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 was born in 1946, so is a baby boomer.

I don't think she had life easy. Her dad had been a prisoner of war in Japan, so had a lot of "baggage" which didn't make their life easy. He had been a miner before the war, but after being made to work underground in Japan he developed a fear of it and so couldn't go back to work there. He had to take a lower paid job instead, so they weren't as well off.

My mum was bright, she passed a scholarship exam to public school, but couldn't go as her parents couldn't afford the "extras". She went to the Grammar school instead. She got good O levels, and her headmistress wanted her to stay on to do A levels (she would have loved to have gone to university and studied Archeology) but her parents couldn't afford for her to stay on so she had to leave and take a job in an accounts office.

She did well in her job and was working her way up, but then she got married and had children, which put a stop to that! Employers were entirely inflexible if you had children in the 1970s.

She eventually gave up and became a housewife. Which she was happy doing, but I always felt that she wanted more.

In contrast, I had lots of opportunities. It didn't matter that we weren't enormously well off, I stayed on at school and did A levels and went to university (with a grant). I left school and got a good job, bought a house... the fact that I had children had very little impact on the way employers treat me. I have far more choices, I am working PT at the moment through choice as I want to be around for my children, but I can fairly easily go back to FT as they get older.

So I don't think that my mum had it easier than me.

YANBU. My parents and PILs are baby boomers.

Neither inherited any wealth but benefitted from good quality state education and all had professional careers in which they earnt a fortune while riding the house price wave.

My Dad now lives in a vast sprawling farmhouse and spends his time racing his 3 Lotuses. The PILs have an equally vast house in Surrey which they bought for a pittance and is now mortgage free. They have huge public sector final salary pensions and spend 90% of their time on luxury holidays. They worked hard but not any harder than we do. Less so perhaps, and my mum has never worked a day in her life.

Granted, DH and I both had a nice upbringing. But we have had no financial help at all from either side and are now really struggling to make ends meet and pay the bills on our tiny house in Streatham while working like dogs to pay for childcare etc. We have no savings and no prospect of ever retiring. We are having to be increasingly creative and entrepreneurial about funding our lives and our futures. However we ARE putting money aside for DD, which is something our parents never thought of doing for us.

We'd never ask our parents for help, financial or otherwise, but it smarts a bit to think about it really.

And of course when they need our help during old age we'll willingly give it. They haven't done the same for their parents though...

Employers were entirely inflexible if you had children in the 1970s.

They still are !!!

And DH's old company - was made redundant two years ago - haven't allowed new people final salary pensions for 10 years. They are like hens teeth in the private sector.

Not quite as inflexible as they were 35 years ago though, they can't openly discriminate against you at a job interview if you are a newly married woman in her 20s and therefore bound to get pregnant for example.

Well as I said before I feel I had a good life even though I never had a foreign holiday till I was 25,grew up in a council house [which was a privilege where I lived],no phone,no car and my parents never owned a house though my maternal gran did.
I inherited a small amount of money [4 figures] which I gave to my dc.We dont have debts or savings but we do have 5 happily married dc[between us] all graduates,all with decent careers,all home owners.We have 9 lovely dgc and I feel blessed.We wont leave anything but the house which will be shared equally between dc and steps.
my dd and her dh have offered me a home if I should be widowed [dh is 74 now].I give childcare willingly,freely,joyfully-I sometimes wish we had more money but I wouldnt swap with most people.

I'm definitely a Baby Boomer and do think that in most ways we were very very lucky. Certainly jobs were very easy to find.

But naturally we did have different expectations. We started married life (teenage mother!) in rented flats while we saved for a deposit and didn't have a phone or a car etc for quite a few years. And mortgage rates were also incredibly high, I remember paying 12 per cent around late 70s early 80s which certainly took away any chance of savings.

Women are still discrimminated against. But yes they are amazingly selfish as a generation (ie those who aer 60+ now).

Yes and no.

My parents are baby boomers. They have done well financially out of the housing boom. They went to grammar schools which now don't exist. They have also had benefits such as free university (and grants), final salary pension schemes, and lower working hours/expectations.

On the other hand: My mother worked in the City - one of very few women - and came up against massive discrimination and spurious redundancy (which would be illegal today). There was no maternity leave or rights for parents. There was very little childcare available. No internet so all chores and shopping much more laborious to do. Foreign travel was much more expensive. Consumer goods were much more expensive. Strikes. Enormous tax rates and mortgage rates. Incredibly hard to get a mortgage or any credit (perhaps not such a bad thing with hindight).

Swings and roundabouts, I say.

Not read all of this but will go back and do so!

I am older than most on MN but still too young to be a baby boomer....DH is almost that age though.

They are a lucky generation in many ways, but I don't agree that they are selfish. The previous generation were more selfish I think. That would be the geneation that won the war! They also reaped the full benefits of the welfare state which their children and GC had to pay for. After WW2 the country was on it's knees and broke.

The baby boomers did grow up healthier thanks to vaccinations, free dentistry, doctors etc.. The lucky 25% ?, also enjoyed free further education, paid for in part by the taxes of 15/16 year old school leavers.
University students in those days were so certain of well paid work that they didn't worry too much about their CVs and were quite happy to sign on and claim dole at both the Christmas and summer hols.

IME the generation who are more selfish etc in their old age are actually the ones before the baby boomers.

The baby boomers were born between the end of WW2 and the early to mid sixties. So they are somewhere between about 45 and 65 now. Most are still working, a lot actually still have young children!

It is the generation before that, roughly in their 70s at the moment, who are the ones who are enjoying their retirements, spending the kids inheritance etc. The SAGA generation .

My inlaws fit nicely into that bracket, they are 73 and 75, took early retirement, invested wisely while they were working and now spend it all on cruises.

Quite right domestic, there the one's who managed to rake it in during the Tathcher years too. If they had a mortgage still it was very small so they were not affected by the high interest rates. And if they had money to invest they made a packet!

Not saying everyone in this group had it easy, but many did.

I do know the diff between there, their, & they're......

Of course you are proud of your parents RealEyes. Most people work hard and do their best for their DC.

Some of my family were lucky enough to buy their council houses. At the time I thought it was a good thing! But the key word is LUCKY. Those homes were never replaced and were taken away from future generations of young families. Many local villages had 10 to 20 council houses which provided homes for poorer workers and pupils for the village schools. All are now privately owned, and only wealthy people can afford to buy them.

YABU. Mass unemployment, no women's rights. When I was born (my mum is a baby boomer) my father was not allowed in to the room, my mother had her legs slapped to make her put them down, when she was trying to get comfy, and 24 hours after I was born my dad was shouted at to 'PUT THAT BABY DOWN' when he picked me up.

Many baby boomers now die young due to poor diet.

In South Wales, that generation worked under ground in filthy conditions for very little money, up to 12 hours a day. Contraception was not available to unmarried women.

If you had sex before marriage, you were a slut, and if you got pregnant, your child was forcibly taken away.

Women did have less rights than men as others have said. I can remember when I worked in a bank in the mid 1970's a married woman needed her husbands permission to open a bank account. Many husbands kept control of a bank account in their own name but 'allowed' their wives to draw the weekly housekeeping in cash. They wouldn't let them have a bankers card/use cheques.

I thought baby boomer had a healthier diet growing up lots of the bad stuff was still rationed, and they had free school milk, orange juice and rosehip syrup. Might be wrong there, but I'm sure thaat's what I was told.

Lots of baby boomers die young because they smoked.

It was common for unmarried mothers to have their babies taken away. Many families wanted it to hide the shame. Both RC and CofE
were guilty of assiting in adoptions.

YANBU at all. They're the ones who read the Daily Mail and vote Conservative and believe that people are poor because they haven't worked hard enough or aren't clever enough. Just because they were lucky.

I'm 55 so a late baby boomer.

One thing which has changed alot is the job options for girls now.

We had crummy careers advice. In my class the brainy two became doctors, the less brainy became teachers or maybe worked in a bank, then secretaries, then nurses, then shop assistants. I chose nursing but was told I was over qualified - who'd have thought it would become a degree course.

There is so much around now about setting up your own business, and no limit to what jobs girls can do. (except there are so few, we could get a job anywhere in the country then)

We had crummy careers advice. In my class the brainy two became doctors, the less brainy became teachers or maybe worked in a bank, then secretaries, then nurses, then shop assistants. I chose nursing but was told I was over qualified - who'd have thought it would become a degree course

And a woman in my daughters class is 55 and became a dentist with 2 D's and a C.
The less brainy who became teachers, work in a bank, secretaries and nurses would now need a degree and gain £30k of debt along the way to work in roles that required 2 years training in your day, do your generation really not get that ?

The bad stuff was rationed but so was the good stuff.

Cigarettes were marketed as healthy (so yes, they were worse off on that front).

I'm in my mid 40's. Sisters are in their late fifties, early 60's. I have a couple of middle class sisters who now have it easy, but they've worked hard...why shouldn't they? I've got a sister and a brother who have worked bloody hard, neither owns their own house but are still renting. I don't think anyone would consider them as having it easy.

All my siblings with grandchildren provide some element of childcare for them, so I don't think you could call them selfish.

I'm a late parent, so am having the struggles of bringing up a kid with a prospect of no pension (thanks to my erratic career & poor pension advice in my 20's) and a hefty morgage shortfall thanks to a mis-sold endowment (which was sold to me by my then employer!!! Thanks NU!)

It is too easy to generalise and say 'oh baby boomers, they're all to blame for everything that's wrong in our lives and they're selfish'. I could just as easily say that my sisters feckless kids are relying on them to provide free childcare, so they can have designer buggies and go clubbing once a week, something our parents would never have dreamt of doing.

I, however, wouldn't be so churlish or childish or judgemental. Shame everyone can't be the same!

huffy - well said

I'm in my late forties with a 2 yr old and parents in their 70s so for me it's definitely the case of being part of the sandwich generation though rather than being a baby boomer.

I think there are pros and cons to both experiences it's just that expectations have grown hugely. When I went to college I was on a grant which you could make stretch so that you didn't have to work BUT I expected life to be grotty whilst I was a student. I lived in a shabby flat which was cold and damp, the heating was a 2 bar fire which was too small to heat the space effectively, no tv, and regular treks to the launderette.

Friend's student DC's now seem to expect to have the same standard of living as their parents, car/sky/plasma tv/dishwasher/laptop etc, but come away from uni with a massive debt over their heads. In hindsight I think my experiences were worth it in order to come away without any debt and to appreciate being able to afford nicer things as a result. I'm not so sure that modern students see it the same way but then expectations increase with every generation. My great GP's didn't expect much in the way of holiday's, my GP's expected to have UK holidays, my DP's expected to go abroad occasionally, I would like to go abroad every year and my SIL (20 yrs younger than me) expects several foreign holidays a year.

YANBU in a way. I have had so many opportunities, having been lucky enough to go to grammar school (even though the standard of education was, at best, questionable). A grammar school education meant that I sat valued 'O' levels rather than the CSEs they took at the Secondary Moderns. My grammar school also had a sixth form, where most of us idled away 2 years until we sat our A levels. These provided me with entrance requirements for university, funded by the state (and what a fun time we had there ). Cushty.

(I hope this gives you an idea of the extraordinarily unfair secondary education system at the time. Nearly every Secondary Modern school pupil would have left at 16 either to work or to FE college.)

Today, girls still reap the benefits of the baby boomer generation and inspired social policies, which paved the way for women to be liberated, to work in equal jobs to men for equal pay, and to fend for themselves as individuals. Other social changes that took place in the 50s-80s (such as gay rights and greater racial tolerance) also make it much more pleasant for members of minority groups to live in the UK today.

Even though I have been made redundant several times, each redundancy allowed me to reassess my working situation and to start again. I would not have been able to do that without freedom for women in the work-place.

I do not, for one minute, envy the huge college fees, student loans and mortgage deposits young people have these days. I don't know how some of them are going to manage in the future. However, having listend to many of my son's friends (and my son) I find some young people these days quite materialistic. I think this can be blamed partly on the celebrity culture and relentless advertising, and partly on the parents .

Huffy - good post.