... 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.

Very difficult line not being too pushy with kids but wanting to share the benefit of your experience. Told my kids that if they did their A levels and then chose to go work in MacDonalds and live in a shed because that made them happy then I was OK with that, if they ended up working at MacDonalds because they had wasted their chances at school and were now in an option free zone I would not be happy.

As someone else who had cancer (now fully recovered) I value happiness and family above money but I want my children to have enough money to make them happy, but to have enough compassion to be altruistic if they have more than they need.

Thank you Litchick I get frustrated on here sometimes!

I probably would be quite factual about careers like publishing which are quite well thought of, but have caps which are hard to exceed.

At least with a high risk, high reward career the possibility is there. For very few, those who are talented and strive, yes, but thankfully our culture is richer for those who are talented and succeed.

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

You see, I don't (really, really don't) want my DD to follow the classic star-studded French school and career trajectory and spend 40 years working out of 30 floor tower at La Défense.

totally agree that people should go into their chosen careers/jobs as knowledgable as possible.

Both DP and I are in professional roles - chose subjects at university and did masters in actually quite dry, uninspiring subjects. Both of us came from households where there had been severe money problems - his DF's company went bust and for my parents, my DF was out of work for years. I hate hate hate living with financial insecurity, and so went into roles where that's less of a likelihood (but I always know it could happen). We have, rather bizarrely, ended up with a lot of friends who followed their passions - musicians, artists. It is hideously difficult - for the musicians, their income is so unreliable, so changeable. They've been hit quite hard by the recession as funding for things like orchestras have been cut, as have private lessons. For a friend who's an artist - he finds it really difficult as a lot of an artist's success is not necessarily down to talent or drive, but how good you are at PR Tracey Emin.

When I was younger - I would have loved, more than anything in the world, to have been a professional ballet dancer or musician but was warned by my parents of how difficult and unstable a career option that was. I still get a pang every time I see ballet (the Black Swan is making me incredibly jealous - as stupid as that sounds), but I know that if that is what I would have gone for, work would have been patchy and highly competitive, and at 29 I would be heading (fast) towards the end of my working life.

But hey, you live with the choices you make, good or bad.

I have a 7 year old little boy and work full time in sales but still find it really hard unless I hit my sales target every month which is very unlikely. I overhear conversations in the office about clothes and holidays and whos buying what and really find it very annoying and insensitive. I dont care what other people earn but do find it very annoying when they are always shopping online and getting it delivered here and banging on about what they have in their houses. Most of them are probably on 3 times what I earn!! Grrr.

"What do we tell our DDs? Aim for the stars a la Xenia? Or do something more family friendly?"

Aim for the stars, surely? And when choosing a mate, choose one who'll be supportive of your career. Better, imo, for two high-flyers to reduce their hours (if need be) than for one to ditch their career.

The onus shouldn't be on girls to choose "family friendly" career paths anyway.

My nan used to say that you can't put an old head on young shoulders...but it's very hard not to try .

I hear my DD say she wants to act and I have to bite my tongue not to scream...are you mad?

Instead I encourage and support as much as I can, while pointing out that many many fail and many many need to do something else to support themselves in between gigs.

Fortunately she knows enough writers to know they teach, write reports, ghost etc in order to do what they love.

Jenal- I could have, put it would have been far harder. A trainee chartered accountant with a Top 5 firm earned £20k (this was 1996)- for 3 years. A bond trader earned far, far more so would have been hard to take the cut.

Plus, chartered accountancy exams are a lot of very hard work (a lot harder than my Oxbridge finals), so realistically, are you going to start studying for them once you have kids? Highly, highly unlikely. Plus, would I want to be a trainee in a firm where there were partners younger than me? hell no.

I did become a chartered accountant, and then moved into banking, and it was definitely better to do it that way round.

Would my dad have said it to a son? Probably, but he would have phrased it in terms of career sustainability/ getting some qualifications behind you rather than blindly launching into the most insecure career in the world without a back up plan.

Too true Bramshott. If I am honest, I think most people live in a bubble of sorts - its difficult to be really aware of the way different people live if you have always had it x. I think that is one of the benefits of places like MN - you get to talk to all sorts of people and get really wide views on the same subject, don't necessarily agree with them, but thats life.

It is very easy to be judgy about how people live, fuelled in general by however/wherever you get your information .

Kitsi I am sorry you were unable to have children, absolutely we are the blessed ones.

I too come from a council house; mDH does not but they were in fact far poorer than us (no carpets etc).

Dh is doing his degree whilst working, me my MA. But the reality is that with 2 disabled chidlren we are afr less likely statistically to escape poverty than somene without the disability factor.

We will try however, try our bgest: but if nobody agrees for eg to rovide childcare then we are obviously limited.

Work and sheer graft matter and can overcome a lot but it is quite possible still to come against hurdles that still knock you off your feet, even if temporarily. Silly things often- My MA is in Autism, the MA Social OWrker course can no longer offer me a grant for the £2000 the student ahs to self fund so chances are it's a no go now.... and so very close (where we live in Wales a Social Worker wage plus a self employed DH provides a pretty good lifestyle). DH was amde redundant which is why he is studying and we cannot find the £2000 at this point.

We'll divert and try other avenues but the highest earning ones do seem to be cut off becuase of simple life facts: the SNU taxi that drops off at the same time as the childminders are on school run; ds's SNu morning taxi being constantly late and turning up until 9; a lack of after school club that caters for over 12's locally (ds1 is 11 but won;t be safe at home alone for years yet).

I;m still applying for the social work course next year becuase I don't give up easily but everything does seem to be so much harder. When we had childcare if I wanted more money I took an extra job, worked more hours; now if we need a few pounds we eat less well.

"Better, imo, for two high-flyers to reduce their hours (if need be) than for one to ditch their career."

Therein lies the problem. If you're a high flyer it's very hard to do "reduced hours". Well. not until you're making most of your money from non-exec positions [emoticon for wistful smile].

Jenai younsee I am not convinced.

My advice to my children (all boys) would be to get to know themselves and their limitation / talents and make choices that work for them.

And to accept the downsides of those choices- whether lower income or limited social time- as well as the upsides.

jenai I think in an ideal world you are right, but my experience has been that most jobsof that sort are not easily done on fewer hours...travelling for example, is often an integral part.

JenaiMarr - I have a 10 year old who wants to test supercars too!! In fact he has his car ownership all mapped out. I think he is going to have a Bugatti Zonda by the age of 25. (Bless him, I doubt he'll even be able to afford the insurance)

I am a bit worried what he actually wants to be is Jeremy Clarkson.

I think the best you can do is to tell them to work hard and do the best they can at school to give themselves as many choices as possible so they can keep an open mind. I would even avoid vocational university courses unless they wanted to do something scientific.

I think it is also worth pointing out that learning is a life long thing and even if they commit to one course for now, it doesn't have to be the one they stick to for life.

At 10 I wanted to be in the army, at 13 a microbiologist, at 16 a lawyer (and I did get the degree too but didn't go to Law School). Now at 44, having been a student for the last 4 yrs, I still don't know what I want to do with the rest of my life.

I'm nothing if not open minded, me!

"hard working people who go out come rain or shine and do their day's work"

This is most people. You do realise that, right?

Turning up to work and earning a low wage doesn't make you automatically some salt-of-the-Earth saint. It makes you the average person. And conversely, earning a high salary doesn't automatically make you a posho who never does a day's work.

Do you think companies give 70k a year to just anyone who turns up once a week? Or that it was all down to luck? Or that Mummy and Daddy must have helped them out? Because if you do, you haven't got a clue.

And Polo lessons? On 70k? Do me a lemon.

If you live in or around London 70k can get stretched bloody quickly when you take into account a mortgage, all the myriad costs of running even a shite car, gas and electricity bills on a 3 or 4 bed house, council tax which is the most expensive in the country, travel costs which are nearly £200 a month, water which is among the most expensive in the country, groceries, all the costs of having children, tv licence, internet, various loans and credit cards, buildings and contents insurance, life insurance, pension contributions and MAYBE if you have some left over some money into savings for University costs, and then most importantly some booze to unwind from an hour and a half commute.

If that list sounds familiar, it should because it's probably what we all have to deal with.

Now bear in mind spending expands with income and everyone "feels" the pinch because it's all relative. My last car cost 2k second hand, my current car cost £500 second hand and it's the biggest piece of crap you've ever seen and I haven't been able to afford to fill it more than half way up for months. Most people live paycheque to paycheque, so just because someone moans about having to cut back on spending on something you would consider a luxury doesn't make them bad people.

You're posting on a free internet (in terms of speech, not cost) in a free democratic country with free healthcare for all and a benign (well, mostly) government, under the protection of a civil and criminal legal system.

If you asked someone in Sudan or some godforsaken hole like that about living in a bubble I think they'd laugh at your question more than anything. It's all relative.

For me the elephant in the room here is that we can't all do everything. Girls having a qualitative degree - well I can see it would be useful - i did higher maths for a while at school but just spectacularly crashed and burned. You do not want me doing anything quantitative in a professional capacity. You really don't. I can - just about - cope with what I have to do as a part of the job I enjoy - but if I had to do something quantitative as a career I really think I would die.

I do have a creative career that runs alongside my paid work. It doesn't pay: sometimes it costs me. My heart sank when DD said she wanted to be a dancer: but I have supported her. Just this weekend has been the first time she has confessed to thinking of other career paths. Great. But she won't be aiming for many of the more remunerative careers. She will need to find more of a reason than financial remuneration in her choice of careers.

Just a quick thought - do your DCs know how much you earn? Is salary the last taboo where we don't discuss money - so people don't know what sort of salaries are available (except the media / public / sports types)?
Letting them make their own career choices may be OK but they should be realistically informed - e.g. catering many jobs, low paid, lots of hours - a few 'super chefs' make it but the pyramid is very tall. Compared to say teaching where the pyramid (different between top and lowest earners is much shorter). Pros and cons of each etc.

Can't say I had any sort of careers advice but earning quite well - but would like a change - bored of this really.

That's a good point SDP. I dont remember as a teenager having any real concept of what different jobs paid or how much pay varied within that sector.

If you'd asked me what is the best paid job, I'd probably have said Doctor, just because that seemed to be the hardest course to get onto at Uni.

Quite SDD: there are pros as well as cons.

Caterers here may be les slikely to earn megabucks but there's often a lot of jobs advertised in the sector comapared to other roles: security counts for something too. I rather liked the thrid sector, it was well paid and I loved it- not the insecure funding or year long contracts though.

But security matters more to me than others.

All you can do with your children anyway is give them guidance: they will amke their own decisions and they amke make good- on apper at 18 I should be earning at least twice what sister earns; she's the one with the Saab and six bedded house.

I give my children a ballpark figure of what we earn. Partly, because DH and I are both self employed so it's not that precise a game.

I tell them that their lifestyle is exceptional so that they don't grow ou in a bubble .

When they ask about others earnings, I tell them eg a teacher eans between x and Y, a policeman between a and b.

I also point out other things about thos ejobs. Hours, likelihood of travel etc.

SDD

Know what you mean, our careers teacher was also the Latin Mistress, progressive and forwards looking in both subjects!!

Where does one go for careers advice in ones 30s and 40s?

Mine are 10 and 7 so wouldn't really grasp it if we told them what we earned. To them, a hundred pounds is a lot of money, and a thousand pounds probably sounds like winning the lottery.

(Cue the couple from "Sorry I've Got No Head" : "a thousand pounds ??!")

"The onus shouldn't be on girls to choose "family friendly" career paths anyway."

Why not? I grew up in a time and place and generation where girls were supposed to follow the same breadwinning career trajectory as boys. Not many of those girls, now women, wish to inflict the same nonsensical ideas on their own DDs.

TR: mumsnet?

I think the words 'realistically informed' are my mantra sexydomesticated

So I point out that DH gets paid very well, but has to work ridiculously hard. They may not consider that a fair transaction for themselves.

I point out that my job is great fun, that I get to dictate my own hours etc...but that there is no security.