‘We didn’t have expensive mobile phones”

[MidnightPatrol]

Why is this now used as a criticism of the young by the old, particularly in debates around affordability of housing etc.

No you didn’t have a mobile phone in 1974.

But that is because they didn’t exist. Not because you made a financial sacrifice.

Is the suggestion young people shouldn’t have mobile phones? This would be a little limiting in today’s environment.

In the 1970s were young people criticised for owning washing machines rather than hand scrubbing their clothes in a copper pail?

It costs much more to make your own clothes than to buy them.

It doesn't. I make all mine.

@ShyPoet For the second house there would have been equity in my mums first house. The first house she probably used her parents as guarantor but I know it was mainly bought with cash as she had lived with her parents for several years and had been saving up with no children or marriage for several years. I realise that wasn't usual back then.

My mum had a twin tub - I remember watching her hauling out and then swishing all the clothes around.

We didn't have a TV when I was very young as the one my parents had had been stolen by what we'd now call a scammer who took it for 'repair' and disappeared - they couldn't afford to replace it for a few years.

It's a genuine question that I probably wouldn't ask in real life, but don't the "older generation " realise that they're the ones who literally raised the "younger generations"?

Most of the spending habits/lifestyle expectations etc of most of us are given and taught to us from a young age by our parents and grandparents. Or am I being really daft?

I bought a house in the nineties and lost money when I sold it. Prices went up and down back then. The house price gains have really been in the past 30 years.

I kept my phone for 5 years to save money then it broke losing all my data and I couldn't recover it. Absolute nightmare as I run a business from my phone.
So I now have a new I phone. Not the latest model but new and I will continue to update it every few years.
I think that people like to think other people cant afford houses because they are frivolous when really it's because it's a lot harder now.

The most expensive iPhone I can find (in John Lewis) is just shy of £1500.

The average house price in England in Janusry this year was £299,000.

So if they might have a point... if they're talking to someone who owns 200 top-of-the-range iPhones.

Pretty sure the decisions of the baby boomer generation are a big part of the reason why the world is in such a mess actually.

There's not much more tone deaf than the generation who fucked it all up telling younger generations to respect their wisdom.

Not all the older generation - we didn't all procreate 😃I take no responsibility for what younger people do these days!

But everything they owned was expensive. Microwaves, Videos, cameras, tellys . They were so dear they were prizes on game shows.

I saw a price rag on my grandads old iron clothes horse. It's ancient and it cost 20 pounds . Can you imagine how much that was back then!

The decision of rich baby boomers. The bus drivers and cleaning staff baby boomers had fuck all to do with it.

I don't know what time period you're referring to, but I grew up in the 70s and 80s in a working class family and we had all the things you say you didn't have as a middle-class family.

I agree with this and have said so on here frequently. Mainly when mothers of newborn babies are advised to 'gently explain' to their MIL that everything she did to raise her four children was wrong.
I am sure it happens in every generation but to me, there seems to be an arrogance from some in this generation who seem to think, aided by social media, that no one has suffered like they do, no one has lived through a cost of living crisis before and no one knows as much or cares as much as they do.
Others experiences in earlier times are wafted away as 'boomer'.
Not all are like this of course but a fair amount seem to hang out on here.

I was born in 1970 I'm not old! but yeah - another bashing thread.

We didn't have mobile phones, or laptops or the interweb or colour TV or a car - we had an emergency 2p and knew to ring home a let it ring 3 times before hanging up so mum knew we had arrived at our mates houses.

But - we also didn't have online banking, benefits needing to be claimed online, affordable credit, streaming services etc - now we do so I have a 'fancy' phone and I like it - no wish to return to the dark ages

Oh I agree @Ocadoshoppingjustarrived I remember the power cut, not having money for the meter, the cold war and Thatcher !

It's funny - my 22 year old said to me - 'mum I feel like I'm living your 80's life right now' - she has a point - it's similar but not worse.

You're surely joking about people not getting pregnant first? I'd bet there are FAR fewer shotgun weddings now than there were in the 50s, 60s and 70s - the unplanned pregnancies still happened then, the only difference is that the unplanned marriage happened soon after.

I think there’s a little bit of truth mixed in with a load of hot air with these conversations.

Yes in the past houses were cheaper
Yes people had a lower standard of living
Yes expectations regarding celebrations, weddings, birthdays, Christmas was lower
Cars were cheaper and many people didn’t drive
The interior of houses were different. They were generally more basic. People did DIY as standard.
People holidayed in caravans in the UK
Less debt as if you couldn’t afford it, you didn’t buy it.

I could go on and on.

BUT even with all of that said, houses are now incredibly expensive and council housing is vanishingly rare. Rent and mortgages now take up a huge portion of someone’s salary and I really think it’s like comparing apples with oranges. Older people just don’t really understand how out of reach affordable accommodation is to many people. They are so removed from it they can’t fathom
it unless it’s happening to a relative and under their nose.

My PIL managed to afford boarding school from primary on a single wage. It just wouldn’t be possible now, but they won’t accept that.

The worst thing about all this is the idea of suffering as a rite of passage. "In my day I walked 20miles to school and did homework by candlelight. I slept on a wooden plank and shared a single baked bean with my 12 siblings." Should it therefore follow that everyone should experience strife as a matter of course. At least people are consistent with it - a sense that we should all be miserable together.

Stuff that might might be considered luxury is no longer so. WiFi and a phone are almost obligatory to have these days as that is the way the world works. I moved house recently and due to a mix up our electric was cut off for 2 days. In the conversations I had with the providers much was said about how an email would be sent, or someone would call. I pointed out that I had no wifi at home without electricity and my phone would also die shortly without power. And they had no answer to that.

I think life has changed beyond recognition from the seventies, some good, some bad.
But it is those who took out buy to let mortgages who pushed house prices and rents up. Before they existed house prices went in a cycle of rise and fall.

Or on putting it on account/the slate.

I think that Thatcher's Right To Buy policy was one of the worst things that has happened in the last 40-odd years.
It was a huge vote winner, but by not allowing councils to re-build she decimated social housing and sowed the seeds of the housing crisis. Council houses are rarer than rocking horse shit and a huge proportion of the sold off housing stock is now in the hands of private landlords (of course it is).

Before the sell off of council houses, places with a lot of council houses also had cheaper house prices.

I remember a similar adage being touted about people not being able to afford mortgages but having flat screen televisions. The best explanation i saw for this was that in the 1970's a colour tv would have cost £3k-£4k and so people around at that time retained the sense of these items as a costly extravagance, and this sense of cost was not updated when these items became cheaper and houses became so very much more expensive.

Depends where in the country. I bought my first shit hole at 21, 10 years ago. I started saving birthday and Xmas money from 10, took an apprenticeship in a subject that's well paid so earned well from 18, never had any luxury and chose to live below the poverty line to do it. Seriously eating yellow sticker food and cheap stews all very old fashioned food. It was shit. My peers could have done this too but chose to have more fun. Many still rent.

Tbf I was existing not living. Then I got hit with severe illness and will never travel or do anything fun. I wish I'd been more frivolous!