That boomers should should avoid criticising younger people when..

[TeaCake5]

They are the "the worst users of drink and drugs"

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/23/wednesday-briefing-baby-boomers-worst-drinkers-and-drug-users

I guess they can afford to with housing not being a problem for them - people in their 20s and 30s have no spare money for drink and drugs!

What's the point in scrimping and saving for a house... when you'd be going without for years - possibly for ever and still not be able to buy anything at all, let alone something remotely decent that would be worth all the sacrifice - Of course it's going to take years to save for a mortgage - not many people will be, or have ever been, in a position where it's only taken a couple of months to save for a deposit! It is pretty much the largest purchase a person can/will make in their lifetime - it's not going to happen overnight and it can take years of going without. It's up to the indiidual if they find that something worth doing, if you don't then fine - but don't moan about not being able to afford to do so if you can but just choose not to.
As for 'decent' - it's all relative. My grandparents first house had a hill behind it where water ran down straight through their kitchen, through their living room and out the front door! It was hard for them with 3 small children but they were grateful for what they had when many others have so much less. I currently live in a not very nice two bedroom flat ... I don't moan about it because I'm in a far better position than thousands of others who have no home at all!

Gen x is defined by the book called age X!

For god sake! Gen X is defined by the book Generation X.

it's not going to happen overnight and it can take years of going without.

But there's a big, big difference between scrimping and saving for 5 years, and scrimping and saving for 20 years and still not being able to buy a house at the end of it. No point saying 'well it's up to you to choose whether to save or not' when that's the scenario people are facing.

or their parents lived in, say, Peebles.
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-47208990.html

That would be an interesting read about generation X.

I mean, my parents saved to buy their house and went through a few years of doing without (even after they'd bought it, when they were saving up for repairs and for furniture). But they could still buy that house, in their 20s, on one worker's salary with one SAHP and several children. That house is now worth over £300k - a couple in their position now could not afford to buy it no matter how much they scrimped and saved and avoided Starbucks.

I found it quite boring! But it is a famous book.

Knope I think that STEM subject degrees should be tuition fee free for everyone, and I don't think it should just be medicine or law, but I do think the expansion of higher ed has gone too far. It could be any bright kid who makes it into an RG uni, not necessarily those privately educated. Supportive parents come from across the social spectrum.

We have paid for ds's fees for his BA, and will be paying for his MA this year in full. We only have one child, and this is something we can do for him. Yes, that may give him an advantage, but I'd rather he got the benefit of our money now.

I also think there is a perception that because families have money, the kids have advantages, That isn't always true; and frankly, the attitudes of some of the better off parents towards their kids and their educations that i've seen have been poor.

However, the difference is the younger generation don't have the same opportunity to work towards a better life like their parents did because quite frankly it's too expensive and they end up in rented accommodation with a greedy landlord taking all their wages

I think they do have the chance to work towards a better life. If they are living at home and from what I constantly hear, many don't pay anything towards their board, they can save. They don't though, because they don't look ahead. They go out socialising, think nothing of spending £100 or more on a night out. Go on holidays abroad once or twice a year with mates. Buy lots of clothes, spend money on beauty treatments and only think about houses and how to live once they want to leave home.
Of course not all of them do this but some seem to think they are entitled to this lifestyle and then moan they can't afford to leave home.
The lack of housing and high rents is political and the greed started with the Thatcher years...You can have it all! Well you can't.
We did without and didn't feel we could have everything. Now those who went without then to have secured a comfortable now are being criticised for having what they have by people who have only thought about how to manage when they want to leave home.
A Tory government will never help the people who need the help. They won't build enough social housing at fair rents. Private landlords will always be after as much profit as they can make. Sadly, young people on minimum wage are tucked.

Fucked...not tucked...

Lmao. Can't we all just accept that each generation has it's difficulties? Being hateful and spiteful towards another demographic never solved anything. I personally don't give a shite whether you're a boomer, a millienial or anything inbetween. Work hard, Play hard, we're all going to die at some point anyway.

I'm not trying to talk anyone out of being angry about the cost of housing, tuition fees etc. Social mobility is going backwards, social inequality is growing, and young people are right to feel very angry about that.

I'm just saying that if your political analysis of this situation is that everyone born before 1964 is rich and refusing to share their good fortune, then you are on a hiding to nothing. Do you not see how many older people - especially older women - are desperately poor? Any analysis that precludes the possibility of intergenerational solidarity against austerity politics is doomed.

I'm also wondering if this is a middle-class debate because everyone seems to have parents who are sitting on fabulous house equity.

Scary...i am hoping ds1 goes for a stem subject but it's looking increasingly likely he will go for history or geography
Is he somehow less worthy?

Rather than everyone hating each othe because of age, religion, skin color. I think we just need to accept each other and get on with life. Accept that life isn't fair and do what we can to make the best of it.

Nope, as the mum of a ds who has just graduated with a First in History, he's not less worthy; but STEM subjects, especially engineering, need to be encouraged and the profile raised, and if waiving tuition fees achieves that, then great. We need both Humanities and the STEM subjects, but if we want a return to manufacturing, and a steady stream of people into well established firms whose personnel are approaching retirement, and whose skills could be lost, then we need a long term view.

I am a Humanities grad (and teacher) married to an C. Eng!

Yeah, it's kind of odd being lumped in a category with everybody born within a couple of decades of each other, and told we speak with one voice and are jointly responsible for the fortunes of everyone else.

Which I kind of am, but only to the degree that everyone of voting age today is responsible for every policy of the current Government.

This is an aside, not really related to the topic, but scary I appreciate you want to help your DS, but I think this We have paid for ds's fees for his BA, and will be paying for his MA this year in full was not the best thing to do. If he took out the loans, he would only pay back in proportion to his earnings, and the capital part of the loan wouldn't be treated as debt by e.g. Mortgage companies. The thousands and thousands you wil have paid for tuition fees could have provided him with a deposit for a house (or a big chunk of one) in most parts of the country. Student loans should be seen as a kind of tax.

Yy to this being a middle class debate.

My parents bought their first home 35 yrs ago (at the grand old age of 40yrs) for £33k - it's now worth about £120k.

Most baby boomers are not professionals living in Surrey.

Oh I am a baby boomer!! Who knew!!!😳

lauriefairycake I live in the southeast, in a home county, (I'm a babyboomer), my son and daughter in law have just bought a brand new 5 bedroom house, a house that is twice as big as any home I've ever lived in.
They have 2 children, neither went to uni, both work and have holidays abroad, run 2 cars, have pretty much everything they want.
I think it's partly just individual circumstances. They get help with childcare from her Mum, and my DIL was already on the housing ladder from a previous relationship, which meant they had a deposit for their first home (the one they've just bought is their second).
I expect both of my sons to have a much better life than I did and have. Not all baby boomers live this priveleged existence that people on here seem to think, and not all millennials have it tough either.
As for the OP, as it happens I do know some babyboomers with drug/alcohol problems. They tend to be the ones with shitty lives and have very little.

mother Could the tuition fee waiver be linked to a return of service within the public sector for STEM subjects? Five years teaching, local government, civil service, HM Forces, NHS etc? Might be worth looking at. HM Forces already do that if they pay for your degree.

I don't know but I fucking hate the word Millennials. Off to go and say that on another thread.

I was born in 1978 though so tail end of Generation X. Whilst I don't really identify with the issues faced by so called Millennials, I also don't have the same experiences as my aunt born in 1963.