... to think that most MNers live in a bubble?

[frgr]

Seriously, the amount of times I read on here about "oh we earn 70k a year but we're really struggle to provide for little Jacob's polo lessons this year" (or some other such shite).

In real life, the average income of my family and friends is probably circa the national average. I know for a fact that my BIL is on around £6/hr and works 42 hours a week, I know that my best friend's total family income is about 22k because she was talking about mortgages a month ago... I'm talking about hard working people who go out come rain or shine and do their day's work, to provide for their families.... and then I log on here and find out MNers are posting trivial shit about being unable to afford XYZ and feeling hard done by on their incomes of "only" 3x the national average.

I don't know if I've become more sensitive to this crap since starting re-posting on here last year (after a break of about 3 years), but it seems to me that certain members of MN are totally and utterly oblivious as to what the average family is having to endure during this recession.

It's fucking unbelievable, it really is.

In your opinion, why are so many MNers out of touch with reality? Does this site cater to a different class than me? Are avg MNers just generally deluded - do I even belong here any more, with our 21k combined income, worrying about where the next school trip fee is coming from despite the fact that both of us work?

Christ.

No not everyone's driving force is money. Mn is reductive imo. There are so many other contributing factors re careers.

Of course not everyone's driving force is money.

But if you choose the career you really want knowing it won't pay you enough for what you want...then don't flippin' moan about it.

As I tell my kids, tis choices and chances...we all take 'em.

Niecie "I was also thinking that it is often a team effort and nobody's talent is unique enough to make them worth a lot in their own right."

I've been thinking about this idea a lot recently and I absolutely agree. What can one single human being possibly ever do to command some of the wages that some people get. Donald Trump for example. All these millionaires. Yes, you have to be bright to do well, you have to work hard, but the proportion of wealth that these rich white men have is so skewed that I find it hard to believe that their fortunes aren't balanced on the unpaid labour of poor people and women. (and in most cases they are- sweat shops in the third world, porn, or even paying people shite wages for mind-numbing work. THose are the people building the fortune.
I think wealth should be redistributed more fairly through society.

Litchick "I think part of it comes form us not being honest with our children. We tell them to do exactly what they want in life.
We tell them that happiness is key.

But we should also tell them that chosing x job comes with certain limitations"

THat's so true. I don't know whether to push my children into something that I know will earn them a good wage, engineering or something, or "something they enjoy"

By luck and location I am surrounded by the few creative types that can afford private education. Nice to see some can! Although huge risk...

No precisely Litchick.

sakura I wouldn't push my kids into anything, not even steer.

However, I do lay the very naked facts out for them.

Getorf just read your post! you're trained as an aeronautical engineer?

I think it is very hard to know in advance what career will suit your family lifestyle.

I know lots of women who were clever teenagers and secured places in the best universities in their countries, before going on to do MBAs at top business schools. They are all, without exception, multilingual with excellent quantitative skills and international work experience. Some of them are following that career trajectory. Others, because of their DH's job, cannot pursue a full-guns-blazing international job (unless they are prepared to leave their DCs almost full time with hired help). Many of them have retrained in more sedentary and/or creative areas and wonder why they slogged their guts out for so long pursuing a globalised super career. Answer: because they didn't know how life would pan out. How could they?

I know an oxford graduate who is currently doing an OU course so he can find employment

yes, push is the wrong word, steer also a bit much
I would like my kids to know that I would be pleased if they went on to further study rather than shacking up with a local boy/girl at 16 and working in a minimum wage job forever.

Bonsoir I think we need to provide our children wiht as much information as possible. Not only about earning power, but also about family life and working.

I trained in the city as a lawyer, and hardly any of the women I worked with are still there. Most found it incompatable with family life as most had a DP who had a similarly highly paid/highly pressured job with long hours.

"choices and chances". I like that. May use it for DS!

I do know many very wealthy creative types. Women and men who run their own businesses. they love it more than they would being global head of marketing at coke or whatever.

It is a success limited to the very few and talented. But I want to post it as there is the assumption on here that creative jobs are lack lustre, or easy. They are not. They are unpredictable and very risky but the people who succeed pave new paths.

They are happy and fulfilled and not moaning re fees because they can easily afford them. It doesn't happen for most, but it does happen.

We're not badly off, not in the scheme of things.

We've got a roof over our heads, can afford to heat it and we have never experienced hunger.

Ok, our house is tiny, it's stuck in a time warp and we can't afford to eat fillet steak ever, but we do okay.

Having recently gone through a life threatening illness (fingers crossed I've beaten it) I can honestly say money comes very low on my list of priorities.

My DH has just turned down a promotion offering a 30% pay increase, as it would have meant travelling every week. Yes, the extra money would have been nice, but family time matters more to us now.

When things break down and we can't see a way to fix or replace them, it used to stress me out. My philosophy now is to act like there's a million in the bank and stop the worrying, things always work out in the end. Okay, it might take a bit longer to get there, we'll never have the latest model or the fancy new gadgets, we might have to do without forever, but so what really? The important things are covered.

Litchick what are they doing now?

I think part of the "trick", if there is one, is choosing something which is, or can be made to be, adaptable (along with, as you point out, parents making children aware of pluses and minuses to do with choices).

But I see education in general, at all levels, becoming more and more "vocational" in the sense that it's clearly about fulfilling an employment niche than providing transferable skills.

God, I'm steering. And poor ds is only 10

I'm like to think it's a carrot thing. Saying "look, if you want to design or test drive supercars for a living you'll need to study first". (aiming high, see).

To which he responds "but I want to be a rally driver"

To which I respond "but you need a proper job, too"

At least I know he wants to go to university though (he's visited one with school and was most impressed).

Marsha that's true of course. I'm a writer and cannot complain at all about how much I earn. Certainly more than I did as a lawyer.

But it's high risk. Most writers earn £5k per year.

Most editors earn £40k tops.

You can't say you weren't warned.

" I think we need to provide our children wiht as much information as possible. Not only about earning power, but also about family life and working."

God, I remember calling my dad a mysogynist because he dared to suggest that maybe I should think about chartered accountancy rather than becoming a junk bond trader, because it gave me more flexibility if I wanted to work around a family later

Now I can sort of see his point.

Bonsoir- presumably these women are now all pretty wealthy in their own right though, which I would consider adequate compensation for time committed. It's always nice to have your own nest egg, even if your earnings power gets curtailed by circumstance once you have family.

melezka most are SAHMs. Partly because they are not qualified to do anything else, coupled of course with the fact that they are mostly married to rich men and so can stay at home.

Some run their own small businesses. A few retrained to become teachers.

Actually, this is a conversation we have all the time. What do we tell our DDs? Aim for the stars a la Xenia? Or do something more family friendly?

I think one of the BEST things about this site, is that there are people here in all sorts of different situations, and this makes it easy to challenge the assumptions we all make.

Maybe the OP on the other thread doesn't know anyone whose family income is less than 70k in real life?

This is what I love about mumsnet - we can discover that there are people earning £100k plus who are not all banking-style tossers; and that there are multitudes of people working incredibly hard, holding their families together on the minumum wage, not all benefit-freeloaders like the Daily Mail would have you think.

We have a combined income of about £160k pa but both DH and myself come from council house, state schooled backgrounds and have just worked- and STUDIED bloody hard,

We certainly live in the real world are are careful to make sure our extended families are cared for without patronising them. We also donate to charity but give our time and not just our money as well.

We have friends in all income brackets and what links us is that we like each other - not who earns what. I can certainly remember being made to hide behind the sofa when the rent man came when I was a kid....,

What happened to us wasn't- I want to be famous/rich- how can I do it with the least effeort'?

It came from graft, studying, going without and then more graft. So I am unapologetic about what we have. Even people who hate their jobs or can;t get a job can always find a way to study to change the potential of what is out there for them.

I'm really sorry if this reads smugly- it really isn't meant to. I would like us to value people for who they are not what they have and I am glad we worked hard to get further. By the way- several times we have both been made redundant and had to start again- it wasn't a nice , easy 'rise' And yes- I like nice clothes and holidays. I owuld far rather have had children but having tried every option we just were not able to- so I don't feel bad about having lovely things. You with the children are the truly blessed ones. I'd swap in a moment with you.

But you'd have been able to move into chartered accountancy later, Bagged. Had you wanted to.

I can see why you were annoyed. Would he have said the same to a son?

I want dd to aim for the stars, no question.

hence why I would not in a million years want he to be a chef - as it is a hideous qworking environment where the majority of head chefs are sociopaths, and the chances of getting to the top are slim.

'they didn't know how life would pan out. How could they?'

Very true.

DS1's talent is jewelllery design; at 11 he already makes and sells it to staff at school etc; he amde enough at he school fayre to buy a hamster and fully kit it out. He has an ASD so a solitary occupation with attention to detail is perfect for him.

He may make £10k, he may make £100,000. Knowing him a million is likely LOL but it's as important is his situation to support him in fidning a job that suits the stuff he didn;t choose- the ASD- as anything else.

Whereas I fully suspect had he had his personality without an ASD he'd end up president Of the World LOL- even with the disability he's Vice Captain of his school house and Chair of the school council (albeit with 1-1 in tow).

Everyone has hurdles; some are bigger than others. Some of us are able to jump a little higher too. My hatred of dependency is acting as a pretty good springboard in trying to find a job right now; just a shame very few people hiring here atm.

I completely empathise with the conversation about how we bring up our DDs. Right now my DD is only 6 yet I know that I am busy laying the foundations for academic success in a traditional sense, but also for more creative work. I suppose I secretly think that all girls need a quantitative degree, a professional qualification and a creative training...