To get annoyed at people saying our parents had it easier?

[lesley33]

A recurrent theme in some posts is how much easier our parents had things. I am 43 and I don't think my parents had it easier than me.

I know a small number of people who bought houses in the 60's and 70's made money, but most people had it far harder than we do. Just a few things that were harder in 60's and 70's:

• no maternity leave until 1979
• no paternity leave
• standard working week included saturday morning
• two weeks annual leave was standard
• much much more overcrowding in houses
• many many houses had no inside toilet or bathroom
• common to have no central heating
• low car ownership
• very few children went to university
• narrow range of food available

Those who were parents then may be able to add more things. You may think one of the plus points is that many women stayed at home with the children. I have read that almost all of the growth in living standards since the 70's is fuelled by women working.

So you could stay at home and look after your children if you are happy to have a 70's standard of living.

I have a dishwasher its called 'me'

"I think that the 'average' mumsnetter would probably think they had it better than their parents. But this world described on mumsnet is nothing like the lives of the vast majority of people in RL ime."

Very true, but then, the non-MN/RL people also quite possibly didnt have parents who bought their house for £6k and are now sitting on £1 mn equity, so it maybe works both ways..

However, it's very true that there won't be consensus because some people do better than their parents and others do worse. I guess that's what they call social mobility.

my mum "inherited" her mum's dishwasher in 1983 & dh & I were given it in 1998 when we got married!

My parents had it easier in a lot of ways, neither went to university so the lack of university debt isn't a comparison but they bought a brand new three bed (double the size of modern 3 beds) on just my Dad's less than average salary. My mum stayed at home for 8 years whilst we were all young. They ran two cars most of the time. We had a two week holiday nearly every year.

They like to mention that they lived for 2 years without some furniture whilst they saved up, whereas we could just afford to go out and buy it - but that's just because furniture is so much cheaper now with Ikea and the like. They were saving up for Ercol! And given the choice I'd quite happily have gone without furniture for 2 years if I could have bought a house for the same relative expense as they did.

Good point made there by vouvrey. Dh's dad was old enough to fight in the war- that's obviously a different perspective from someone being born in the 60s.

Also, people's circumstances change over time: my parents were quite badly off in the late 50s, but relatively comfortable in the late 70s, so an appreciation of their lifestyle would depend on which of their children is doing the remembering.

"my mum "inherited" her mum's dishwasher in 1983 & dh & I were given it in 1998 when we got married!"

Blimey- your Gran was basically an aristocrat then . [doffs hat]

Yeah exactly peanutbutter. Whenever my husband and I get sick my mum always say go off work and I say no way we wont get paid. My parents just cant get their head round it as they have never experienced it! It drives me mad.

It also drives me mad when my mum says how can anyone like on minimum wage when loads and loads of people do. She always says cant believe people are on such low wages. It literally drives me insane.

I was born in 1978 and my parents had more opportunities to be socially mobile. They were both from working class backgrounds and left school at 16.But they worked their way up and bought their own house and my mum was a SAHM while we were young. Both these things are harder in this generation as house prices and the cost of living soar.They are due to retire n a decent pension. I don't believe there will be such a thing as retirement the way we are going.

Also - my dad had to fight in Korea (National Service) and had bad dreams about killing. My mum, on the other hand did have the immense fun of the Second World War during which she and her cousins had the best time of their lives living in the country. But thank god I have never had to send my children away on a train while I went home to my shelter.

I think that it depends a lot on the age of your parents and what their own background was. My parents married in the 1950's. Both came from homes where the mother stayed at home whilst the father worked in extremely low paid jobs. Neither set of grandparents owned their own homes until one of their own children was financially able to help out. My own parents began married life living with a relative and then going into rented accommodation until eventually they were allocated a council property. My dad worked in low paid jobs and was could not afford to buy a property. At one time, the council moved us into a property that had no indoor toilet ( this was in the 70's). There was not the option for my mum to work whilst we were young. Childcare as we know it did not exist, or at least, was not affordable for people doing the kind of work she did. When she and my dad split up, she had to work, but it meant that she had to leave myself and my sister to take care of ourselves before school and in until she got home in the evening. We never had a car. My mum got her first washing machine when I was 5 and she had it until I was around 18, when she got an automatic. I Growing up we had either black and white TV or, usually, no tv. We got colour tv only a couple of years before I got married. We had two holidays in my entire childhood, both in this country. We had no telephone until I was about 12. My mum has only got central heating in the last five years! I could go on, but I think you get the idea!

So, without a doubt, we have many more material things these days, I know of no-one who would consider setting up home without things like a microwave or TV, let alone a washing machine. However, I think that whilst financially it is hard these days, for many people, that is down to the expectations they have about what they want in life, whereas for my parents the struggle was to afford the necessities every day.

'Very true, but then, the non-MN/RL people also quite possibly didnt have parents who bought their house for £6k and are now sitting on £1 mn equity, so it maybe works both ways..
'

Yeah but on similar type jobs and hours as my parents. Our property is ridiculously more expensive in comparison to wages. My parents never did degrees but you could have high waged public sector jobs even with no education like my dad. That means you get pension, sick pay, loads of leave etc. That is not what you get now my dad left school with no qualifications and has now only got a low NVQ but he is on a decent wage as its public sector. Thats what is mad and unrealistic nowadays.

sayithowitis we don't have a microwave or a TV, I'd give up my car to have a house we could afford on one salary.

'sayithowitis we don't have a microwave or a TV, I'd give up my car to have a house we could afford on one salary'

agreed. To be able to bring up kids in a real house and not a flat even on two wages is not realistic for most people where I am

I think our parents did have it easier, or that whole generation. We now have such high expectations. Many DC want designer clothes which was not the case when I was young. Only thing "designer" I wanted was Levi jeans. My parents could buy their house on one salary, afforded holidays every year. Didn't have all the luxuries that nowadays are considered essential.

Now they are retired they can pretty much afford to do what they want. DC then had many fewer toys and we didn't get much for Christmas/birthdays. In fact, we never got anything in between those two things and usually got any clothes that we needed for Christmas/birthday.

Also, I know that my mother did smack us, although i don't actually remember her doing it to me. She had no doubts at all about how she parented us. I have no problems that she smacked us; it was the norm then. We seem to overthink everything. If you look on the boards here you can see how uncertain many, many parents are. People didn't judge other people's parenting, either, on the whole.

Well... I was born in the 80's so no my parents had it ALOT easier than me and my sister have it now. Everything they had they had to work for obviously but the jobs they did then (mum was a nurse and dad was a journalist) didn't require uni educations like they do now. Both are now mortgage free wheras my sister and I will never, ever get a mortgage let alone pay it off before we retire.

I definately have it loads better than either of my grandmothers when they were raising children.

I don't know about then, but wht I do know is that everything OP mentioned is my lifesytle living overseas (turkey)

I can not work due to not having a work permit so one income family. DH works long hours and usually has one day off a month.

We don't own a car but DH has access to BIL2s car if we need it.

We live in a tiny 2 bedroom apartment with no garden (although have a bathroom )

Food is very basic. We can't get self-raising flour anything pre-cooked etc. I have to buy chicken and make pastry for a chicken pie for instance.

However DC do not know about fashions, labels, have 2 childrens channels on tv that finish at 8pm. Days out alone with my DC involve a 30 minute walk into town for a park (mostly broken up and grubby)

although I do have it easier. Mainly because my DC don't expect things (not on offer to have) They have an amazing diet (old fashioned home cooked meals) They are much safer. Children here play on the streets from a young age (although not sure mine will for a while)

Life is simple

It depends on individual circumstances. I was born in 1960, I think my Mum had a very hard life in many ways. Certainly many of the women I knew did as well. My Mum went to work full time as soon as her youngest [of 5] started school. All the women I knew worked.
I don't know anyone who has a £600,000 house. My parents house sold for £180,000. It was a struggle for them to buy it. They actually started off their married life in a single [privately rented ]room, even when they had a baby.
When I was growing up my parents struggled to feed and clothe their children. If there wasn't enough money to go round then my Mum was the one who suffered. This was the way things were at this time for many families.

Also I think live was easier even 15 years ago. My parents bought a three bed massive 3 storey house for 62k in 99 and sold it in 2007 for 180k. Whereas now I have a small flat no garden and that alone was over 100k! Its madness

it was a bloody amazing dishwasher - huge & noisy but it got everything clean & was practically indestructible! My dad's family are all engineers & scientists & were totally gadget obsessed - we had the first microwave of anyone I knew (again huge) & a video recorder too!

My mum was aghast that people with children (the family she was talking about have 5 as we do) manage to survive on 60K a year! She knows full well that dh's salary is considerably less than this now (very hard hit by the recession we are just v. v. grateful that he's working at all) ... somehow we manage it & we're pretty happy with our lot. She also can't understand why we don't pop out for coffee or random shopping trips, or why we pack a lunch for the children when we got out for the day. She thinks it is sad that we don;t drive the children down to the coast (3 hours away!) every weekend ... doh petrol prices! My parents never had to worry about day to day costs & rising prices like we do - even when interest rates were crazy they had a very small mortgage. They have always had savings.

I had a very happy childhood & aspire to something similar for my children - I just wish they'd understand that we can't (even when dh was earning imo a pretty high salary) just go out and buy a 5 bedroom detached family house with huge garden in a nice area like they managed to do.

I agree with those who reckon it was harder in some ways and easier in others in our parents day.
My parents grew up during WWII so rationing, black-outs, shortages of everything etc.
Many children died from illnesses we now have vaccinations and antibiotics for.
Money was tight and my parents would never have had the chance to go to Uni as you had to have money or win a scholarship.
That said there were apprenticeships and job opportunities with industries that don't exist now. People didn't get everything on credit and find themselves in debt
My parent's didn't own their oiwn house until Dad retired and they bought their ex-council house.

So it's really swings and roundabouts I think.

Tyler and noodle, I was not ignoring the fact that there are people who struggle badly these days. I know they do. We struggle and we both work. I was merely saying that whenever I hear of people setting up home together, it seems that things like microwave etc are top of their list of necessities. It was a general observation. Many people consider it a necessity to run a car. My parents could not afford to. When I was a child, if someone you knew had a car, they were considered to be well off. These days many people regard it as a necessity. There are some who regard a dishwasher/laminate flooring/a holiday every year in the same way. I am not saying that everyone does, just that to a lot of people, they do not consider those things to be luxuries in the way that they would have been when I was a child.

I too think it was easier for my parents generation. They worked hard for sure, but so do we. The overall reward for that hard work paid out much more handsomely than it does now.

Also, and I've said this before on threads like this, I do not think being parents in the 70's or 80's had anywhere near the expectation attached to it that there is now.

My parents didn't agonise about a fraction of the things that are recurring themes for angst re parenting today. Hands off parenting is bound to be easier.

That was my grandparents generation salmontrutta, they definitley had it hard.
It's like living standards got better for a while and are now in decline.

When I grew up in the 80s everyone had a car, many had 2, everyone lived in a real house I know no one who had to live in a flat with kids live you do today. We have an old car but it is literally for my husband to get to work as there are no jobs nowadays. He spends 140 a month on petrol which is nearly a weeks wages.

When I was younger I also went on holiday abroad every year all though my parents never went to uni, house prices were way cheaper in comparison to wages. Everyone I know did but now it isnt realistic.