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.

"This country" is actually quite big you know.
Where I live you can buy a three bed house for £150k. Pretty decent jobs market. Not London wages but plenty of 40k roles.
Our joint income is £46k and my house is worth now the same as it was nine years ago when I bought it so you might need to consider whether you are miserable enough to move somewhere else

I do wonder what it will take for those in charge to get the message that something needs to change. There was actually serious talk about a need to, after the 2008 credit crunch and the Brexit vote, but as usual it all gets forgotten 5 minutes later. There were many writers discussing such things around the 2000s. Sadly they had to do so following the last Labour government, under whose aegis generational inequality got started in the first place.

I agree with this 100%.
This is where we are and I don't see it ending. Split between rich and poor is getting wider and wider. What a rat race with no quality of life in this country.

Wow, so bitter!

These baby boomers you so despise (such as my parents) grew up post WW2 when there was still rationing! They would have been grateful for a holiday in a hotel in Cornwall. Or to have the medicine and technology we have now plus an awareness of sexism and racism etc etc etc. Every generation has its pros and cons.

Being rich is not the solution to all problems. (It won't cure cancer!)

There is no need to leave the Netherlands for Brexit, every UK citizen working there has been granted temporary residency.

We have a home in De Pijp, in Amsterdam, and if you have worked there you will know that the Netherlands has serious issues with housing costs, has similar wealth disparity to the UK, and taxes its low earners far more than the UK does. To pretend that wealth disparity there is much less than in the UK is not tenable.

In the last few years, life in the UK has certainly got worse. It is no longer on the par with the rest of Western Europe. It i sprobably slightly above Southern Europe but the difference is that they can move to other parts while the Brits are stuck. To those who ask where would you move to if you had a choice - Germany, Norway Netherlands, France and Switzerland. These are the countries we used to compare to but not anymore. It's not as bad as Mali or Somalia but honestly are those the standards?

I don’t agree, I think it’s more that the OP and others like her are failing themselves.

Work out way you really want OP, and then make a plan to get it, being realistic about the compromises that you might have to make along the way.

Want a better house that you own? You’ll probably have to move area.

Want a job that you enjoy more and pays more? You might have to make 2 or 3 tactical moves to get this.

If you want more security in your life generally? Think about whether life with a partner would help? There are positives and negatives of that too.

Don’t sweat the £700 unless it’s really worth your time, headspace and money to get it back. Focus instead on creating the life that you want, not fighting against the life that you have.

Work out what the small stuff that you enjoy is. A cuppa and a good book. A chat with a friend. Watching the ducks in the load pond. A shower. A long walk. A good film. Do some of that stuff every day.

Make the choice to be positive whilst working on your plan. No one really wants to hear about your negativity. Smile, be genuinely keen and enthusiastic about every good thing that you can. You will get there, and you might have some lovely experiences along the way.

You sound a bit depressed OP. All ok with your MH?

Yeah, you're not wrong tbh

You make some valid points, OP, but I think you can get cheated in just about every country. I would argue you can get cheated worse in most other countries and 'economic interactions' are unpleasant everywhere.

Do you speak the languages you need to move to these 5 countries?

How? You can’t inspire yourself more money. Or a more sympathetic landlord.

OP, you write as though you are young and also single. It’s normal to be in a couple before choosing to have children, so it’s not a decision that you need to make yet.

If you’ve made bad choices so far such as the choice of degree, that doesn’t stop you improving your situation in the future.

It sounds as though she picked a degree that was worth little, that she’s choosing to live in a very expensive part of the UK and that she won’t look at how she can make better choices.

Blaming society for her situation is pointless.

We knew a few others who moved back (mostly to London; we were among very few U.K. expats who are not seriously rich and financially secure with private means, so you’re not doing yourself any favours in my eyes). We moved back for the security in the time of uncertainty around the vote. We are no longer EU citizens and have lost many rights in Europe.

Benelux has public services, decent healthcare and rather better transportation than anywhere in the U.K.. Plus you don’t know much about the conditions so many are forced into here if you think housing in the Benelux as a whole is in as poor a condition as is normalised in many parts here. Yes, other places have their issues and everywhere is suffering from a return to extreme capitalism after the trente glorieuses. That doesn’t mean it isn’t better than here still.

I think every generation is a bit despairing about the future, wondering how we got in this mess, what the older people were doing etc. But people keep on keeping on having kids and they survive and often thrive. I think the two things are separate and most people have an in built psychological desire to reproduce. Or why would you get babies on the refugee boats. People will still be conceiving in Ukraine.

I guess the counter argument is how much progress is also being made with things like pioneering surgery, technological advances (we did invent the World Wide Web) and people achieving things that would never have been thought possible. We’ve come so far even since the early nineties. It’s human nature to want to improve things. That whole thing about 80% of the jobs primary school kids will do in the future don’t exist yet. So lots to be intrigued and positive about too.

So people should magically choose a degree aged 17 that 100% will lead to a job that sets them up for life?

Maybe she has family tying her to an expense part of the UK - should she move to a place where she knows no one? What about the job prospects there?

My prediction -
Loads of posters saying how greatful you should be and comparing the UK to Bangladesh as an example of how easy we have it.

You sound like a Russian bot

ha ha yes, ridiculous aren’t they? Why can’t we as a nation do better? I am older than some posters and after progress being made, the quality of life in the UK has definitely taken a nosedive.

We are getting a lot of reports about this thread. Please keep things civil. Ta

Best advice on the thread.

People talk about bad or good choices, but surely the point is any bad choices I make won't "ruin" my life as I have a a big safety net.