To think our economy infantilises young people

[HurryupwiththeteA]

I’ve got a DS who’s 18 and I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I love history and learning about different time periods and when I think what some of the 18-25 year olds used to have vs now it’s stunning. Henry VIII became king when he was 18. Slightly more realistically, up until not so many years ago young people were able to move out, get jobs that actually pay money you can live on, get married, have children, etc. I know some can especially closer to 25 but for many that’s simply not a reality.

Today minimum wage jobs (which are absolutely necessary and often quite skilled) are simply not enough to live on meaning that for many they feel their only option is university.

The student loan system requires you to be dependent on your parents (especially if they earn more) as the maintenance grant simply will not cover living expenses and (back to my last point) they’re only option is minimum wage will does not pay.

After graduating in most areas home ownership is not realistic given the exorbitant cost. This leaves them with the option of living at home for many years to try and save up (or rent and most likely never be able to afford a house deposit).

Because they don’t have their own place, relationships are often either causal hookups or quite short lived. This means that marriage or children if usually out of the question until they are much older.

Many other things such as being treated like they’re not really adults by older people, being marketed crap they don’t need keeping them in the rat race, calls to raise the age to smoke, so many other things.

Sadly I think the answers to these problems just aren’t going to happen. Major house building, distressing the importance of degrees for jobs that simply don’t need them, making the minimum wage enough to actually live on, controls on rent, stopping interest on student loans and raising the repayment threshold. None of these will ever happen, for political reasons, but frankly they should.

Aibu to think that young adults (18-25) are pretty infantilised today. It seems like 25 is the new 18 and until your mid 20s now society often still sees you as a child. Furthermore, Aibu to think this

I think we as a society now recognise that an 18yr old adult is not in the same league as an older adult in terms of experience, maturity, and emotional development. Cutting teens adrift the second they hit 18 and expecting them to sink or swim would do them more harm than good, they're like trainee adults and need a more scaffolded entry into proper adulthood.

I personally don't think there is anything inherently wrong or bad about young people today, there is nothing being said here that my parent's generation didn't say about mine or that their own parents didn't say about theirs. More or less since the dawn of history, previous generations always think the new adults are doing it wrong.

Times change, society changes, and they're being raised/have been raised in a different world to the one many of us grew up in.

I speak from personal experience ;)

Abusive family, moved into first flat with my bf age 18, had my daughter aged 20 abusive family -> abusive relationship pipeline was worsened by financial circumstances. I’d been working since the age of 17, not massively shitty jobs either, I worked FOH and as a receptionist. It was called a ‘customer service apprenticeship’, meant each company I worked for could pay under £4 an hour for a receptionist, despite doing everything I do now when covering reception, petty cash, stationery orders, etc. There is really no excuse to pay someone so little for a full day’s work.

They’d only get paid less if they went for a NMW role. Most people gain a year or twos experience on low wage and then progress. I’ve never been on NMW and started work at 16.

I agree with looking at other ways to incentivise businesses to take on younger people, but that doesn’t change the issue being that people are staying in low paid roles for far longer than they should be

When I went for higher paid roles, they’d offer me the job on the condition I took it for a lower wage. Multiple times. Don’t know if it was legal but was not really in a position to debate it!

So true, I still recall the poster who thought her son wasn't an adult at 25! When I was teaching I used to be annoyed at parents who involved them selves in their children's Work Experience, driving them there when it's on a bus route, calling school or the WE provider to complain that their youngster didn't like what they were doing. No matter how often we tried to explain that part of the exercise was the pupil sorting their own minor problems they still wanted them to be babied. One mother insisted that I find out about the bus he would need to take, I told her it was the one that stopped outside his house!

Or we choose the statistics that prove our own prejuduce. Remember, one writer said Give me the figures, tell me what you want me to prove and I'll prove it!

I agree but life expectancy is also longer. In Henry viii times you’d live till your 40’s or less as a working person so 18 was half your life expectancy!

You can't have a very good understanding of history and social or political structures if you think they were doing those things alone.

It annoys me no end. Your job as a parent is to raise them to be able to stand on their own 2 feet, not run round after them so that at 32 or 34 you are still supporting them financially (like some of my colleagues are doing for their kids)

I'm 37. I had a baby at 21 in my final year of uni. My parents were not well off and my (now) husband still had 2 more years of uni to go.

I admit we had the support of our parents in that we lived with either set of our parents for the first 4 years of our child's life so that we could save a deposit. But we still had to pay them rent.

My colleagues complain their kids won't move out, but they're not charging them rent...well why would they move out? And according to them their kids arent saving their money either. I mean, they are complicit in infantilising them imo.

Not true. High infant mortality rates in the past distort "average" lifespan. Those who survived the early years would have had similar life expectancy to us.

Then you can’t have had much in terms of experience they valued.

"Young people today just aren't living up to the standard of Henry VIII" may be peak Mumsnet.

Henry VIII is a pretty questionable role model anyway.

Many were, yes some very young kings had support, but when they hit 14/15 most would rule alone with minimal input

Same applies to young girls running a household, I can’t imagine many 13 year old girls these days being able to arrange massive banquets, raise children, keep up with politics to advance their family

lol, no, they wanted to pay me less because they could. Why tf would they pay full wages when they knew I’d just finished an apprenticeship but was still under the age for minimum wage? I had 3 years experience on FOH and great references, but businesses are out to make money.

I’m not sure what was better about the days of a man starting work in the factory down the road, a girl getting married and knocked up at 18 and a life of having more children and little options due to limited education.

This ‘20somethings are so babied’ line is trotted out on mumsnet and it’s just bizzare. It’s often mostly from parents too and just strikes me as a desperate ‘everyone else’s parenting and kids are awful except me’.

3 years of experience at 16?

No, at 21.
I was referring to your ‘experience on low wage and then progress’. I was barred from progressing because they could legally pay me less.

You weren’t barred from progress, if you apply for low level jobs on NMW then that’s an active choice.

At 21 (am only 29 now) I was earning £25k a year and owned my own home, age isn’t the defining factor, the fact I had been in a professional role since 18 was.

At 21 I don’t remember any of my friends on NMW. It’s not that or nothing

You’ve got parents on here not prepared to let 15 year olds catch a bus home at 6pm, 17 year olds not allowed to stay home alone etc etc, the way society treats young people is the problem. God knows how the 18 year olds going off to war 80 years ago managed.

Agreed, our economy perpetuates the Peter Pan syndrome

FGS I literally said above I was offered jobs on the condition I accepted below the wages they were offering on ads. I had employers ask me, would you consider doing another apprenticeship with us.

Maybe it varies area to area because I was not the only one of my friend group in this position. When DD was 2 I returned to studies, possibly I was hindered by lacking school qualifications, I’ll never know but this is what happened repeatedly.

Those who survived the early years would have had similar life expectancy to us.

No, that's not true, they died in childbirth, from infections, in violence, from accidents, from strokes, gout & cancers. Modern medicine makes people live years after they would have otherwise died. If you get to 18 now in good health, you could hope to get to 85 before dying. If past people got to 18 in good health in 1800, they could feel very pleased to reach 60.

My Mum started her first job in the public sector at 16, was married at 20, homeowner at 21 and had me at 24. Neither she or my father were well off, neither had degrees or well-paying jobs and they were both raised in urban council houses.

Their first house cost £25,000 and at the time they earned £6,000 each. That’s a very different ratio to today’s earnings to first home price.

I was thinking this today as I took my son to a uni open day. My parents in the 80s didn’t take me to uni open days - not sure they were even a thing for first generation uni students. On my first day at uni I caught the coach with my bag and went to a new city 100s of miles away to a room in lodgings with a family.

today we were looking at en suite uni rooms with parking - I mean wtf???? Not sure if they are enfantised or spoilt to be honest,

If you have no school qualifications that explains why you were limited to low paid jobs then. You were probably lucky to get any kind of job - even apprenticeships usually need some GCSEs.

On the other hand what professional role can you do at 18? Surely the definition of a profession is that it needs specialist high level education? Doctor, lawyer etc?