Aibu to think that "suspended adulthood" is going to lead to large problems?

[BlancheBlue]

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/22/young-people-living-in-a-suspended-adulthood-finds-research

Just this really. There was a telling comment about this article with the ever increasing age profile of parents the chance of children knowing grandparents is going to be remote.

I think lots of the boomer generation really fail to understand this. Whenever it is said it is tough for young people que loads of "well I worked my arse off and owned a house by the time I was 21" type comments.

It is - and then there is always this accusation that, if you are aware of the movement of history in personal wealth, you are somehow "jealous".

I'm not a millennial - in fact, I'm old enough to teach millennials at university. Basic decency demands that I recognise that, while I scrimped and saved and went without for my first house like everyone else, and while I am young enough to have student debt, the conditions I faced were NOT as bad as those that are facing the youngsters I teach now. It's just not fair-minded - just not cricket - to pretend that everything is the same these days. I feel so desperately sorry for them. A lot of them are 18 going on 48 - they are more hard-working and certainly more anxious than young people have been for a long, long time.

Also, if you went to a fee paying school, had someone contribute to your university fees/upkeep, had help with a house deposit, inherited money, or had any kind of additional financial input, then you did NOT pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, or achieve what you have achieved through your own hard work solely, and to claim that is a blatant lie.

Not to forget, the people who can't understand why you would live in London and bang on about how much better life is in their little village/town. Then whine about the outsiders moving in.

I certainly don't argue things are the same for all generations. Also I m the one suffering because I'm kind and because I love my children. I will be the one spending a lifetime of saving and the tiny pension money when I cash it in at 55, not on foreign holidays but on the children's deposits. So I the supposed living in luxury person who works 6 or 7 days a week full time and has for 30 years lap of luxury older person, will be sacrificing pension, retirement and all the rest in order to fund children at university and children's pensions and I will house and do house adult children. So this is not one one way street with women in their 50s (my age) working full time and spending their money on shoes whilst laughing at the next generation who are suffering.

I am fairly typical -giving every last penny to the next generation, putting myself into risk and poverty because of high house prices and rents where the jobs are. So don't assume the old are retiring at 50 (many of us have no pensions and will work until we die) and spending the children's inheritance. Instead we turn down the heating to help younger people out whilst in many cases also looking after elderly parents.

A two bed semi here costs £130-140k, and the national average price would get you a 3 or 4 bed detached. There are plenty of good schools within 10 mins drive, a major city and several smaller ones/large towns within commuting distance. We stayed in our hometown to be near family and benefit from free childcare from grandparents, and are lucky that we live in an area that nobody is priced out of - the majority of families with children are homeowners, those that are rented are flats or starter homes generally.

me2017 and the people who don't have parents who can help them with deposits?

No-one here is diminishing the sacrifices parents make for their kids, or saying that every 50 year old in the country is wallowing in luxury. This is not about personal blame or slagging off the baby boomers - it's about saying: 1. Things are worse for young people than they have been in a while and 2. While these historical forces are outside of any one person's control, they could be brought under control via government policy that prioritises the needs of the young more strongly (there will be a cost to the older generations).

Basic logic says that the situation you are describing just carries forward: if it's tough for you trying to help your kids out now, just think what it's going to be like for them, when they are in their 50s, doing the same for your grandchildren but with higher mortgages and higher student debts and probably higher tuition to pay as well (it's going to go up soon) - all against a background of climate change, the effects of which will be increasingly evident. If you're having to turn down the heating, what are they going to have to do?

tfoot good for you. Why should people who live in hugely expensive areas have to move away from family and support networks? Or is that entitled of them?

tfoot what's your point?

It's about saying: 1. Things are worse for young people than they have been in a while and 2. While these historical forces are outside of any one person's control, they could be brought under control via government policy that prioritises the needs of the young more strongly (there will be a cost to the older generations).

Very well put. I am GenX and have a house. I agree the situation isn't right.

SO I had to move for work hundreds of miles away from all family and that was fine and I'm lucky but young people today should not be required to? I had to commute at least 2 hours a day for full time work but those today should not be expected to? Are we really saying that? It was absolutely dire in 1960s NE. It really was. No jobs, no central heating, a massive generatino of graduates when I graduated in the arly 80s unable to get jobs at graduate level. Yes I agree it is currently a bit harder for young people (although more of them can get to university in my day when only 15% went and nowadays you can get student loans for accommodation as well as fees - in my day if your parents would not make your payments up to the full grant you were stuffed as the banks weren't interested in the lending to the only 15% of us who got grade high enough to get to university).

Parents have always tried to help their children. It's a natural instinct. Plenty will let the children live at home and feed them whilst they are at university. Yes it increases inequality to breastfeed your baby or feed your toddler good foods or read to your child a bed time story but it is not morally wrong to do right by your child. If others do not have the same advantage that is a shame but it is how life is.

No, people (of all generations) have a right to the city.

Firstly, just because you had a miserable time does not make it right that everyone should have to have one!! Especially not when it is preventable with decent policy. Otherwise it's just a race to the bottom. (For the record, I have done the same thing - I now live hundreds of miles away from my family and many friends, and I have done jobs that require a 2 hour commute each way. Just because I had to does not make it right that everyone else should struggle. I think a more generous attitude is to say "That was shit, and I don't want other people to have to do it").

Secondly, the economic situation for young people is demonstrably worse now than it was in the 80s. The Institute of Fiscal Studies just produced a report suggesting that people your age were TWICE as wealthy in their 30s as people a decade younger than you and that the situation has been getting worse since the 60s. Unless you have some evidence that disproves this report beyond the merely anecdotal, you surely have to accept that and the fact that it is objectively more difficult for very many young people now than it was for your generation? Otherwise, you're just being evidence resistant?

I don't really understand your point about student loans, since students are now heavily dependent on parents to make up the money they receive in families where the income is £25k or more. If parents don't contribute they can't just 'make it up' out of the loan?? There was a case on here recently of a parent whose child couldn't really go because the parent couldn't pay.

Article by David Harvey on the right to the city, with more background: newleftreview.org/II/53/david-harvey-the-right-to-the-city

The 'just move' thing makes no sense. Its a lazy response and only seems to be applied to Londoners for some reason.

Hardly. Get a look at today's thread on Wales.

I graduated on the 1980s and couldn't get a job so got one on the Community Programme. So did my brother. Nothing like that now.

Is it the parents who give their children deposits etc, who are causing the problem?
Most of my friends have had university, big fat wedding & house deposit paid for by their parents. And help with the kids (cost of childcare / school).
If folk paid what they could afford (ie. relative to earnings) without help from home, then surely prices would level (especially property)?
Everything is being propped up by all this extra money coming from the baby boomers' pockets. My dad is wealthy (and generous) but I've never put my hand out. I paid my way through college & for my wedding. I don't want to buy a house. I'm happy & live within my means.
I do think my parents generation got good breaks but they worked hard. Mine (I'm 40) were fairly pampered but are far less well-off in their own right. Kids coming of age now... It's going to be very difficult but I think if they're allowed to make their own way then things will change. I'd love to see a youth revolution! We have to stand back...

A right to the city... interesting. In fact my ancestors ruined their health by moving frmo farm life to Victorian cities. Then loads of people fought very hard in the 30s to move out of London slums to all those suburbs an hour out for quality of life away from smog which was so thick in London you could hardly see your hand in front of your face at times. It is certainly something that comes and goes. In parts of the 90s London's population was falling. We sold our last house then for less than we paid for it.

I have total sympathy with people who don't want to move - I think it must be very difficult. I am not sure I understand how the 'right to the city' concept would work though. Who has the right - for example, would everyone who wants to live in London (or insert other city) have the right to do so, or would it just be those who are already living here and do not want to move out? That seems unfair to those who want to move here.

There are about 1m refugees many from Africa who would be very keen on this idea of a right to live in the city. Some have been sent to a scottish island (a wonderful one of course) and plenty to the areas of towns where those of us in full time work have to slum it.

It is a very difficult compromise as to where to live and always has been. If you are escaping death abroad (my family 1800s) then it can be a fairly easy decision - die or live. If it's can you endure 50 minutes on a packed tube at rush hours because you want the children to have a garden and not share a bed room that's the more typical decision today and 30 years ago when I was pregnant and we bought.

The suggestion everyone should move north to solve this issue is hilarious.

I live in a city, not in the south east, which has become popular among ex Londoners looking to downshift and upgrade from a poky flat to a nice terraced or semi 3 bed house.

As a result there has been an insane price hike in housing - 3 bed period terraces/semis in half decent but not posh areas going for £500 - 700K.

A friend just sold her house at 50% more than she bought it for 3 years ago.

Rent is INSANE - £1000+ for a very average 2 bed in a slightly grim area.

Competition for professional jobs has increased too.

i think it is very worrying that the current generation are the first one in decades to be worse off.

if we look back in history war generally follows a period of economic depression.

Blanche Totally agree with the 'city knob' comment. I think some people honestly believe that London is populated entirely by bankers, journalists/media types and hipsters. There is some real vitriol on here towards Londoners. We all apparently think that there is no civilisation outside London and that we're better than everyone else. And then there's all the tedious remarks about how unfriendly we all are and how it's tantamount to abuse to raise children here.

The 'just move' thing makes no sense. Its a lazy response and only seems to be applied to Londoners for some reason.

I couldn't agree more. It's actually really upsetting when people make these comments. I am 25 and have a family of my own. DP and I both have a nationally average income but not London average. We moved back in with my mum a few years ago while we "save". We have been saving for years but still can't afford to live locally, where house prices are looking at £500k and tiny flats at least £300k.

It's so frustrating (and yes this is probably overshadowed by jealousy) to meet so many young couples from wealthy families moving into the area that I have spent my entire life in because their parents have given them £60k towards their deposit, whilst being told to "just move up North" to some town I've never heard of.

gwenneh, you say The jobs out of London pay less, proportionally. It would leave us with the same percentage of disposable income at the end of the month. It isn't going to change our position in any way other than geographically

But it would change your position. You'd be able to afford to buy your house...

I work amongst people doing trends forecasting, consumer insight, user interaction etc etc here in the Midlands. Yes, we would all earn (much) more in London. But overall lifestyles we enjoy here are better than the lifestyles we would enjoy in London and, because we work in an industry concentrated down there we get to visit a lot as well!

Is it the parents who give their children deposits etc, who are causing the problem? Most of my friends have had university, big fat wedding & house deposit paid for by their parents. And help with the kids (cost of childcare / school).

Ultimately, it's inheritance that causes the problem. Parents with property assets give their children huge advantages. Much higher inheritance taxes would be hugely egalitarian.