Baby Boomers - The selfish generation?

[YellowTulips]

Ok - so this came out of another thread...but it got me thinking and gathered a few responses.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1743690-Please-I-NEED-to-know-if-IABU-before-I-take-a-stand-with-my-in-laws?pg=1

I have posted below as I did on the thread. What I am interested to know is if this is a really wide spread issue?

Disclaimer: Whilst I know (far) to many people this applies to, I have to confess my parents and PIL's so no signs of bonkers retirement plans (just good planning to give them a good standard of life).

Ok - so post below:

Whilst this case is at the extreme end of the spectrum, there seems to be (from the posts here and chats with friends/colleagues) a real reluctance on the "baby boomer" generation to make sustainable retirement plans.

Here in the UK many friends have parents who for years have lived off rising property values and the expectation that they can sell up or remortgage to fund what are clearly highly expensive lifestyles that can't be maintained over 20/30 years of non generation of income.

There seems to be a groundswell of entitlement often laughingly termed "spending the kids inheritance" - which in principle I don't object to - you can't take it with you and I personally would rather my parents enjoyed retirement than "save" or god forbid "scrimp" for me, but I am seeing this taken to "spend the inheritance and then let the kids bail us out".

I have lost count of friends who are now in some form or another subsiding their retired parents - parents who have "blown" life savings and house equity on mad "let's buy a house in Spain to live in half the year" or let's "travel around the US in a huge RV for 2 years" or "buy a boat and sail around the med" because they refused to really think if they could afford it.

Before I get beaten up, I don't object to people wanting to help family in desperate straights, I just seem to hear more and more stories where these situations were totally avoidable and parents have been - put bluntly - bloody selfish at worst and in denial at best.

The families involved are now making sacrifices that impact their children at the very time they should be the priority.

Do I just have an unlucky social group or is this issue becoming more prevalent?

Rant over.....hand me a !

[TartinaTiara]

Wibblypig - that comment was aimed at you because I was responding to a comment you'd made directly to me. I've also responded directly to other posters who've commented directly at me - you're not being singled out here.

And the whole "anecdote as data" thing is how prejudice becomes entrenched. As you say, it's not right, it's not nice and it's not fair. So we shouldn't do it.

[Oodsigma]

So I'm not sure it's a case of the selfish generation, rather a generation that has been very lucky and in some cases is a little reluctant to acknowledge it to those behind them.

This is my Mums view on her generation.

[YellowTulips]

Sorry - the "however" should have followed thus...

However, I can't ignore what I see around me. That's why I was asking is this a wider problem?

I know there are BB's who do not behave this way (my parents and PIL for example), but it seems - based on my experience that many do. Again to stress I would be happy that my experience is not the norm (hence the ? on thread title).

[FarBetterNow]

Ethel; Yes, we were lucky to be able buy a house at 19.

There is currently property for sale in Liverpool for £20k and Newcastle for £30k.
That was the sort we bought.

[x2boys]

My parents havent blown there money they dont spend half the year abroad granted they live comfortably in a good sized four double bedroom two bathroom semi with a good size garden which i would love to be able to afford but i dont envy them they have worked hard and helped me out tremendously both financially and practically!

[YellowTulips]

OodS - never thought of it that way. Great insight from your mum.

[TartinaTiara]

OP, yes, you asked "if". As in "I've seen a lot of selfish baby boomers. Am I just unfortunate, or is this a general trait of this population?" I paraphrase, I know, but that's the general thrust - if I've misunderstood then I genuinely apologise.

But in any other form of discrimination based upon a characteristic shared by a given population, if someone said "This is my experience, is everyone in this category like this?" the response would be "of course not, it's just your experience, you can't judge everyone by your own limited experience". It wouldn't be a question you'd even think about asking, because the answer would be so obvious.

I realise that you may be trying to find out if others have the same experience, but the way in which you asked the question seemed to invite anecdotes to reinforce your experience. Again, if that wasn't your intention, I'm prepared to believe that you aren't prejudiced against everyone who was born between 1946 and 1964(?).

[Wibblypiglikesbananas]

TartinaTiara - you seem to be missing the point somewhat. I am citing my own experiences, events that I have observed over my lifetime. Yes, these and those of friends I have mentioned may be anecdotal (a word which I hadn't actually mentioned myself, though you appear to think I have?!) - exactly as the OP asked. Nothing more, nothing less.

Whilst this may be your area of expertise, that does not override my, or anyone else's, personal experiences or their right to discuss them here. It appears to me that you came onto this thread to be deliberately controversial.

[BegoniaBampot]

as others said, the BB from my home town didn't go to university but left school at 15 and 16 to low paid mundane jobs. they grew up in poverty, many is slums which were later condemned. they had nothing of the luxuries, lifestyle and education that many expect now. Many are on the basic state pension - they live for their families as they don't have that much else to look forward to. you really jealous about that?

[Oodsigma]

yellow I pinched the quote from allswornout earlier in the thread but its what my mum regularly says

[TartinaTiara]

Wibblypig, I'm not missing the point. I know you're citing your own experience. I haven't said you've used the word "anecdote" though that's the word for what you're describing. Your experiences are your experiences, I can't say you're mistaken, because only you can have experienced them. What I am saying is that you can't then say that everyone is going to have shared those experiences, and that it therefore means that baby boomers, in general, are the most selfish generation.

I'm not trumpeting my expertise on whether or not baby boomers are the most selfish generation. I have none. I was explaining to ethelb why I had been posting on these threads (of which there have been several over the last few days) and not on threads which go on about how people can buy a house if they'd just give up their iphone (which is again, complete nonsense. Younger people aren't not buying houses because they're just too devoted to texting). I'm not being deliberately controversial and I'm not saying you have no right to an opinion. You do. So do I. We're both entitled to express it.

[ethelb]

@farbetter a lot of that uber cheap property in Liverpool is actually only available to local buyers. Ive looked! Plus I cant find anything in newcastle for less than £60k that doesnt need £50k spending on it to make it habitable, and with low loan to value mortgages available to first time buyers, unless you have that £40-50k in ready cash it isnt really an option for medium income earners like us. Though if you see anything to the contrary please do send my way, I have had a few affordable property porn threads and may start another one up soon.

And though I dont want to labour the point, my point is that it used to be the case that 'stuff' was expensive and housing was affordable, hence your efforts with regard to clothing, eating out, holidays made a difference. Whereas utility (inc housing and travel) is now so expensive, that cutting back on what is now 'cheap stuff' doesnt really make a huge difference

[ethelb]

@farbetter a lot of that uber cheap property in Liverpool is actually only available to local buyers. Ive looked! Plus I cant find anything in newcastle for less than £60k that doesnt need £50k spending on it to make it habitable, and with low loan to value mortgages available to first time buyers, unless you have that £40-50k in ready cash it isnt really an option for medium income earners like us. Though if you see anything to the contrary please do send my way, I have had a few affordable property porn threads and may start another one up soon.

And though I dont want to labour the point, my point is that it used to be the case that 'stuff' was expensive and housing was affordable, hence your efforts with regard to clothing, eating out, holidays made a difference. Whereas utility (inc housing and travel) is now so expensive, that cutting back on what is now 'cheap stuff' doesnt really make a huge difference

[Jan49]

I'm a (late) babyboomer. I think it would be a massive generalisation to think that people born from 1946 to 1964 were like the OP describes. I also think it's more or less 2 generations not 1. People born in the late 1940s seem a lot older than me, a generation older in fact, and their experiences are very different. Some are retired, others could be in their late 40s with children in primary school and no thought of retiring for years.

I've benefited from a 'free' uni education (though I wouldn't have gone if it hadn't been free and most people didn't go when it was free - their families often expected them to get jobs and contribute to the household so the fact that it was free wasn't enough). I've benefited from rising house prices, having bought my first house with my then h and young ds when I was 30. I think those are the two main differences between me and someone who is now in their 20s and has uni debt and less chance of buying a house.

I also think sometimes people forget what the living standards were like for previous generations compared to now. Would 20-somethings still be keen to buy a house if it meant living without basics like central heating or an indoor toilet or shower or washing machine for years, which many older generations did? I think there are 'entitled' people in every generation and some of those who think they have a right to be able to buy their own home would expect to have the money to update it rather than live without certain things and improve their home over time when they can afford it as previous generations did.

[ExitPursuedByABear]

Times change. No one knows what the future holds. It's a bit rich to be blaming the baby boomer generation for today's problems. The definition of poverty has changed since I was a child and expectations are now much higher. It will all have changed again in 10 years time.

[TartinaTiara]

Jan49, yes, I think that people would still buy a house without central heating - maybe not without an indoor toilet, but there aren't many of those left. I've read threads where posters have been renting, and don't have central heating or have houses which are damp, or the windows don't shut. The sort of thing that used to be bought by people as their first house, a bit of a do-er upper. I think that if that sort of house was affordable, then people would buy them, and do them up, just like in the olden days. Nowadays I think it is more difficult to buy a house, not that the houses themselves are unaffordable (though the average house/earnings ratio is I think still about 5:1), but that the mortgage company wouldn't lend on a house like that.

Maybe that's where some of the resentment comes in - the 20 somethings are prepared to do what the baby boomers did, in terms of starting modestly and building something up, but it's more difficult to get the start.

[ethelb]

Who just saw the 10'o clock show. Obviously completely representative but look who were the massive twat there then?

[ExitPursuedByABear]

So far this week we have had threads blaming pensioners for the current crisis, and now the baby boomers. Me thinks the younger generations should get a grip.

[ethelb]

@exit or maybe those claims need to be examined sensibly?

[ExitPursuedByABear]

And then do what?

[ethelb]

@tartina that's my point. The point upthread about houses in Newcastle for £30k. If I could get a 100% mortgage and spend my savings doing it up (as my parents spent their 20sdoing) then I would. But the way the banks lend won't allow that anymore. The little money I do have (in property terms) would be better spent on a deposit so I could get a higher loan to value mortgage.
Thats not my choice as it means that the overall housing stock doesn't improve. But thats how it is.

[ethelb]

@exit sort out the financial crisis? Call me crazy...

[ExitPursuedByABear]

@@@@@ ???????

[TartinaTiara]

ethelb, I agree with you. OK, the financial crisis was in part caused by high value mortgages, but I can't see that buying a house cheap on 100% mortgage, then doing it up gradually is in any way a bad thing. Means that a house is brought back into use, a family has a home that's more secure than renting (and going back to some of the threads about nightmare landlords, a house that's not in significantly worse nick than some rented houses), and the economy benefits because people are spending money fixing up the houses.

I think we may have solved the financial crisis between us right there....

[ethelb]

Yes we have!

Plus what infuriates me is that you cant get a 100% mortgage on a sub £100k house doer uper (which would benefit someone/a family and local construction industry) but you can get a 95% on a £600k overpriced new one which only benefits the property developer, and runs the risk of another housing bubble.

But of course, I should be chancellor.