To not want to raise a child into this vicious, dog-eat-dog, cut-throat country?

[summergal250]

Really I'm pretty close to giving up on the idea of one day having kids.

Why?

Unless you're rich, everything in the country is just an endless, ceaseless, dog-eat-dog fight over scraps. Day after day, month after month, year after year. I don't want my child to have to deal with this crap.

Examples:
. I'm currently having issues with the landlord over various repairs he's dragging his feet on. His attitude is, if you don't like it move. I pay £700 for this crappy shoebox. I could just move - again - or threaten court action, which as empty as any money I'd get from that would be wiped out by legal fees.

. This is like my 10th rental in 12 years. EVERY single one them had at least one serious issue with it - mice, damp, noise issues, no washing machine, landlords entering property etc. Out all of them only one landlord was actually a decent person - all the rest having been lying, cheating, two-faced money-grubbers. Of course, not a problem if mummy and daddy can give you a deposit. In my 30s yet feel as I'm trapped in a permanent state of being 21.

. I work full time and do freelance in my spare time. I constantly look for new, better paying roles and I have been saving for a deposit for years and as house prices just rise and rise it feels I'm getting nowhere. I'm almost at the point of saying, why bother? How is it fair to raise a kid in some crummy tiny flat? The housing issue has been a problem for 20 years and NOTHING has been done - every year it just gets worse and worse. Meanwhile smug boomers who bought their semi for £80K in 1979 bang on about avocados.

. I got conned into doing a degree which every adult in my teens said would be a ticket to a great future. Instead, all it represents is a massive pile of debt and a waste of three years. Yet, even a receptionist job now insists on a degree, so you have to do it, even though only a degree from Oxbridge or a top redbrick is worth anything these days.

. Jobs - graduated into the recession. I've had jobs where I've been bullied, others with psycho bosses, others with vicious backstabbing 'colleagues'. Constantly the implicit threat of - if you don't like it we'll fire you. Felt I was finally getting somewhere in my old job and then was made redundant during covid. Cue several months of soul-destroying unemployment. The job I have now is ok but less well paid then my old one - so, more struggle, more jostling for favour, wasting more of my free time looking for a better paid jobs, more endless rounds of interviews. I feel like I've been going up the down escalator the entire time. Every year it seems the jobs market gets fiercer, more competitive, more brutal and cut-throat.

. The low pay means I spend large chunks of my free time freelancing. I enjoy it but it can be exhausting. Atm I'm embroiled in a dispute with a client who is refusing to pay for some completed work (with £700) - turns out he's con man with a dodgy past. I'm having to take him to a small claims court - yet more of my time and energy wasted.

. Similar to an occasion a few months back where a hotel Cornwall was nothing like the pics when I got there - it was in a disgusting state. I cancelled and went elsewhere, and then was embroiled in a 3 month battle to get my money back, with the owner only relenting when I got the local council involved.

Spotting a pattern?

If you're not rich in this country everything's just a pointless, exhausting fight to keep your head above water. Every economic interaction is just a vicious bare-knuckle fight, with people out to shaft you for what they can. Honestly, if it wasn't for my family and friends I really would have just given up on the human race.

I won't go into the this country's general lack of manners, the yobbish behaviour of many people here, the rows of homeless tents in out high streets, the crappy education system, the utterly broken and corrupt political system, and the general utter madness society seems to fall further into with every passing year. The quality of life here just deteriorates every year.

So, basically, I don't want to inflict this on a child. My life is worse than my parents - fact. I'm doubt I'll ever reach their level. If you're not rich, children have no future in this country - just an endless treadmill of debt and exploitation. And every trend I've discussed above is getting worse - I just dread to think how things will be when they grew up.

And before people start saying, 'maybe it's you' - believe you me, I've fought coming to these conclusions tooth and nail. Grew up in a firm Old Labour home - solidarity and all that. I used to be the classic caring, sharing, naive people-pleaser - after years of being taken advantage of and shafted I've bit by bit given up. Now all I care about is myself, my family and my immediate friends.

@Pumperthepumper
Plenty of people manage to buy a property without parental support. Yes the numbers grew from 2005 until 2019 but it is simple untrue to suggest you can not get on the property ladder without help. In the last 2 years the majority of transactions have been for those without the bank of mum and dad

@Pumperthepumper late 20s/early 30s. In fact most people I know have had help to move up the ladder.

@hurtyb I'm in my 30s and know a few people who've purchased a house without parental help, my brother included.

He doesn't have a 'flashy' high paid job at all. He lives in one of the most expensive cities in the country. He does live a very frugal lifestyle through choice.

Do you have a link to that? ‘My parents didn’t help me financially’ is ambiguous - living at home rent free is also financial help.

In the last 2 years the majority of transactions have been for those without the bank of mum and dad

For ftbs? probably more achievable because of lockdown savings & stamp duty pause.

How did he do it?

@Twizbe I'm not arguing it doesn't happen just saying I don't know anyone. Perhaps it's because I live in London, living at home instead of paying huge rent made a huge difference for me.

‘better than a war zone’ is one of the lowest bars you could be aiming for.

There’s no such thing as a place you can’t find fault with, but while UK may not be the worst, that doesn’t mean it’s the best for quality of life/healthcare/opportunity, depending on what you’re after.

Not a myth at all.

Growing up in SE London, with an Irish father, I frequently saw those signs in the windows. That reflects the fact that renting rooms rather than having a whole flat/house per family was common then. The owner tended to live in the house and didn't want to live with Irish, dogs or blacks.

I agree with you OP. Would you consider moving abroad? True, its more difficult since Brexit but there are ways of doing it.

@Twizbe getting help & obviously the earlier you get the help makes a big difference to someone future finances.

@Pumperthepumper yep, yougov.co.uk/topics/economy/articles-reports/2022/05/09/how-many-people-parents-help-first-home-deposit it’s here, this chart breaks down the received financial help down further, but there’s also a link at the bottom of the page to see the full results

My DDad still has the photograph he took of exactly that sign, hung in a corner shop of the city suburb he lived in in the 60s.

Don’t have DC, OP. You wouldn’t cope.

Your entire life as set out in your OP sounds like missed expectations. We are all living in the same country. Are you physically able? You write well and seem to think clearly. And yet you sound defeated.

You are a fool for thinking life or society owes you anything; that you can have nebulous expectations of the world and they will be met. That’s an entitlement you describe in your OP.

Life is what you make of it, and the slings and arrows come at you left and right, all the time, whether you’re rich or poor, have a degree or don’t, are Labour or Tory. Some have to struggle harder than others - show me a country where that isn’t the case. Accept this, turn your mind to positivity and try again. You’re too young to be defeated.

It's a folk myth. The only signs they have found are ones which were drawn for anti racism displays in museums. It's a myth beloved of those of a certain mindset because they can say look how racism explicitly existed in writing then, but it supposedly doesnt exist now because they dont recognise non explicit racism as racism, for instance the exceptional hounding black women in the public eye are subjected to

www.theguardian.com/money/2015/oct/21/no-irish-no-blacks-no-dogs-no-proof

www.irishpost.com/life-style/infamous-no-irish-no-blacks-no-dogs-signs-may-never-have-existed-racist-xenophobic-148416

Most of those are not "ordinary jobs". Doctors are paid vastly more than most people.

My parents in the 1950s certainly got no help from their parents and neither did I from mine. In my experience the majority of those in their 30s who are now whinging that they can't get on the property ladder are those that spent the whole of their 20s partying and travelling round the world

It’s generally accepted by historians that that sign never existed.

Fuck me!! There’s literally photographic evidence!! Historians, my arse. And like there was only ever one!

What fucking planet do people live on?? You don’t even know your own history, but feel entitled to gaslight and spout factual mistruths.

It’s generally accepted by historians that that sign never existed.

I remember seeing one, I didn’t realise I had to take a picture of the monstrosity as a memento

In that case, OP should make a plan to move to the best in terms of healthcare, housing, opportunities, and so on.

Strong words. But yes. Sometimes we forget that we are animals, and yet we live in a pretty advanced society. There is so much potential, and so much good stuff. We have free healthcare, free education, a variety of supermarkets that provide food right there on a shelf, ready to eat.

Your post is fairly negative and depressing to read. On the one hand, who can blame you, but you can do it. No, we can't all be millionaires, but you can buy somewhere. I take it you're single. You could save a deposit for a flat if you meet a partner, it's all achievable.

Things like 12 rentals in 10 years is pretty bad luck, it's not the standard. Hopefully things improve in the future.

Because it’s one measure that I am familiar with whereas you seem unwilling to provide any data at all suggesting that disparity here is “huge.”

You must have some actual numbers to make the claim, why not say what they are, and their source?

You have a you problem.

I don’t think that wanting to be able to afford secure accommodation and not struggle, without having to rely on familial wealth, is thinking life “owes you something”. Everyone, weather a cleaner or a hedge fund manager, should be able to afford a home and feed themselves at the absolute bare minimum. Yet millions of people can’t, and we’re supposedly one of the richest countries in the world?! Well, 1% of us are. It’s utterly grotesque how something as basic as a secure home is now seen as an achievement you have to work for (and I’m not just talking about buying, rent rises make living alone or even with a partner out of reach for many).

In all honesty so many people could be writing what you've written and I'm sorry it's that way.

They are jobs that “normal” people can aspire to and do, jobs that people I know from a normal background do.