni and they paid for my fees and to live. I get everything I want even though I am on a low wage cause everything for sale is so cheap so get to have a high standard of living.

am in my 20s and live a much better life than what my parents did at my age, even though they have money now. Everyone I know who is on low income and young (I dont mean people on benefits I mean a couple on near the minimum wage) still has foriegn holidays, sky tv, mobiles, plasma tvs, cars etc. I think everything has improved.

Hmm well my parents weren't baby boomer's so I'd say YABU.

My mum and dad definately didn't have it easy. Lived through the horrible unemployment of the 80's. We had 2 foreign holidays as kids. First one I was 8 and my dad had to lose half of his finger in work and get compensation which paid for 2 weeks in Spain. The second I was 15 and my grandparents paid.

They didn't buy a house until 1989 and then only because my nan bought half and moved in with us. My dad is still paying for it. They are far from retired.

Oh don't be ridiculous frosty, would it be better that it goes to the government in tax or care home fee's after a long drawn out illness ? That's not what DH's parent spent their lives working for they would give DH every penny now if he asked which he certainly wouldn't.