What did the Boomers ever do for me?

[Nomama]

In the interests if balance, you understand!

I shall start with the Ford machinists:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_sewing_machinists_strike_of_1968

Equal Pay Act 1970

My thanks to you, Baby Boomers. Without you I couldn't have earned the same honest day's pay as the man working next to me. Hell, I couldn't even have got the job in the first place.

Now this generation needs to thoroughly break the Glass Ceiling!

Sorry my parents are Boomers I had loans and a grant.

Dh also has wealthy boomer parents and had a grant.

My boomer parents went to uni(and grammar school) and what I "know" is from parents already struggling and friends who work in the uni sector.

Guess I should just ignore their concerns.

to sign at the ballot box

You've never voted then ...

Do enlighten us as to which party we should vote for given how knowledgable you are compared to my distance from politics.

Oh and re spoon fed,we're all working our arses off and trying to raise a family.I find "spoon fed" insulting and the same old excuse trotted out.

Honestly, Marseilles, you sound so bitter. I'm a baby boomer. I'm still raising my family (kids living at home, in sixth form college). I'm still working my arse off and paying into a pension that won't provide an adequate income in my retirement. I've worked since I was sixteen. I can't remember the last time I went to my GP/used the NHS. I'm certainly not the only baby boomer doing this. Trying throwing caring for elderly parents into the mix, too.

You're the one who's naive, frankly.

Oh yes voted Lib Dems,that went well..........

I had a partial grant which my parents didn't contribute the shortfall to as they should have

Oh, the irony. Marseilles, you say you find 'spoon fed' insulting but you ask another poster who you should vote for.

We owe every success and failure in our world to its people, and we must take responsibility for that, not perpetuate the narrow minded paradigm of 'point the finger and blame someone else'. If you are stuck in that mindset, you read too many newspapers and watch too much television. Do not blindly buy into dogma and rhetoric just because it is what you have been taught.

Fantastic posts today, elephants

Petit - there were grants, but not loans.... I missed the grant too!

And I said distanced form politics given the info you have supplied, you have voted... great. But there is much, much more you can do if you really want to make a change, as I outlined a couple of posts ago!

Well, if you signed your vote, it certainly didn't make a difference

There are some of us that would gladly spend a day doing the washing by hand if we didn't have to go out to work 5 days a week and send our children to strangers before and after school just to pay the rent/mortgage.

That is a choice, not a necessity. We all get to choose where we wish to live, what we wish to do, how we wish to earn our money, and what we wish to spend it on.

There is a very different pressure involved in going to work, having 'performance assessments' every few months, having to make yourself look presentable each day, behave nicely all day, and be polite to people you really can't stand

Again, that is a free choice. If you do that, you do so because you choose to do so. There is no obligation to do any of those things. Many people earn very fine amounts of money doing whatever takes their fancy, and many others choose to do nothing at all, or very little. You choose, and you do so with far greater freedom and access to resources than at any other time in history.

Than there is being at home, and having a good old swear to yourself when the mangle cracks your buttons or you burn your arm, and not having to put on a face for 'people at work' when things are too much at home as well as work.

So do that. What is stopping you? Choose what you wish to do, how you wish to live your life, how you wish to raise you children, and how much effort you are willing to put into is, and do it. Clearly sitting on the fence and looking at how you want life to be is making you unhappy. Not being willing to, or not being able to, recognise the opportunities this world affords you, that previous generations only dreamed about (and created for us) is no excuse for denying that they actually exist, or blaming a previous generation for not taking full advantage of them.

I didn't get a maintenance grant. They were means-tested. My dad wouldn't cough up, so I went to uni in my twenties and worked throughout.

Only two because I'm assured it's easy to put all the ills right with a vote at the ballot box.Should be easy peasy,tell us all who to vote for and job done.Housing and pension sorted.

We all wait with baited breath.

I was born in the baby boom years (early 1960s) and I don't know anyone my age (early to mid fifties) who will retire on a gold plated pension. Most people of my age have had redundancies or job changes that ensure that they won't have a decent pension. As far as I know the huge pensions only went to people who worked in the same job for 20+ years after leaving school at 16 and if you worked for a large company. The reason that there is now enforced pension contribution being brought in (via taxes) is because so many baby boomers have nothing saved for retirement and very little state pension entitlement.

You don't pay back any university fees until you earn £21,000. Not all graduates earn a high salary straight away and I know several graduates who will never pay back a single penny. Not many parents that I know are paying towards their children's studies as they expect their children to live within a budget (8p noodles, second hand books and charity shop clothing!) or work part time.

Sorry, I meant I'm giving up trying to get through to LePetitMarseillais, not everyone else.

There is a very different pressure involved in going to work, having 'performance assessments' every few months, having to make yourself look presentable each day, behave nicely all day, and be polite to people you really can't stand

Yeah, in my workplace the baby boomers are exempt from this shit.
Sorry for the sarcasm, but really this is not something that only the young have to tolerate. At least you don't have to call your boss 'sir', like the good old days!

So which is this party and what are they lying about planning to do come election that will sort things out?

Only two because I'm assured it's easy to put all the ills right with a vote at the ballot box.Should be easy peasy,tell us all who to vote for and job done.Housing and pension sorted.

Yeah, tell her who to vote for so she has someone to blame when it goes pear-shaped.

two fingers, I did not say it's something only the young have to tolerate. I said it's something only the people going out to paid employment have to tolerate.

Actually laughing out loud at Gideon there!

No, there were definitely loans (i know, i had one!). They were just being phased in as grants were phased out. They started small.

Petit, READ!

That has already been answered, by me and others! You may not have liked, or understood, the information but it has been answered.

Get up, go out and get involved. A vote is then end product of a lot of work. Do some of the work, get it aimed at what you want. Make a difference. It won't happen overnight but lots of people do lots of things to get local and national politics changed. If you choose not to then you have no right to complain that your vote, your voice is not heard!