To not really have much sympathy?

[cailindana]

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/14/babies-an-impossible-dream-the-millennials-priced-out-of-parenthood#comment-63353806

The writer complains that she can't have babies because she resents the idea of moving out of London.

Others in the article complain they can't afford houses and so won't have children.

AIBU to think that yes house prices are mad but if you really 'dream' of having babies then there are ways to make that happen and it's not 'impossible' unless you are unfortunate enough to be infertile (in which case there may be other options if you are willing to consider adoption/fostering).

I have to say the whole thing comes across to me as a bit whiny.

I think some of you are being a bit harsh.

I do think life has become much harder for 20-somethings than it was even for my generation - I'm 40 so Gen X.

Jobs are more insecure - lots of short term or zero hour contracts. Even public sector jobs are no longer considered secure.

Job stress is increasing (just look at the threads about teaching or nursing).

Housing costs have gone up massively EVERYWHERE rents as well as buying.

Renting is insecure (this was always the case IFAIK) but now it's seems commonplace for agencies to charge £££ just to renew your contract.

Loads fewer council houses.

Massive university debts.

Childcare costs are going up - nursery fees for my DC2 are £12 a day more expensive than they were for my DC1 5 years ago. My wage certainly hasn't gone up by £12 a day in that time.

Tax credits cuts. With further cuts to come.

Cuts to children's services.

One poster said we shouldn't judge everything by the baby boomers generation and they're right. Things are tough now but no more than in other generations. My Grandparents were born in the Great Depression, my parents in WW2. I was born in the 60s and my (teacher) parents couldn't afford a place of their own so lived with my Grandparents for a couple of years in a small council house. People still had children in the 70s when there was a three day week.

Ms Guardian is discovering that very few people can 'have it all' - another lie from my parents' generation. She might not be able to have a glam career and a chi chi London house with regular foreign hols and fit in DC too. Life isn't a chick-lit novel.

YABU, just. I read it and did have some thoughts of 'she should just get a salaried job' but maybe it's not that easy. However, the key issue is the rent. It's not a case of wanting a nice house to raise a kid in, it's the simple fact that cos rents are so high she and many people like her are still stuck in house shares, & I can see why you wouldn't want to have a baby when you don't even have a home to yourself. There's a more interesting issue hinted at in this article which she didn't really do justice - prob because it moved beyond the baby theme - that the current housing market has worsened old class divides. Especially in the South East, even if you have a really good job you can only buy if you can go to the bank of mum & dad and many cant. So those with better off parents are ok, and those with worse off arent. In my experience this is creating big gulfs in wealth even amongst people who all have professional jobs,

Having children for me was more important than a career.

I am stuck in a dead end job, but I don't care. Between dh and mine wages we get by.

Having my house full of kids every weekend is priceless.

It's about what more important.

YANBU. I live outside of London, have the same commute as a 'Londoner' but enjoy much more affordable house prices.

I had DD2 in a London hospital 4 months ago and llhj is right, the maternity wards are full and birth rates are high - 17.7 births per 1000 in London compared to 12.8 in the UK overall. And the other women in the ward were from a range of backgrounds and ages.

Lots of women were around the same age as the writer and many in much more precarious circumstances. My own situation wasn't entirely secure in fact but I went ahead with the pg anyway and it's all worked out. I suspect my lifestyle/circumstances is not one that the writer or her friends would like to end up in, but that's a choice they've made and they certainly do have the choice to have children and end up with a different lifestyle than they have now.

Oliversmumsatmy - do you think it should be that way? That everyone should go through what you did - to work 3 jobs to be able to own a home? It shouldn't, you know it shouldn't

But that was in the good old days of the Baby Boom generation. You know the generation that apparently had everything handed to them on a plate. Everyone I knew had second and third jobs even those with degrees and professional qualifications worked pulling pints at the very least 2 nights per week.
Anyone who thinks the principals of life are any different to day than during the 60s, 70s, 80s etc needs to wake up and grow up.

Maybe the ideal of everyone getting a university education is giving people a false sense of their own worth and the idea of extra jobs shelf stacking, doing bar work and waitering jobs are beneath them because they have a degree. But then they are realising that their one salary does not get them to the next level in their lives.

Sitting around moaning and saying something isn't right does not put cash in your pocket. Working extra jobs does.

To put it in perspective I worked as a bank clerk my gross salary was £1200 per year. My first starter home was the cheapest thing on estate agents books bought for £17000. That is 14.16 times my gross pay.

Just looked up the average salary of a bank clerk to day and it is £16,649 per year multiplied by 14.16 = £235860.

Only difference I can see is the fact that you can get a place a lot cheaper nowadays.

Oh and Romford is in Essex not London. London postcodes begin with N W S E not R

It's in a London Borough. That part if Essex has been swallowed up by London now.

Residents of Romford are not the responsibility of any Essex council because it is in a London Borough. To me that says Romford is in London

YANBU, she has choices but doesn't want to make them.

We have a generation that expects life to be handed to them on a plate and it doesn't work like that.

Whether Romford is Essex or London is irrelevant. It is commutable to central London. When I worked in EC4 lots of colleagues lived there and got the train in. And you can get a 2 bedder for less than £250k.

Oh oh. Just found a 2 bed flat in Strasburg Rd SW11 for £250k. Isn't that in nappy valley? Obviously no bifold doors onto terraced garden or wine cellar but it's 2 beds in Battersea!!

Oh and there's more! Shared ownership 3 bedder in SW4 (is that Vauxhall?) for £146,000.

To put it in perspective I worked as a bank clerk my gross salary was £1200 per year. My first starter home was the cheapest thing on estate agents books bought for £17000. That is 14.16 times my gross pay.

But in this sort of scenario today, it wouldn't matter how hard you worked, the bank isn't going to lend you that money!

1 bed for £135000

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-53869670.html

YANBU. If people have to move out of their childhood hometown, tough. Very few of my friends haven't had to move to find work. I live 200 miles from my parents for this very reason.

Just done a quick mortgage calculator (interested to know). Two earners on £20k each could borrow £130000 over 30 years. But would need £15k deposit. That's 7.5k each.

We're about to move out into zone 4-6 with our toddler and baby as we can no longer to afford to live in central London, we're both decent wages (I am way above the national average). I now will have up to an hour of a commute which means more time away from my children.

Yes we could all move up north / Scotland etc but my salary will considerably decrease and we will be away from most of DH family (mine are all abroad) London is our home and I don't see why we should have to leave.

You clearly don't have to leave Deep.

Oh, saying that people should just move out of London is a lovely mechanism for exporting London inflation to the rest of the country. Not very sustainable for anyone!

To put it in perspective I worked as a bank clerk my gross salary was £1200 per year. My first starter home was the cheapest thing on estate agents books bought for £17000. That is 14.16 times my gross pay.

But in this sort of scenario today, it wouldn't matter how hard you worked, the bank isn't going to lend you that money!

Yes they would if you put down enough deposit. We raised about £7000 in 1 year working every hour of everyday. to buy our first flat.

That's not how it works pluck. London is one specific area - demand for houses pushes up prices very quickly due to lack of space. If people move out of London they end up all over the country, which is much much larger. Demand might increase slightly in certain areas but not so much that it would ever reach London levels. Plus, when people move out of London, demand there drops (although probably never enough to have a significant effect, unfortunately).

30 years ago we had to buy in zone 5 (where I live). Yes. a commute is a drag from an outer London borough but we just had to suffer that because Central London prices were too high. We, my parents and my father's parents all bought before we had children. So have my daughters. It always makes sense. My poor grandfather had to wait until he was nearly 50 to have my father. I never met him as a result.

Even the generation before that I worked with London law firm partners who lived in Brighton, Kent, Herts because they could not afford to buy the house they wanted in central London. Those are people who bought in the 1970s or earlier.

Also it is not true that most people had a free university education. When I went only 15% went to university so 85% of people were not getting any university education at all never mind a free one. Even mine wasn't free as only the poor got the "full grant". Yes I had no fees to pay but I had nothing else from the state. My parents had to work very hard indeed to help me with rent and food at university.

Also we paid 12% interest on a repayment mortgage and when the first baby came the cost of her care was 50% of each of our net salaries. On the second jobs point I also did extra work things like marking A level and other exam papers between night feeds of babies and all that stuff. Life has always been hard and will continue to be for most people.

However there is a London issue - in the last 5 years my parents' h ouse in the NE has gone up 7% and houses in London about 50%. So as London is booming and lots of people want to live here and we have the highest population in records going back tom 1901 in my London borough there is a shortage of housing. We certainly need to build more.