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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that the norm of having a 2 working parent household, is fairly responisble for making housing cost so high

135 replies

carriedaxmaspud · 15/12/2010 11:53

fair enough if both parent swant to work, its their choice, we are all differnt and want to do different things,
but seems to me that now the norm is for both parents to work, thats whats made house prices and rents go through the roof

i mean ther prices can only go up to what people can afford, so if buting a house was based on one persons wage not 2, the house prices would never have reached the outrageous prices they have.

OP posts:
Original poster
carriedaxmaspud · 15/12/2010 18:13

can't i meanGrin

right goodbye

OP posts:
scottishmummy · 15/12/2010 18:15

gosh op you're back peddling so hard i see sparks

Original poster
carriedaxmaspud · 15/12/2010 18:17

can can i be back peddling as thisis what ive already said!

OP posts:
scottishmummy · 15/12/2010 18:18

so how comes majority think you're talking chuff and you seem to simultaneously agree with your op but claim an alternative view too

Original poster
carriedaxmaspud · 15/12/2010 18:23

in the op did i say all 2 working parent households should drop to 1 working parent?

no

i did say it can't be reversed.

i made it clear that i was wondering if the change to 2 working parents pushed up the house prices

so stop making stuff up

right so i'm switching this laptop off now a

OP posts:
BonniePrinceBilly · 15/12/2010 18:26

YOU MISSED OFF THE COMMENTS I WAS MENTIONING< WHICH IS THE POINT.

Don't sigh at me lady, when everyone is disagreeing with YOU

Lets have a little look at your opening post;
"but seems to me that now the norm is for both parents to work, thats whats made house prices and rents go through the roof"

Not partly, not maybe a bit, but THAT IS WHY.

Don't hurt yourself backpeddling that hard.

scottishmummy · 15/12/2010 18:33

oh keep up on how a thread develops.and the challenges various posters made to you.exploratory points based on your op aren't making things up,is called discussion

Xenia · 15/12/2010 19:06

My point was things are nothing like as bad as often they have been in the past. The house we bought in 1983 for £40k costs £240k now. (Outer London, not Chelsea or anywhere like that). The house my mother moved to in 1938 costs £50k today (NE ).

We needed two salaries to buy our house in 1983. The ratio between the house price and salaries in those jobs is indeed a bit higher now but not massively so and we were paying 12% interest rates - just pause and think about that one... and you couldn't easily get a mortgage even if you'd saved at that institution for years. Also we were paying 33% tax. If you go back to my parents' time they too couldn't buy for year and years and years.

The English love to own property. It's in our national psyche, much more so that the Europeans in their tiny city rented flats. So it's difficult when people can't afford what they wantb ut I don't think it was that much easier in earlier ages. Just wait until interests get back up to 12% if they do and then we can talk about affordability....

panettoinydog · 15/12/2010 19:11

"The English love to own property. It's in our national psyche, much more so that the Europeans in their tiny city rented flats."

Really? Is that some sort of innate desire in teh english? I thought it was largely to do with british government policy to aim for very high target percentages of the public to own their own homes coupled with a huge sale of council properties.

scottishmummy · 15/12/2010 19:14

xenia right,in europe renting is much more prevalent across all social groups.there isnt so much emphahsis upon actual ownership

Xenia · 15/12/2010 19:26

No, if you go back to Victorian England even before most people owned house s in cities you get songs like There is no place like home. An Englishman's home is his castle - famous saying etc etc. And it was not even just Victorian. Every person wanted their plot of land to till and build a house on even if you go back many hundreds of years in a way that I don't think quite embedded itself into the psyche of say the French. it partly be to do with our primo geniture. In France your 21 childern inherit who then divided with their 15 off spring etc so land gets broken up and isn't such a thing to own. Although of course in English most of us don't just leave everything to our oldest son any more.

jellybeans · 15/12/2010 19:47

Yes I think it is a factor..I also think it is why alot of mums have to go back to work when they don't want to, because they took the mortgage on both incomes before having kids.

emy72 · 15/12/2010 20:53

Mmm I don't know about "Europe", but I know that in Italy, where I'm from, everyone owns a house; my parents own their house, both their parents owned their house and so did their grandparents.

Working class people built their own houses without planning consent and then after a few years the council gave them amnesties (it still goes on today).

So owning properties is definitely a national obsession there too. I am not sure about other EU countries though.

panettoinydog · 15/12/2010 21:05

xenia, that is such tripe and I think you know it.

CardyMow · 15/12/2010 21:43

Xenia - So an adult that attended a 'special' school, has learning difficulties and ASD could become a CEO? I highly doubt it. Yet they can still be a roductive member of society and work full time, albeit in a much less skilled (and much lower paid) job.

NOT everyone can be a CEO, regardless of how much hard work/ effort they put in.

BonniePrinceBilly · 15/12/2010 22:01

In the 16th century people who were not rich owned houses, and they had mortgages of a sort. Its nothing new,

CurlyhairedAssassin · 15/12/2010 22:47

Xenia: We are in a recession now as we have had over the yars so times are hard for people but they were never much better in the past. My parents waited 13 years of marriage before having children so they could afford them. My grandfather married at well over 40 because he could not afford a family until then.

Maybe they should have taken your advice and got themselves better careers, eh, then?

There you go again with your overly simplistic way of looking at life, assuming that just because you did things a certain way then everyone else could have.

BuzzLightBeer · 15/12/2010 22:51

You don't seem to have anything to contribute other than she's wrong. So whats your answer then?

Original poster
carriedaxmaspud · 15/12/2010 23:56

bonnie

er, the title of this thread is
"to think that the norm of having a 2 working parent household, is fairly responisble for making housing cost so high"

note the fairly

fairly doesn't not mean totally, not sure if you get that.

and as you don't quite get my earlier point, i'll repeat it or you again!

xenia said

" Xenia Wed 15-Dec-10 16:05:43
Tondy... is right. In 1901 my grandfather lived with 26 other young men in a 3 bed semi. Presumably they slept in shifts. That as the 1901 census. My grandmother worked. Her mother worked. If you didn't work you starved. There is no golden time when life was easy. In 1983we bought our first house. There was no maternity pay (I hadn't worked long enough to get it) so I took 2 weeks holiday and then went back full time when my first child was 2 weeks old. the cost of our childcare was more than one of our wages. Interest rates were 12%. The basic rate of tax was 33%.

We are in a recession now as we have had over the yars so times are hard for people but they were never much better in the past. My parents waited 13 years of marriage before having children so they could afford them. My grandfather married at well over 40 because he could not afford a family until then.

What we do need to guard against is sexism and threads about if only women were chained to sinks the world would be a better place is something that belongs in rural Sudan not the UK in 2010. If women can't afford morggages perhaps they shoudl have chosen better careers. No one forces you to choose to work in a call centre. Get an education. Qualify to be a leading surgeon. Think about these things as teenagers. Don't just go for the lowest paid job possible because you think that's a morally b etter position. Consider your ability to fund your family. Don't assum eyou will live off male earnings for life."

to which i replied
"carriedaxmaspud Wed 15-Dec-10 16:11:14
well someone has to work in the call centres not EVERYONE can be a ceo or top surgeon, the bins need collecting the shops need staffing the children need teachers and the hospitals need nurses etc.

we can't all be in top ceo type jobs surely you get that"

so whos the one slagging off certain jobs???

and you reply
"BonniePrinceBilly Wed 15-Dec-10 17:14:50
What has that go to do with anything OP? Are we worthless as call centre workers or checkout staff? YOU are the only one making a distinction about types of work and YOU are the one blaming the end of some non-existent good time on working women."

you are clearly not reading the thread bonnie.

i am clearly not saying call centers staff are worthless, i'm saying not everyone can do what xenia suggests as not everyone can be a ceo etc, and that the call centres etc still need to be staffed etc

do don't accuse me of saying certain jobs are not good enough.
and please read the thread

goodnight

OP posts:
BuzzLightBeer · 16/12/2010 00:17

So only the title is important. Then why bother writing anything after that then? So you can disasociate yourself later?

You may have said fairly in the title, but then you said
"but seems to me that now the norm is for both parents to work, thats whats made house prices and rents go through the roof"
Its right there in your OP, so unless someone took over after you wrote the OP, shut up with your and your you haven't read the thread. You haven't even read what you yourself wrote.

Its quite tiresome discussing things with people who won't admit what they have said even when its there in black and white.

Please read the thread yourself.

Original poster
carriedaxmaspud · 16/12/2010 09:40

when i say that in the title its pretty clear what i mean.

it must have had some effect its common sense really

so shut up yourself
and read the thread.

OP posts:
HeroWantage · 16/12/2010 10:08

Understand that many factors have contributed to where we are today re house prices, but think that the question should be less about how we got here, and more about whether we're happy with where we are, or whether anything can / should be done about it.

Myself and DP both work full-time and long hourse, and juggling that with childcare / home admin etc isn't always easy. I for one would love us to be in a society where it was economically viable and culturally normal for both of us to work part-time i.e. relay only on one salary.

Lowering house prices and rents (both in publci and private sector) is one of the levers that would need to be pulled to allow this to happen. However, the need for both of us to continue to save for our pensions might ultimately override the effectiveness of such a lever.

BuzzLightBeer · 16/12/2010 10:29

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by Mumsnet.

carriedaxmaspud · 16/12/2010 11:05

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by Mumsnet.

Xenia · 16/12/2010 18:30

Mmm wonder what was deleted....

If houseprices mean more women work then that is absolutely excellent. We nee dmore not fewer women in full time work. It's better for families, chidlren and women and ensures more fairness inr ealtionships. Roll on higher house prices if it gets mothers out of kitchens and into board rooms or even call centres.