To feel so guilty I can’t give my kids the same advantages in life that I had

[Movingsoon21]

Feeling pretty low at the moment as I’m struggling with the fact I’ll be giving my children less advantages in life than my parents gave me Wondering if anyone else has experienced the same or has any positive words of wisdom for me?

My parents came from humble beginnings but through hard work, intelligence and a bit of luck along the way (buying their first house after the market had just crashed) they ended up becoming upper middle class from being working class, gave my siblings and I a private education, a nice big house, amazing holidays and all the extra curricular activities we wanted. My mum worked part time so we had plenty of time with her and my dad was very hands on at weekends.

I have also worked hard, did well at school, have a decent career and my DH is similar (neither of us are bankers but both work in professions and are doing OK at them) - his family has a similar background story to mine and we have a shared vision for the sort of life we want for our children (similar to our own childhood). But for some reason, we just can’t see ourselves being able to afford the same things as our parents did .

Don’t get me wrong, we’re not struggling for basic necessities or anything like that and I know we’re very lucky compared to many families, but I don’t see us ever affording private school and although we can afford an ok house, it will be nothing like the properties our parents managed to have. We both work full time as well, whereas DH’s mum didn’t work and my mum only worked part time.

I know a lot of this is down to the different economic circumstances we are facing (in particular unlucky time buying a house and private school fees increasing way out of line with wage increases), but I just feel so bad not being able to give my kids the same privileges we had growing up. I’m also embarrassed about it tbh - I never saw myself being in this position, yet here I am!

Anyone else faced similar? I feel most generations tend to do better than the last and am just so depressed about doing worse.

But your kids have nothing to compare their lives too? This is their one life, one childhood so it is why is for them. The feelings about why they don’t have all come from you and only have a bearing on their lives if you make it the case. Don’t make it the case. Yes the world has changed- it’s not fair in many respects I know. Now move on and work with why you’ve got 😘

I grew up in the countryside in a part of the country where the cost of living was much lower. My friends and I grew up in idyllic beautiful old houses in the country with large stunning gardens, and often tennis courts, pools etc too. We'd all have been the 'rich' kids locally. We all live in city terraces or flats now because money doesn't go anywhere near as far in the places we moved to.

I think it really depends how you think of it. If you live in past glories all the time you don't appreciate what you have now. I don't compare, it's pointless. It came up in conversation with one of these old friends recently, we laughed a bit at how things turn out, and moved on, aware that we are still incredibly very lucky. Sorry if that sounds a bit Pollyanna, but you've got to reframe how you think of it.

Don't beat yourself up about it. Things were much easier for the previous generation. The main reason being - much cheaper house prices. It sounds as though you are providing a lovely home and opportunities for DC.

I do know exactly what you mean. My DH and I were both privately educated and we went to good universities. Our DC are state (albeit a v middle class one). DC do lots of activities and not actually that much difference btwn my school and DCs'.

@AnyFucker

Comparison is the thief of joy

Isn't it just

Private schools have smaller classes but the teaching is not any better. Supplement your kids learning with reading, taking them on day trips to interesting places and a few workbooks suitable for their ages. You will know exactly what level they are at. There are good state schools and rubbish private schools and visa versa . Don’t beat yourself up. Work on your family life not your lack of wealth or life style.

Agree with reframing. I was brought up by parents who were lower middle class from a working class backgrounds. We didn’t have a lot of spare money but my parents were brilliant at finding free opportunities so I was much better off in that way. We went to free museums, exhibitions etc. Did loads of creative stuff and went to the library every week. Accessed lots of free talks and activities put on by charities and the council. Hiked and cycled and did fun challenges. And camped for a month each year around Europe (eating in every night). If you really want private school, there are scholarships available. And there are opportunities aplenty for state school pupils if their parents encourage them to take advantage and access them. Plus you’ll come out with kids who value and appreciate the nice things in life, aren’t spoiled and are well rounded in terms of mixing and getting along with people from all walks of life.

Over and over, I've heard it said that the current generation is the first who will not be able to do better than their parents did. It's a different time, with very trying circumstances. And many, if not most, of our parents managed to get ahead with only one income. We cannot expect that, and haven't been able to for some time.

What you can expect to do is the very best you are capable of doing. Beyond that, it's all just useless guilt over something that you DO not and CANNOT control.

I was much more privileged growing up than my DD is. I don’t think having a big house and going to private school is meaningful to a child really. I wasn’t happy because I didn’t have a good relationship with one of my parents. My education was good, but I think I would have done just as well in a state school. My DD is extremely loved and cherished. She has a lovely room in the smallish-ish flat we rent. There is nothing wrong with her free school. I just don’t see that her upbringing is worse than mine. Finances aren’t everything!

This made it to the Daily Fail already lol

For the millionth time, the previous generation did NOT have it easier than house buyers now!

3 million unemployed in Britain in the 1980s, interest rates at 15% and inflation.

We haven’t known anything like that in our generation- please stop the ill informed generalisations.

And I’m 35, by the way.

YANBU. I think I would struggle with this too. As it happens my parents barely had a pot to piss in so I always feel a sense of relief that I'm providing my DC with a significantly more comfortable upbringing than I had. However your situation sounds absolutely fine and your children absolutely won't be disadvantaged with two parents, with professional jobs, who own their own house and most importantly who love them dearly.

Thanks everyone, still reading and appreciating all the comments. It’s definitely helping me shift my mindset. Just need to channel the positive mindset and try not to compare when visiting friends in their massive houses!

For many reasons, I couldn't give my children the stability, security and quality of schooling I had myself.
I could give them a secure safe home with the advantage of wide-ranging discussion and debate (if not holidays and possessions) - and the confidence to go off on their own because I was often unable to accompany them.
They have grown up to be more powerful competent adults than I ever was. Sometimes apparent disadvantages turn to future advantages

Seriously give yourself a break, count your chickens and consider your glass half full.

@Movingsoon21

Thanks everyone, still reading and appreciating all the comments. It’s definitely helping me shift my mindset. Just need to channel the positive mindset and try not to compare when visiting friends in their massive houses!

It is really hard. I came away from a recent meet-up with a childhood friend feeling poor and like a bad mother. Oh, and fat! The things I would dream of doing as a once in every two year treat with my children, she would be doing at least once a month (concerts, etc). But she also has no self awareness and consciously or otherwise, likes to position and present herself a certain way. And make sure everyone knows it. I can't and won't allow myself to play that game and gave myself a good talking to. I am a good person living a good life and my children are interesting and self-aware and not living in a bubble. They have everything they need and occasionally, what they want. And they are vastly more priveleged than most children in the world.

I read an Economist article at least 15 years ago now talking about how we were the first generation in Britain for over 300 years who would be more likely to go down a social class than go up. Social mobility in a downwards direction (for all) is a very real thing. Unless you are a partner at a law firm / Big 4, work in PE or a Hedge Fund or an entrepreneur / business owner, paying school fees and having a large nice house is just impossible - it's not even about working hard. You can work really hard but if you're a wage slave in a relatively lower paid occupation it just won't happen. But then we all need to cut our cloth

I don't know one single person my age who isn't far worse off than their parents were at the same age. Not one.

The Boomers love to think they worked sooo hard to get what they have. They didn't. They had normal 9-5 jobs which enabled them to get a mortgage on a house and have plenty of disposable income. Many times even a single income was enough to have that, with the other parent staying at home with the kids, so no childcare fees. Now? You need two above average incomes to buy even a modest property, and creche fees cost an absolute fortune.

Even adults living alone with no kids like me can't achieve what they could. I know a woman who is 60 and she had bought a beautiful 2-bed flat in Chelsea by the time she was my age, on a totally normal secretary salary. No degree, no second job, no side gigs, no working until 10pm. In comparison, I earn way above average, have a postgrad degree, speak multiple foreign languages fluently and have sought after technical skills. I also often work weekends, doing freelance work to try to increase my deposit savings, to the detriment of my social life and wellbeing. What can I buy at the age of 36? A one-bed flat in a shabby bit of London. And I'm far better off than the average person my age in London, who is still flat sharing. And still that woman who bought the flat in Chelsea will look at me with a straight face and tell me I just need to 'work harder'.

It's ridiculous.

The Boomers love to think they worked sooo hard to get what they have. They didn't. They had normal 9-5 jobs which enabled them to get a mortgage on a house and have plenty of disposable income. Many times even a single income was enough to have that, with the other parent staying at home with the kids, so no childcare fees. Now? You need two above average incomes to buy even a modest property, and creche fees cost an absolute fortune.

So what? What are you actually saying? That if you were born earlier you would have said 'no thanks I don't want to buy a house at that price'? Or 'I'll give away my disposable income to those who need it'? Or 'it's time to retire but no thanks, I don't want that decent pension that's available to me now because future generations won't be able to have it'? Of course you wouldn't. You would have taken full advantage of what was available to you and not given a thought to what might happen in 50yrs like every other person.

What's happening now is not the fault of earlier normal people. It's the effect of years of bad politics, dodgy financial institutions and practices and corrupt politicians.

Just because a few ignorant people can't see that it wasn't just 'hard work' that helped them achieve what they did, or that some are crass enough to say it out loud, doesn't make it the fault of a whole generation.

I qualify (just) as a boomer, as do many of my friends. I'm not rich, I don't have a pension and I don't know anyone who doesn't understand how hard it is for our children. Everyone I know, from the richest to the poorest, helps their children financially as much as they can. And the majority of them help with childcare around their own jobs.

@CecilieRose I know a woman who is 60 and she had bought a beautiful 2-bed flat in Chelsea by the time she was my age, on a totally normal secretary salary
("My age" being 36 - so she had bought it entirely by 1996? Presumably not on a regular 20-25year mortgage, but a much shorter one?)
I think she must have got significant help from somewhere or you're not getting full disclosure. Mortgage interest rates were terribly high in the 80s: at one point hitting 16%. And basic income tax was 1/3 your salary.
Certainly during those years, doctor partner and I, both working full-time in professional jobs, were scraping together the money to do up the wreck in outer London which was the only thing we could afford on a 25 year mortgage on joint professional incomes - no evenings out, no holidays, no extras.
Before that we rented and that was also nigh on impossible. There was a long queue of hopefuls for any flat share, let alone in Chelsea in the 80s. I remember once having to leave my salary in a sealed envelope and they picked the best one (not mine). And that was for a tatty flat where the kitchen was also the dining room and bathroom (eg the room had a tabletop over the bath next to a hob. H&S nightmare). Childcare was very difficult and costly then too.
Sure boomers had it easier, but not as much as one thinks. The big difference that happened was the removal of so much council housing stock from the rental market under "right to buy," meaning private landlords invested in housing and a bubble was created.
If your Boomer friend says you just have to 'work harder', I'd tell her to go to hell - but would also ask if she really got where she was by work, or individual and undeclared support, or
drug smuggling or by being a high paid dominatrix for elderly MPs. Or what? ;)

@CecilieRose

I don't know one single person my age who isn't far worse off than their parents were at the same age. Not one.

The Boomers love to think they worked sooo hard to get what they have. They didn't. They had normal 9-5 jobs which enabled them to get a mortgage on a house and have plenty of disposable income. Many times even a single income was enough to have that, with the other parent staying at home with the kids, so no childcare fees. Now? You need two above average incomes to buy even a modest property, and creche fees cost an absolute fortune.

Even adults living alone with no kids like me can't achieve what they could. I know a woman who is 60 and she had bought a beautiful 2-bed flat in Chelsea by the time she was my age, on a totally normal secretary salary. No degree, no second job, no side gigs, no working until 10pm. In comparison, I earn way above average, have a postgrad degree, speak multiple foreign languages fluently and have sought after technical skills. I also often work weekends, doing freelance work to try to increase my deposit savings, to the detriment of my social life and wellbeing. What can I buy at the age of 36? A one-bed flat in a shabby bit of London. And I'm far better off than the average person my age in London, who is still flat sharing. And still that woman who bought the flat in Chelsea will look at me with a straight face and tell me I just need to 'work harder'.

It's ridiculous.

For goodness sake, yeah because everyone between th age of 60 and 75 owns their own house, is loaded and lived a blessed life.

I am with you. I can’t believe how many loaded pensioners there are. Or ,,oh wait, the amount of home owners has actually increased since 1980 if we want to look at it factually.

[quote CuriousCassie]@CecilieRose I know a woman who is 60 and she had bought a beautiful 2-bed flat in Chelsea by the time she was my age, on a totally normal secretary salary
("My age" being 36 - so she had bought it entirely by 1996? Presumably not on a regular 20-25year mortgage, but a much shorter one?)
I think she must have got significant help from somewhere or you're not getting full disclosure. Mortgage interest rates were terribly high in the 80s: at one point hitting 16%. And basic income tax was 1/3 your salary.
Certainly during those years, doctor partner and I, both working full-time in professional jobs, were scraping together the money to do up the wreck in outer London which was the only thing we could afford on a 25 year mortgage on joint professional incomes - no evenings out, no holidays, no extras.
Before that we rented and that was also nigh on impossible. There was a long queue of hopefuls for any flat share, let alone in Chelsea in the 80s. I remember once having to leave my salary in a sealed envelope and they picked the best one (not mine). And that was for a tatty flat where the kitchen was also the dining room and bathroom (eg the room had a tabletop over the bath next to a hob. H&S nightmare). Childcare was very difficult and costly then too.
Sure boomers had it easier, but not as much as one thinks. The big difference that happened was the removal of so much council housing stock from the rental market under "right to buy," meaning private landlords invested in housing and a bubble was created.
If your Boomer friend says you just have to 'work harder', I'd tell her to go to hell - but would also ask if she really got where she was by work, or individual and undeclared support, or
drug smuggling or by being a high paid dominatrix for elderly MPs. Or what? ;)[/quote]
When I say 'bought it', I obviously mean taking out a mortgage like almost everyone does, not owning it outright. She got a mortgage for a flat in Chelsea on a very average single income. This was in the early nineties when she was in her early thirties. I make probably double what she made then (in today's money), if not more, and the only thing I can get a mortgage on is a one-bed flat in quite a grotty area, on a 35-year mortgage.

I don't know if she had extra help but I doubt it. The salary multiplier for getting a mortgage was far better in the nineties, and property prices were far more achievable than they are now.

Not sure why you think there aren't long queues for flat shares now. I broke up with my ex in 2014 and it was horrendous trying to find a place to live. It was worse than being chosen on the basis of salary - you were basically auditioned. Sat there trying to entertain five strangers looking at you expectantly, just to put a roof over your head. I don't know any Boomers who had to flatshare past age 30 despite having decent jobs.

@Bluntness100 I didn't say 'everyone'. I guess you're not familiar with basic concepts like statistics, which clearly show that ON THE WHOLE, the Boomer generation were far, far better off than millennials.

Of course there are poor Boomers who didn't do well. Of course there are rich millennials. I know a few people my age who are millionaires. So? I'm talking about MOST people. The fact that millennials are the first generation to be worse off than their parents is not my opinion, it's a solid fact.

[quote CecilieRose]@Bluntness100 I didn't say 'everyone'. I guess you're not familiar with basic concepts like statistics, which clearly show that ON THE WHOLE, the Boomer generation were far, far better off than millennials.

Of course there are poor Boomers who didn't do well. Of course there are rich millennials. I know a few people my age who are millionaires. So? I'm talking about MOST people. The fact that millennials are the first generation to be worse off than their parents is not my opinion, it's a solid fact.[/quote]
But it’s not a solid fact, there is load of research. And gen z is forecast to take over from millennials as the wealthiest generation, just Google it.

My father is a Boomer and he worked his nuts off, rarely went out to restaurants, and holidays were a once a year thing. My parents in general would forego much more than my husband and I do now.

Would a lottery winner become middle class just because they suddenly acquired a lot of money and they had been a bin man or a supermarket checkout girl before the big win?
According to MN yes, pps often describe growing up WC now they're MC even UMC.
Personally I think it is crap.