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 agree with you PP, although I would argue that this is not happening in all social demographics.
A PP mentioned something about longer life expectancy, but I do not believe this generation will benefit. People of the late Queen's generation and of my parents' generation are the ones whose longer life expectancy has put a squeeze on resources.
My generation (late 1950s to mid 1960s) are also more likely to live longer, but look at the issues facing the next in line. I do not believe the vast majority will make ancient bones.

DS's digs technically have parking spaces outside, and most rooms at his Uni are en-suite. DS has neither car nor desire to have en suite. He's 6'2" and we did pay extra to get him a larger bed.

what do you mean by "average age"? Do you mean life expectancy? If so that's only because of the infant mortality rate, throughout most of history, if children survived to adulthood they didn't die much earlier on average than we do.
"From 1200 to 1745, 21-year-olds would reach an average age of anywhere between 62 and 70 years." (exeptions being during periods like the black death)

Why do people regurgitate half remembered facts without taking a second to google them to check they are right?

Yes, infant mortality brought the average age way way down, but once you did survive into adulthood you weren't going to randomly drop at 35, especially if you were male and didn't have the risks of childbirth (which also impacted on the average age).

isn't life expectancy reducing despite moving out the pension age?

"You won't get a state pension at 56"

The earliest that I can access my private pension is 55
Although, I believe that the rules are changing for younger people, I believe that the age is increasing

It's not the fault of the economy. I had a job as soon as I could ie whilst at school. I worked my way through uni. When I graduated, I went where I could get work and lived in shared flats until I could save a deposit for a mortgage.
There have always been marketing companies pushing rubbish. You need to take responsibility for your own choices and purchases. Young adults are infantilising themselves.
Yes, we need more social housing. Yes, we need an end to zero hours contracts. Yes, London needs to stop allowing a market that has priced out locals. But even with all those changes, young people need to stop acting like children and expecting everything all at once. Real life isn't social media.

Personally, I don't think you "grow up" until you get your first full time job and spend your days working alongside adults! It's certainly what happened to me. I was a very immature 18 year old when I started work, but literally within a few days of being surrounded by 50+ year old co-workers, I "grew up" both in terms of actions, attitude, etc. Almost overnight I saw the World around me in a different light.

University, despite what students believe, is just an artificial closetted extension of the protected school years. Working part time evenings/weekends etc around studying is obviously massively beneficial in the growing up process, but it's still not the full on immersion of a full time job surrounded by adults.

So I don't think it's age dependant really, it's a matter of when you take that leap and move from education into employment. I certainly don't believe that university years cause maturity - I believe the opposite really. It really doesn't set you up for life with life skills etc because a lot is artificial, i.e. living in communal flats etc is nothing like renting and being responsible for your own flat/house.

It always makes me laugh that people think 20 was somehow middle aged and that 30 was old age.

Psalm 90, written in around 1400, states human life expectancy is "three score years and ten" (70 years) or 80 if you're particularly strong. There were plenty of elderly people around and they had a good idea of roughly how long people would live, barring illness or accident.

@R0ckPaperCat but I was referring your contributions point. Younger people will be paying a lot more than 35 years & yes the vast majority won't have a private pension that can sustain them for 30 ish years.

I sort of agree with you but also we know the brain doesn't finish growing until about 25.

They were very, very unusual then. I graduated in 1986. None of my peers even thought about buying a house for several years, not least because they needed geographical mobility to compete in the job market.

I mean according to ONS over 30% of 16-24 year olds were homeowners in 1981 and 1991.
So statistically it wasn't very unusual at all.

"I agree many businesses are going down the apprentice route for cheap labour, but anyone with a few brain cells can see through it."

It also takes jobs away from older people.

YABU because once again you generalising the middle class experience to everyone. Most young people weren’t going to University FFS.

For we working class, you’d start work at 12 at the oldest if a boy & lucky enough to go to a school. Many children started paid work at age 8. The wages for the father was never enough to pay rent and essentials. The mother and children always had to supplement the income just to scrape by and survive. Daughters in law would often move in with their husbands family until they could afford rent on their own- often another younger sibling would team up to manage it.

Living in multi-generational households with multiple wage earners was the norm for the majority of people for centuries due to economic necessity. So it’s not infantilisation but economic necessity is making more families adopt this practice. I also not agree that such an adaptation infantilises anyone at all. There’s nothing “infant like” about being forced to have a household with multiple wage earners…

YANBU.
I'm quite shocked at how immature quite a few young people are. The funny thing is they seem to take pride in being helpless!
Minimum wage should be the same 16+, when they can live independently, get married and legally have sex and I don't feel too young for children. I had my first at 19, so a little older, whilst I think 16 is young I don't feel too young.

Over the summer I stayed in an ensuite student room as a tourist. It was horrible, it had everything you needed, but it was tiny and ugly and you couldn't see out of the window. It felt like being in a prison cell so I wouldn't say the students who live there all year are spoilt!

When I went to uni open days in the mid 90s we made our own way there without parents, either on the train or a classmate's car, but there were already some parents attending. Then to travel there, my DF did give me a lift as it would have been difficult on public transport with all my bags. I don't think that's too spoilt either.

I think the bus thing might be snobbery more than anything.
I remember a thread where a 40 year old woman said that she HERSELF wouldn't take a bus in the dark. We were talking about 4pm.

You really must have gotten your history from historical fiction books.
These young kings always had older relatives as advisors and at the top of their administration who actually ran the country or empire. These young kings would make some decisions…but usually these were proclamations to the court after being told what to say by an uncle…or their mother.

The same with these noble young girls married off…they weren’t running households and planning banquets beyond choosing what dress to wear (and perhaps not even that). Their MIL would dictate that to the household servants. Noble girls were trophy wives. It’s not until their MIL kicks the bucket, when they are thirty or so that they then start having matriarch influence & power….over servants and their sons.

"This woman and her husband are prepared to drive to Germany to pick up their daughter and bring her home. I was astonished at how pathetic they all are."

Yes, that's a bit pathetic. If anything, travel delays are easier to deal with when you're young. You can sleep at the airport or in a hostel more easily than an older person can.

"Why should someone with 30 plus years experience be paid the same as a new starter?"

They shouldn't and many jobs pay according to experience. There's a difference between experience and just age though.

"Many can buy houses in their 20s on minimum wage. If living in a house share and living off similar amounts of cash as the student maintenance loan then the maths leave you with a decent saving for deposit in most midlands and northern areas."

It's not jus the deposit, your earnings have to be enough as well. Also, you're presumably talking about a couple together and people are probably less likely to be in very serious relationships or married at a young age now.

It depends where you live and what you want out of life.
Went to uni at 18 meet future DH second day.
Did a year in industry unpaid for the experience at 20 (got minimum student loan to live on) so worked through uni as well.
Graduated at 22.
We both spent just over a year in decent paying industry jobs to clear debits and have some savings. Lived at home rent free.
Retuned to the NHS at 23 the same year we had DS and bought our first proper family home.
Worked my way up the career ladder and finished my last mandatory qualification at 32, DH will finish at 33. Still many more management jobs or other challenges ahead if we want them.
We have a soon to be lovely 5 bedroom detached (its a renovation project) which once finished could be someone/our forever home. We might stay or if I chase anymore promotions we might buy the house in it own grounds to renovate, if the right property comes on the market.

Looking at our friends all but the highest paid went to university, we have all done well in life and can happily afford decent mortgage to have the nice houses, cars etc so the system does work.

The days of minimum wage jobs supporting a family are over, those posts are now more for young adults who are living at home and finding out what they want to do in life.

DS is welcome to live at home rent free aslong as he wants/needs to. We have space that he could move a partner in if needed. Our savings plans have around 50k for him at 21 to use as a deposit on a house or to start a business.

I've never seen that, but seen a few colleagues whose spouses cook the lunch they bring. Sometimes that spouse is kept by the colleague's wages, but the principle of not doing your own packed lunch is similar.

I wouldn't say that was related to age though?