We’re spending the kids inheritance

[Tuppenceabaggy]

Does anyone find it weird when parents/older people say this and so proudly?

Ive heard a few times people saying they sacrificed everything for their kids, now it’s their time…is this a bit selfish/odd? Children don’t ask to be born, do they.

Now i’m a parent, I just find my parents and some others way of doing things quite odd.

My dad worked in a good job and Dm was a sahm. I had a part time job since I was 14, if I wanted something, I had to pay for it (except clothes treats out of Christmas and birthday money) I paid for all my own driving lessons (I had a lot and it cost a fortune) I bought my own car and paid insurance etc, Dh and I got our mortgage ourselves with no help.

Now I have Dd, there’s not a lot of spare cash to go around, but I will have a savings account in the event of going to uni (if she chooses to) helping with driving lessons and first car and hopefully a little help with a first home (provided we can try our best to save for this)

I don’t want my parents money, i’m
happy to see them spend it on themselves and enjoy it a bit, but it’s just not how I see my life, everything I think about is for Dd first.

Is this just a generational thing?

In my experience it’s boomers who are most wasteful.

What, in your experience, do they waste?

Wow . I’m a boomer. I voted remain, would never vote for any right wing party , and I think cruises are an abomination. So many generalisations. Maybe the way people behave is because of their upbringing and their personality rather than the year they were born.
I have always helped my dc and always will. I have given them large chunks of money whenever I could afford it. I would absolutely do without holidays and meals out to subsidise them if they were struggling.
And yes - houses were much cheaper but I remember times when interest rates were 12%. We made money on our first house but not lots after that. We didn’t eat out all that often or have fancy cars . We went abroad on holiday alternative years, and had holidays in the UK alternative years.
We were lucky in lots of ways but our general standard of living was lower than my dc are experiencing.
I definitely believe that parents should help their children as much as they can. But that attitude is absolutely nothing to do with the generation I am from. It’s all to do with the way I was brought up

I don't get it. I'm 63 and I've always helped DS with everything. We don't live in the 1970s any more when a house cost £5k.
I'll carry on helping as long as I can. But then it was always just him and me, no husband.
Him and DiL do a lot for me too.

@HeadNorth I'm only on page 1 of this thread, so I admit I don't know what other responses, if any, your post has generated. But I can't let your comment go unchallenged.
In terms of age, I'm in the "boomer" demographic, although I don't buy into that terminology as it's lazy, patronising, divisive, insulting, and lumps individuals of a certain age into one stereotypical category.
You do not speak for me when you label "boomers" as "self-centred".
Please provide evidence to back up your statement, and I'm happy to wait for your proof........
I have helped/help/will continue to help, my 30-something kids in the way you claim to help your children. All the parents I know in my cohort do likewise.
Just because your parents saw their job as "done" when you left home at 17 in no way gives you the right to declare that that is standard parenting.
I'm genuinely happy for you that you are parenting your "wonderful adult children very differently".
But unfortunately you are coming across as judgemental, smug, and arrogant by implying that only you can do this, and that all people of your parents' generation did not. That is such an insulting and ignorant viewpoint.

I don't think either of these perspectives are bullshit, there is truth in both.

Sorry deary but in my experience both parents working was the norm, it was just they didn't have unreasonable expectations nor wanted to live a pretty life on trash like instagram, et al.

It’s typical of some, and not of others. And no, I don’t respect her right to behave in a really unappreciative fashion. It’s not a behaviour worthy of respect.

My parents are boomers and were generous with me and have been with my kids too. I'm the one telling them to spend away, I'd like to see them enjoy their money! You're either like that or you aren't.

I’m a tail end boomer. I love my children who are now in their 30’s. We never had any spare money until they were independent as it went on school fees, childcare, family holidays and supporting them through university and a little time beyond while they got established. I had my children quite late so it took until we were 60 to reach this point.
We still treat them when we go out and do a great Christmas and the odd holiday but now take the view that we have financially done our bit. DS 1 has more savings than us and a better income. DS2 is less well off but secure and happy.
I want to travel and have fun in what time I have left and I am certainly not going to live a miserable miserly life to save money to give to them. Hopefully they will get the house when we die and I hope they will consider it enough,

God, will the excuses NEVER end?

Guess what, my grandmothers (born 1910 and 1917), my mother (born 1938) and all of my aunts born in the 40s and 50s worked out of the home their entire lives, and we NEVER had takeaway on a weeknight. Ever. They were laundresses, retail workers, cleaners, secretaries and factory workers.

I think I had McDonald's 2-3x before I was age 12, and maybe 2-3 times a year on a Saturday my parents would order a pizza. That was about it. Yet somehow they managed to get meals on the table the other 362 days of the year and without complaining about it or giving themselves airs about how haaaard their lives were.

The very existence of things like Deliveroo, Gusto etc. is testament to how lazy people have become in the 21st Century, the idea of calling somewhere up to deliver a pack of toilet rolls or whatever only adds to that.

I'd say it's a reflection of busy lives.

@QueenOfHiraeth it was in response to some posters saying plenty of younger people were richer than boomers.

More ageist generalising.

Bit ageist 😉

It is just an expression. I am a hated boomer. We started saving for our children as soon as they were born. We have payed for them through uni so they had no debts. We paid for their weddings with no strings attached and we gave them deposits when they bought houses. We always put our children first. Sorry We are now having a few holidays before we get too old to travel.

Lives have always been busy.

When they were young university/college tuition was likely free, and students could get grants for living costs. Students could even sign-on during the summer! It may just not have occurred to them that they would need to save for your further education.

Haven't RTFT but I wish my parents would spunk my inheritance up the wall! IT'S THEIR MONEY. It's not mine and I have no right to it. Anyone who thinks their parents owe them is wrong.

It doesn't make sense to people who don't want to accept the reality.

No, it's not because you're 67 and have had all those extra years of being a jolly good citizen and watching the pennies over and above a 24yr old who merely hasn't lived as long.

Your house cost 50p.

Now it's worth £1.2mill

Well slight exaggeration, but you get the jist. It's not because of savvy hardworking choices that one (of my parents 7 properties, yes 7, because they were that fucking cheap) house bought in as recent as 1990 cost £64,000 is now valued at £780,000. That's not good old fashioned morals and stellar work ethic like they try and insist either. It's mega money through jack all effort or even their doing. It just happened to them.

At the time DF would have been on around £55k. DH is on £100k + good bonuses. We can't afford the "£64k" house now at 40. Which is how old my DF was when he bought it.

At least you've helped out with house deposits and childcare. We've not even had that. While they borderline gloat about their "comfortable position because of their sensible decisions" as if they had anything to do with the economy they were handed on a plate. And yeah, if they haven't chosen to leave it all to the cats home, we'll get a big inheritance. At what, 70? Great. It will just be passed to my children who might actually have their lives improved at a time they can enjoy it and benefit them and their young families, rather than us who've had most of our life by then and struggled while they hoarded.

It's self appreciating, self absorbed ignorance in my experience, massively led by my mother, and they've taught me categorically how not to parent. No, they don't owe me anything. But you have to be a certain kind of individual to watch your own children struggle yet never help them out, when you easily have the means. I can't ever imagine being enough of a prick to know not only that I could easily help my own children, but to announce I'm justified to choose to let them struggle because I don't owe them anything.

Lives have always been busy.

Never said otherwise but we didn't have the same tech then...plus more mothers work now. And yes there may not have been as many job opportunities but nonetheless less mothers worked.

@LePetitMaman wish you could thank on the app!

No we didn't worry about signing on, because 7% of the population went to university, not 50%. Only fairly clever people went. So they got jobs if they had degrees and a reaasonable attitude.

I would do anything I could /can to make my dc’s life better. I can’t understand why parents say this.
I don’t begrudge my parents spending their hard earned money and want them to have a good life. I just know that for my own dc, I would like to leave them with as much financial security as I can.

Jobs for life
There were virtually no job security for the vast majority of the population. You could be sacked on the whim of an employer if you protested about dangerous conditions eg ( so black listed ie Employers had a list of 'trouble makers' they passed amongst themselves ) or they didn't like the look of you. Zero hours contracts were common but with out the contract bit ie you went down to the factory, docks etc and hoped to be picked for some hours worked.

Final Salary Pensions
Most people (men and women) got no pensions at all except the basic Old Age Pension at best. No, I lie, women didn't even get this often as they worked in jobs paying less than the qualifying amount or paid the Married Women's Stamp which was a tax on married women as it entitled them to no sick pay or pension. Their husband might have the OAP and they would get a lesser wife's amount dependant on his contributions.

(Even 'professional ' jobs btw eg Teaching gave no protection in the way of pension to the widow of a dead teacher.)

Low interest rates-???? What double figure % pa I seem to recall.... Women couldn't take out loans, higher purchase, mortgages, couldn't buy property but had to rent with no security.

Housing price booms are of no use to the majority of people who can't buy because of poor pay, insecure jobs, no savings, no deposit money etc.

No University fees - no there weren't any fees for the vast majority of people who left school at 15 and therefore took no GCSEs, no A levels and certainly wouldn't get to Uni. for their free fees. Many Universities eg Oxbridge, discriminated against women. Ditto some courses eg Medicine. Some jobs automatically sacked women who married eg Banks.

No inheritance for the vast populace whose parents were poor, didn't own any property, investments, savings etc. The Boomers parents live through not only the horrors of WW2 but the 1920s and 30s with huge unemployment and desperate poverty.

The past 'Boomers' you malign in your ignorance, fought for the rights you take for granted now, achievements which you benefit from more than they could, literally risking their livelihood so you wouldn't have to live through the same as they did - so you have equal pay, pensions rights, holiday pay, sick pay, comprehensive education, access to GCSE, A levels, employment rights, anti discrimination v women, blacks, Irish , disabled etc etc.

This is why recent History should be a compulsory subject in schools. People who don't know their History and value the past battles are doomed to relive the past.

They’ve certainly taught you how to be bitter @LePetitMaman.