TO think Millennials need to get their act together and

[brownmouse]

Form a political party:

• stop Brexit
• prioritise housing
• impose at least 50% tax on all inheritance
• impose second home taxes

And other stuff. But they should be IN CHARGE now. They need to rise up and sort things out.

I keep telling my DC but they are too busy on instagram. AIBU?

However house prices were not so ridiculous back in the 80s and 90s that two parents didn’t always have to work to survive. Now if you are on a low to middle income and want to own a home you need to. Simple as. Unless you have family help of course.

I mean that is just not true. We’re squarely in the middle income category. I am a SAHM. We don’t have a house but realistically if we took saving more seriously from when we started talking about it we would have. We’ve had plenty of disposable income we could have saved and for the most part we pissed it away on eating out and coffees and random appliances we don’t really need as well as a stubborn insistence on using apple products for all our computing needs (look Mac OS and iOS are really nice to use ok!). If we went full austerity we could have a deposit in a couple of years but there’s always something to buy, a new bike, a day trip somewhere, lunch out for the kids because I don’t want to tidy up the mess when they finished. That’s the reality. Low income is one thing but in the middle it’s not actually that difficult as long as you’re better with money than we are.

I mean I know I’m totally playing to stereotype here but hey, stereotypes have to come from somewhere (who knew it was me!).

ignorance

I don't think the free childcare, vouchers, huge provision, and gov assisted fees means you have it easy, but compared to previous generations, you have got it much easier.
How do you think people managed before this if they had no family to care for their children or couldn't afford the sparse provision available?
Do you not think families would have benefited from both parents
having the opportunity to work, especially with high mortgage interest.

Every generation can claim that it's worse for them because.... or that it was better for the previous generation because.....

it's impossible to claim that all the ills in the world are brought about by a particular generation.
Those saying millenials don't work and are lazy, are clearly missing the point. They are working twice as hard because of the price of things but I hate to say this my dc think their peers who don't have their own home have either been lazy, entitled, or greedy. This is because they know what it took for them to be able to do it, especially on low income and NMW.

ughh the childcare thing pisses me off. Do people think the gov 30 hours are because the government are kind or because the people utilising that service will likely be on 35k + and the gov want to keep them in work to collect tax.

We tried but got told we didn’t know what we were talking about

@romanyroots I’m not sure what your point is You sound very smug that your children are on the property ladder. Congratulations on that well done.
Me dh and I are also on the property ladder. I’m not sure what I’m ‘wrongo’ about, as you so delightfully phrased it.
Getting on the property ladder has however, required both of us to work.
So unless your point is that your dc are on the property ladder with only them, or their spouse/partner working and the other respective partner being at home full time with children, I don’t see your point, and your children haven’t done anything special That my dp and I haven’t done. Just worked hard and got a property.
But it is not possible for everyone. And certainly everyone I know, other than one couple, both work to have a mortgage, even if one is reduced hours to be home With dc for childcare some of the week.

With Zero hour contracts and minimum wage. Even middle incomes can struggle to get on the property ladder if they have dc young and don’t have th deposit saved beforehand it is impossible. But these people forty years ago could have have a good quality council house with fair rent.

And fair enough not everyone needs or wants to own their own home. But it certainly must sting if you are paying a greedy landlord hundreds into thousands rent each month, who does not even do the job well of maintaining the property. And no doubt the landlord will be baby boomer or generation x who bought when the property was cheap.
But no, silly millennial. they could get out of that situation. If only they got out of bed that bit earlier. Worked that bit harder on their zero hour contract. The banks would be just desperate To give them a mortgage.

I am a millennial with a disability and unfortunately a lot of people my age and younger do not work for changes that they want. I am on the board for our local organization and I’m the youngest, and I’m trying to get other young people involved. It’s not easy.

Ignorance, that is not all landlords. One of my children lets their place and is a tenant in another (as stemp duty is so expensive these days) and plenty of people do that where they move for work. Theay re not old landlords. They are just victims of high stamp duty.

The trouble with the childcare provision is it doesn't help some as much as people profess.

I know plenty of people who fall in the cracks of the scheme. For example between the ages of 1 and 2 or more correctly between the end of maternity leave and the term AFTER your child turns two, there is no support at all.

If you only get minimal maternity, and your child is born just before the start of a new term it can work out as well over 18months with no care.

And thats only if you qualify for free child care for two year old because your on low income. If you are a middle income family you don't qualify until the term after they are three.

DS was born in Sept, but didn't get funding until January for example.

Thats difficult enough for your first child. If you have more than one child, this situation is prolonged. And even worse if you have a small age gap, and are oblivious to the financial implications of having a small age gap. (It has caught a well educated friend of mine out).

I know plenty of people who ended up paying more for child care than they were earning.

The 'choice' to stay at home with the kids isn't necessarily a choice even now as a result. Nor is it necessarily a 'choice' to continue working if you want your career carry on and you want any chance at all of home ownership.

Its really dictated by where your income and/or potential income falls. Its Hobson's Choice for most.

In the past women stayed home, because people could manage on one salary. This might not have been good for a lot of women, but the current system benefits those who have the higher incomes / potential incomes most.

Surprisingly little has changed. Women are still often not in control of the situation because of the problems that gap creates.

That gap has proved to be an issue for women who are on benefits too, with the DWP attempting to remove jobseekers from single women who literally couldn't afford the child care it would require, leaving them near destitution. Its only after a court battle that the DWP was prevented from sanctioning women in this situation with children under 2.

As for what happened to kids in the past, when they had parents who had no support and they HAD to work. We have to go back to before the invention of the welfare state for that. The answer to this is not necessarily a pretty one - the comment is made, somewhat naively. You didn't need childcare in the same way, because there was no social services checking your arrangements were satisfactory, regulated or safe. Some were lucky because society was fundamentally different and people were much more closely tied to friends and neighbours to raise children collectively and to 'just keep an eye on the kids'. That could include just roaming the local streets with other children, almost as soon as they could walk. (Remembering the lack of cars in poor areas of course). For others, the children were simply neglected, their mothers forced into prostitution, there was the workhouse or even abandoned.

The idea that we have progressed a long way, isn't as true as you think. We have progressed but by and large we still lack anything like meaningful choice as women.

Universal childcare is a political issue at the moment, but this also has a problem: nurseries are so dependant on income from parents who pay, many would simply fold because funding from government isn't enough to pay wages or bills. No political party is admitting this flaw in the plan. They have identified the problem, but they are lacking in understanding how you might actually solve it.

This is a direct result of childcare and the female workforce are not truly being valued by politicians and politicians not being able to think further than their bloody noses and what sounds nice in an election campaign.

It drives me nuts.

Agree with OP. I’m tired.

Ignorance

I thought my point was very clear.
There are lazy feckers, greedy buggers etc in all generations.
People saying you need two people working or middle incomes aren't right in all cases, perhaps if you live in the south, but we all don't.

There were people of my generation who couldn't get on the property ladder and have the same problems that some have today.

Perhaps fewer generalisations on threads like this and we might all learn something.

No Romany it was not particularly clear at all.
You said I was wrong because your dc had got on the property ladder.
You didn’t say for example your child got on the property ladder while on a low-middle income with their spouse not working.
Everyone I know other than one family that have a sahm have two adults working if they own their property.
usually a middleish Income for the full time 30-40k and a part timer or spouse on a low wage 15-16k. Some who chose to use full time childcare are both full time. But they pay extortionately high bills for this until the child is three.
But the scenario I give seems to be the average minimum that people local to me can afford to buy and have two children.
Say two parents both full time on minimum wage, 15-16k salary each. Or one of them on even less with reduced hours to provide childcare, seriously they would likely be dreaming to be able to get a deposit together and a mortgage.

I don’t think people accept that there are full time employed, poor people in this country.
And the idea that they could just get themselves out of it if they worked a little bit harder, (with the help of all that free childcare they are so entitled to receive) just like your children did, is galling.
It is fair to say, that if they haven’t got the brains/skill set to make better money, then 40 years ago they still would have probably been the poorest in society.
But they would have had good quality council housing, and the cost of living was lower. Wages have not risen relatively to the cost of living.

Ignorance, I think I'm agreeing with you.
Apart from the council house, we didn't stand a chance back then, just as we wouldn't if starting today.

We just had different pressures to this generation. There was no childcare at all when I was a child - I was left to wait in the street until my Mum finished work, or by the time I was 7 or 8, I would walk home and let myself in. Perfectly normal, there wasnt any other way really.

All my friends and I worked Saturday jobs (and some evenings) without exception, from the age of 14 and got abysmal pay. Credit cards were unheard of so we just had to go without until we could save up enough to buy anything, usually from the local market as we had so little disposable income.

Many of us left school at 16 , that was perfectly normal, few of us stayed on until we were 18, and even fewer had the opportunity to go to university. We lived through an era when electricity was regularly cut off on a rota because of strikes, and where rubbish lay in the streets, uncollected. Owning a car was a dream for most of us, unless your parents were dead rich. You just have to look in school car parks now to see how much that has changed.

We faced so much more discrimination in the workplace and fought hard to change that for the future generations that moan about our houses and pensions now. I was the first woman in my sector of our organisation to ever be offered a senior role. It wasnt a level playing field in any sense, and sexism was worse than it is now in the workplace in terms of treatment AND pay.

I can only think of one friend who didn't carry on working after children and that was because her husband earned a huge amount. The rest of us carried on - I went back 4 weeks after my child was born because mortgage interest rates were so high I had to. There was no free childcare at all. Nor were there any limits on working hours, in the NHS I would go to work on a Friday and be at work until Monday lunchtime, hoping for some sleep, but not always getting any.

Be angry at successive governments who have done fuck all to increase council housing, but dont be angry at our generation. It isn't our fault.

Women in my family have always worked across the generations. It is not a new thing for women to have to go back to work when they have children. Working class women have always worked, in factories, shops and offices.

Exactly. I am doing my family tree at the moment and it is hard to find a single woman who hasn't worked. In the 1890s my great aunt qualified as a nurse and worked all her life (never married). Her own mother despite 10 children worked in a draper's shop (her husband was a drunkard but even if not I suspect they would have needed the money). I have found 1800s records of female ancestors who were servants - presumably live out ones - whilst also having children. One was an agricultural labourer which in the 1830s was no picnic - you were in fields all day.

What I would like to see today is either much lower taxes or else free childcare including for very small babies. The current tiny bit of childcare help for much older children does not help preserve women's careers and is a drop in the ocean to the cost of 8 - 6pm 5 day a week nursery or child minder care or a day nanny.

Red is right that some of us have paid more for childcare than we earned. when we first had a baby in 1984 we both earned the same and 100% of one of our salaries after fairly high tax or 50% of each of ours went on childcare.

I tihnk it does no harm for different generations to look at how others lived or live but it is rarely easy to do a fair comparison and people born today only know what they have known. Each generation will have different challenges. The families of 2 children will not have the same issue as our ancestors in 1900 who often had 10 living children. There are loads of house and flats for sale between £50k and £100k where my mother was from in the NE today. The bigger issue is whether people are able to drive (30 minutes) from there to a job in Newcastle (if they can get a job in Newcastle). And yes I agree that it would be hard to raise £50k if you are both on £13k a year full time before you have children but not impossible and the 5% deposit its £2500 so £1250 each - again hard to produce on the minimum wage of course but not everyone in Newcastle earns the minimum wage.

Interestingly looking at the 1939 list all the married women in my family were at home doing ‘unpaid domestic duties’ - we are resolutely working class, the men were all colliers or tinplate workers. They no doubt all worked before marriage, plenty of servants and dressmakers among my forebears. It wasn’t until the sixties that married women in my family went out to work.

I think maybe because in the countryside there were no factories or mills but certainly in towns and cities women worked

@BestIsWest

Really? One of my greatgrandmother's was apparently a midwive (even after marriage). An other one managed the family farm / finances.

Not sure what the other two did.

My grandmothers however were both SAHMs (one after the second child and the other one when she had her first, I believe. One of them was actually a secondary school teacher but apparently still decided to be a SAHM asap)...

OP are you on glue? I deal with millenials in my private practice and the vast majority don't have any life skills (though I get the odd one which is a pleasant surprise).

I'll give you examples

• asking me why their lips hurt 3 hours after having lip filler which involves injecting the lips with a thick substance multiple times

• consistently being late for appointments with no apology "oh but my Uber was late yah"

• claims of being independent with no job whilst living with parents. When I ask them how they reply "oh my psyche is independent"

• They NEVER answer the phone when I ring, even when they are scared their lips will fall off (see point one) they will prefer to send me an IM on Instagram then send "???" Repeatedly until I reply

• They expect me to be available to answer their questions at 3am and get really arsey when I don't

• likewise they get pissy when I try to ring them at 9am "I was in bed you woke my up"

• They'll carry on texting their friends whilst I inject them, or scream whenever I administer botox, there is no intermediate pattern of behaviour

And you want them to form a political party and run the country? 😳😳😳

I'm an X-enial for the record, and even I find their level of entitlement annoying!

That is not even remotely representative of millennials Fruit!!! It makes me so frustrated that some people clearly struggle to understand that millennials are everyone between about 20-37. That's the doctors who treat you, the teachers educating your children, the shop assistants enabling you to buy food, the police officers keeping you safe etc. A lot of them will be millennials and this will increase in the next few years. Lots of millennials have families and mortgages and are busy paying their taxes and supporting their children.

What and you think doctors, teachers, and police officers do not have aesthetic procedures?

The over 30s tend to be better, but the vast majority of under 30s fall into my experiences below.

I've worked with millennial prison officers and it's a PITA!

Of course some of them will but your post is suggesting that millennials are flaky, disorganised,stupid and rude. People wouldn't last in most jobs if they behaved that way and yet large numbers of millennials hold down jobs with lots of responsibility.

My experience is that the vast majority are, sorry if that offends but that is the reality of running a business that relies heavily on millennials. I've met many inept millennials in professional roles, including doctors and police officers! They may not be late for work (because every point in my list does not apply to every person), but the vast majority are problematic in other ways.

Fruitcider - whilst I’m certainly not suggesting that everyone who has their face injected with poison acts in a particular way, has it occurred to you that if you are administering Botox treatments, the sample is hardly likely to be representative of the entire millennial population.

It’s like me saying I provide private physio in my clinic. The millennials Often like to splash the cash about, act like they are god and are extremely arrogant.
However people in this age bracket seeking private physio won’t be representative of the millennial population as a whole. In fact if my practice say saw a lot of wealthy sports players, then it would be no wonder I had this perception.

Whilst I don’t fork out for cosmetic treatments like this, I do use a beautician etc and have never been late or rang her at 3am. I have Moved out age 20. Supported myself through uni. Have a job and a mortgage and I am married with children. I am 30. Now that may blow your mind so take a deep breath, but yes despite the perception on this thread we do get out of bed, have a life independent from our parents, and take our responsibilities seriously.

A 50% inheritance tax rate simply means those with the most money will employ the legal people to draft a trust to get round it somehow.