to think a lot of posters here believe the ONLY reason they are in a well paid is because they worked so much harder than anyone else and good luck and favourable circumstances had NO BEARING AT ALL

[ssd]

GOD there are some amount of smug posters here who seem to believe they are so far above the rest of us lowly workers, they can't stop telling us how hard they have worked, how academic they are etc etc and if you're not, well really you probably claim benefits and expect the system to help you out with your crap paid job

well guess what folks, some of us are in crap paid jobs due to unforeseen life events, not because we spent years at school studying and trying hard so we could earn minimum wage and be lectured to by people who don't have to compromise all their bloody lives

As usual I agree with pag... it is very annoying when people want to sweep away all your success by calling it luck. It makes you want to point out that you weren't born rich, that you worked your ass off, that you sacrificed and took risks.

But that's not the same as saying anyone can do it if they just tried hard enough. Or that I don't recognise my lucky breaks.

That said, I do think spotting opportunities and wringing the arse off them is a mindset. You have to be open to possibilities and not looking for the problems. This has partly to do with personality but also upbringing I'd say.

Cumbria81.

That's your choice. The problem is that so many people in the UK who have made this "lifestyle" choice expect the people who have made the choice to work and succeed should then pay for their retirement, health care and care home costs. If you choose not to work hard then don't expect someone else, who has sacrificed to work hard, to pay for your "needs" or wants. Live with what you have paid for yourself.

Success in life is not just about hard work and or education it is also about making good choices. If you choose badly that's your problem. Live with the consequences and don't expect other people to pick up the tab.

That also includes choosing the right partner. Mumsnet is full of posts from people who clearly blundered into a relationship and are now left with two, three or more children to look after. The collateral damage from these broken relationships costs taxpayers huge amounts of money.

It seems that only expecting to get what you pay for is a strange concept to most of the people who post on Mumsnet, whose parochial vision seems not to encompass how most of the rest of the world thinks.

proudfoot, yes I can indeed read, I'm a university lecturer but (gasp) I skimmed the thread. People do that sometimes. You may not have felt flush at all, fair enough, but frankly you're in a very different position from current graduates, especially the 9k plus fee intake coming up in 2012. I'm afraid you still sound rather smug, and judgmental, because you assume that just because you found it all manageable, everyone else should do. Even a different generation facing a far more difficult job and property situation than you did.

I am seeing some pretty able students really struggling due to financial trouble and the need to work all term in crappy jobs. They then graduate and find it hard to pay rent. They seem to be expected to volunteer and 'intern' for years to prove themselves worthy of paid work. It's a very different world out there now.

Well, apart from Xenia's posts I would on the whole disagree.

I didn't have a 100% fun time at secondary school, the in crowd of cool kids had plenty to mock me and my geeky friends for and they certainly did. Do I have much sympathy that despite the fact that they achieved A' levels and went to university too, they, in general, haven't made as much of their opportunities as I have "been lucky" to do myself. Not really. I prioritised work over social life in the early days, their priorities were different.

If you failed to use effective contraception methods and had children early, then you needed to get back on the career track later, rather than it dawning on you some years later that you had hampered yourself greatly and bemoaning the fact that a new government now wants to cut benefit/tax credit levels.

Someone mentioned that they could have gone to university but their sadly their dad died so they felt they needed to stay home and take care of their mum. If the mum was disabled then I can understand this but no disability is mentioned. Surely there came a point where mum and you could see that you had done your bit and now needed to get on with your life. You don't have to be 18 to go to university, I know several people who started later in life. My best friend at University's mum died in her A level year. Another of our friends's dad died in her first year at university. You made a choice and never re-evaluated it later.

We have to be honest and acknowledge that some people don't have it in them to pass exams/train as a brain surgeon whatever. We can't all earn £100,000 plus. I certainly don't but I'm happy with what I get per hour. Tradesmen I use for practical stuff are happy with what I pay them per hour, they set their rates after al,l but I treat them and tea ladies/cleaning ladies etc at work with respect. Respect is the key here.

Do I respect people who could work but opt to live on benefits instead. No !

I am appalled that people can opt out of crappy jobs because they feel they have more respect for themselves living on benefits than earning an honest living cleaning sewers, mucking out cow sheds, picking fruit and vegetables etc. Those are the people I look down on. I would love to see a lot more tough love a la "Fairy Jobmother" ! Beacuse if those who can work could be made to work then maybe we could afford to pay those who can't (because they are in genuine and sometimes painful/crippling ill-health or can't because they are a 24/7 carer on the carer's allowance pittance) a decent living wage to give them more respect for their misfortunes.

No that sounds the same as when I went to uni. I had to work all term time and all holidays. I struggled to pay the rent when I graduated. It took me years to get a decent job. Sounds the same to me expect I had to find my tuition fees up front.

The problem is if you don't know anyone who is a doctor, engieneer, nurse, lawyer, teacher and so on you probably are very ignorant to what they went through to get there.

Many of them go through severe debt, sacrfice sleep , realtionship breakdowns and huge stress on them. I have seen many people in these professions break down in tears for no reason, go on anti-depressents and even become suicidal.

Are people not aware of the high suicide rates with Cambridge students for instance? Or that vet students have a high suicide rate?

To tell these people, after all they went through they were "lucky" would be disgustingly insulting.

RottenTiming, I couldn't agree more. Any job is better than no job. And yes, I have done what some people would deem crap jobs, and I took pride in my work.

I also think the concept of luck can be quite corrosive. If you convince yourself that anyone successful has been lucky, you essentially say it's out of your control...not somehting you can achieve.

I see this all the time with writers. They spend all their time bitching about the terrible books that get published, the hopelessness of getting an agent, the need to be a celebrity...anyone who is successful is just lucky. It's easier than taking a long hard look at your own work and seeing what needs to be done.

Rotten Timing, your post I think could be taken as making sweeping generalisations about people on benefits.

I think being optimistic, realistic and resilient are really important factors to achieving success in all areas of life.
When my dad was dying of a brain tumour and completely paralysed by it, I reminded myself and family:

• it could have happened decades earlier in his life
• he could have been born in a country without an NHS.

You don?t get to choose what happens in life, but you do get to choose how you respond to it.

The more I think about it actually, the people I know in RL who are the most successful are the ones with the most dreadful backgrounds- usually very, very poor with severe family issues.

Certainly no silver spoon or nepotisim.

For many people having such a dreadful childhood or life experience is actually the very cataylst not to ever live like that again that gives them so much drive and ambition.

allegraragella

In the old days though only the really able went to university so the government could afford it more easily.

We had a lower cost of living because we were from a generation that still lived within their means without easily available credit, no essential mobile phones plus associated cost and the absolute need to live in accomodation with internet access all mod cons. We mostly socialised in university bars/uni or poly disco once a week type of thing. We didn't need so much money to live on and we lived a far more spartan life (forgetting perhaps some oxbridge types). We didn't go clubbing or partying in Ibiza in the summer break or gap year trekking costing thousands.

It is a very different world out there now but mostly undergraduates in common with 18-21 year olds in general demand more and it costs more. You can't necessarily blame them but you can't blame my generation either. I was totally opposed to the ridiculous expansion of higher education, all must have degrees mentality. It was unaffordable and in many cases a waste of both the government and the undergraduate's money.

My dc won't be going to university without careful thought of the money side of things. It might be more sensible for me to buy them a place to train somewhere if a relevant degree is not required for their choice of career. If their career choice requires a relevant degree like medicine or law or is a basic requirement of some sort then we'll have to suck it up but they won't be going to any random higher education provider "university" to have 3 years of dual partying/studying which has to be paid for sooner or later, just to end up with a degree of some sort so thay can call themselves a graduate.

Surely that is your child's choice Rotten Timing and not yours to make?

I have an interesting perspective on this as we have a huge number of friends in very highly paid city/law careers and they do tend to bang on about how hard they work.

DH started off down that career, and at the early stages was doing better than many of them. But he chose a different path which, although it actually doesn't involve working much less hard, is paid considerably less and also happens to make him much happier.

What is very rare is for someone in that world to say "Actually we're very well off because I made a decision a long time ago that having a financially highly rewarded career was hugely important to me and I worked hard at it and was lucky along the way."

I can see Rottentimings point in the last paragraph.

I do fear a lot for future generations and recent graduates. I do agree if my dc's want to go to university (which I will encourage) I honestly think I would want them to do something with a much higher chance of employment which might not be their first choice.

Its a shame because once-upon-a-time you also studied purely for love and passion; but I think from now on you would have to be more calculated in your choice of higher education pursuit.

I will happily say

Actually I am very well off because I made a decision a long time ago that having a financially highly rewarded career was hugely important to me and I worked hard at it, still work hard at it, make and have made sacrifices, made the right choices and was lucky along the way."

Which is close :)

I don't think you can't study for love of passion. If you do a degree where you think you will get a decently paid job as a result you will be able to afford to repay your student loans. Doing a degree you love or are passionate about doesn't rule out making decent money. Most graudate programmes don't mind what your degree is in. If you do a degree for love and passion and you know you will either not use it or you will for some reason only ever work in low paid jobs, you know you will never have to reapy the debt and have bascially got the degree for free. So there is no problem either way.

Life is what you make of it. Sometimes you have to take a risk and make sacifices to gain in the long term.

I have just given my notice for a short term job as I want to set up my own business.

I dunno about that alltheyoungdoods my DH and his work colleagues are all very up front about wanting to be well paid and accepting what needs to done to get it.

We went to a fourth of July party recently in a mahoosive house (pool, tennis court, housekeeper etc) and DS said on the way home how lucky they were. DH was very quick to point out what sacrifices that family makes (living thousands of miles away from family, the father spending mon-fri away in a city that is very unpleasant etc).

catgirl 1976, it you read my post carefully, no I don't make sweeping generalisations, I carefully refer to certain particular scenarios.

Regarding my children's choices.They can make a choice but I won't be funding a misguided one. If I am later proved wrong I'll stump up for a car/house deposit instead but when the time comes I will explain the university system properly to them to include a cost/benefit analysis rather than just asking where they fancy applying to in the assumption that any degree is worth having. If they can't grasp a cost/projected benefit analysis then IMHO university is not for them.

Perhaps I am naive about influencing a 17/18 year old but plenty I know at the moment would factor in the funding side of things. Trust me, as more and more surplus graduates languish in poorly paid jobs, word will spread, and my dc have another 8 years before the first might be applying.

If you failed to use effective contraception methods and had children early was perhaps the particular statement I was refering to Rotten. Some people chose to have children early - its not always down to contraception failure. I appreciate that comment didn't necessarily pertain to people on benefits though.

I agree with you that "not just any degree is worth having" in terms of securing a financially well paid job, but on the other hand as I have said many graudate programmes don't mind what degree you have. My degree has had no relevance at all to my career. Also - and perhaps most importantly - the experience of going to university is worth a huge amount. Couldn't put it into financial terms but in terms of life experience..huge.

In these threads people always say 'oh i know how it is to be poor, i 've been poor at uni, ate baked beans, been waitress' etc.

Thats temporary situation with a time limit and light at the end of the tunel. And most importantly no children. Completely different to being poor all your adult life while you bring up children or work as waitress or cleaner in your 40s and 50s and 60s when you get tired more easy and when you have to feed your dcs and clean your house after your shift. Or when you have to tell your dcs that they cant go to the school trip because there is no money. This poverty has nothing to do with 'student poverty'.

I agree with the poster who said that being optimistic, realistic and resilient is an important factor. Although one could say that it is luck to have those traits

wordfactory I suspect that might be different as you are 'in' the world whereas we are 'outside' it to a certain extend, so they possibly feel they have to 'justify' it to us in a way they don't among themselves. On occasions where they're all in one room i do notice the dynamic shifts into a more competitive one, and they're certainly not shy of spending it!

Given the current structure of British Universities, most students should avoid them like the plague. The reason that there are so many unemployed graduates is that too many universities live by teaching rubbish courses with no relevance to the modern economy. The government have done a huge service to students by raising fees to £9000 per year. Finally, people are questioning the value of a university degree in a crap subject from a crap university.

I support the target of 50% of young people attending university but the universities need to restructure to offer courses that are relevant to a modern economy. And yes there is a market for people with technical and professional degrees in the world economy, just examine the numbers of Chinese and Indian students taking them.

I think the things that have made me moderately successful (in a professional career I love but that doesn't pay as much as a doctor!) are:

1. Having loving parents who invested a lot of time in me when younger so that intellectually I reached my potential
2. Having inner self-motivation, many of my friends didn't study as hard as me, they didn't feel bad about this, they just didn't want to do that and were prepared to get poorer results as a consequence.
3. High aspirations and self-esteem, I always thought 'what's so special about them?' looking at senior figures, I still do, so there's no reason why I can't be one. Lots of women in particular scupper themselves by not believing they are good enough.
4. Capacity for hard work: including the usual poorly paid jobs, waitressing, child-care, living off £20 a week, but always seeing it as a way to somewhere not as an end in itself
5. Knowing I could never parent on my own/in my twenties and being prepared to use more than one type of contraception to prevent this happening
6. Being born as a child to the Baby Boomer generation, so benefitted from their relative wealth, got free university education (but only for a few), loans from parents who started off poorer but got lucky with house prices etc.
7. Having parents and a partner who are extremely supportive of my career, prepared to do hands-on helping out, prioritize my needs (e.g. prepared to move if I need to for work) and so on. That's where I agree with Xenia.

Out of all of these, the most important seems to me my immediate family (pre- and post-marriage) as they have always supported me 110% and that made every single stage easier. Also, many of the the things that look like personality, such as esteem and motivation are really the outcome of being encouraged as a child. Although I agree having a really awful family can make you hungry for change, in reality many people don't escape the problems of their families and environments, they just end up replicating them.