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?

It absolutely is the norm for every single family that I know.

So they are the selfish ones, not the entitled money grabbing kids!

Totally agree.

My parents took out equity release as their pensions didn't amount to anything. I do not begrudge them anything, they asked me and my siblings at the time if we were ok with it. What sort of monster would say, "no you live in poverty so I can have a fantastic life when you're dead".

One of my parents' friends has recently brought a brand new car saying, "don't really need it but better than the kids spending it all on rubbish". What an arsehole.

Explain what you mean? I was a child in the 69s and 70s, my children at the tail end of the 80s and then through the 90s.

See you calling me a liar?

What does 'lax' mean?

I supported myself fully from the age of 16 in 1979 with nothing from my parents. So yes you are correct.

Yes, they do.

It goes with the racism and ableism that is rife on this site.

You sound very privileged.

Well, I'm a Boomer aren't I. According to this thread, we are all privileged and bastards with it.

My boomer parents helped me and I’m paying it forward helping my adult kids.

They didn’t have it easy though. We struggled too. It’s only later in life that they, and we, are more comfortable. It’s naive of posters to think that because everything was relatively cheaper years ago, that life was easy. Of course it wasn’t.

To buy a house now, does need a high income or parental help. And that’s awful. But please remember life hasn’t always been comfortable for those boomers. Todays generation have taken for granted luxuries that those boomers would never have even dreamt about. In a way, it is their time.

Like with everything, there is a middle ground of helping the next generations and living life a bit too.

Scotland as a nation does have a major issue with alcohol - its drink culture and the associated societal cost is a frequent feature of our art and literature. Stereotypes exist for a reason.

Three day weeks and power cuts in the 79s. My lovely father having to sign on and crying as he did so.

As a parent myself in the early 90s after my husband buggered of for wealthier grounds, I used to get £83 a week income support for me and 3 children. He paid no maintenance, as his woman kept him. That would be worth £172 today. Actual UC amount for a single parent with 3 children today- £1800 on Tyrn2us . I got the equivalent of £745. For everything.

But yeah. We ALL had it easy.

The collective loathing borne of fake news and false information towards particular groups on Mumsnet is just so awful.

Whether it's Boomers, people with hidden disabilities (on another thread), people of faith of any kind, or any other perceived failings, so many of the people on here are so very judgemental, biased and downright nasty.

Makes me very sad. And angry. But mainly sad.

Scotland does indeed have a major issue with alcohol and drugs. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-46253943 It makes total sense to me that the long dark nights, high winds, heavy rain and lack of sunlight in winter have an effect. You see the same thing in other northern countries. So yes, there's some substance to that stereotype.

Let's be quite clear, though, there is no substance at all to the 'All Irish people are stupid' and 'All Boomers are selfish' stereotypes. Let's list a few more inaccurate stereotypes.

'Women can't read maps/do maths/parallel park'
'Young people waste all their money on avocadoes and coffee, that's why they can't afford to buy houses these days'
'All members of [insert Religion or Ethnic group here] are [insert derogatory or patronising adjective here]'.

So all Scottish people are alcoholics? The whole point of this debate has been that indeed some boomers are selfish as has been demonstrated by anecdotes on here. However we don't want to tar a whole generation by the same brush.

Scotland's number of alcohol related deaths is indeed higher per head of population than the rest of the UK, but the whole of The UK are seeing an increase in alcohol related deaths.

Therefore although there are some truths in there, not all Scots are alcoholic.

Indeed there will be some Irish people who in my eyes are stupid, just as there are in every country across the world. But this does not mean every Irish person is stupid.

Casual racism must not go unchallenged, and the same for ageism.

Which is why many of us on this thread are sad and hurt by the generalisations of those younger than us about a whole generation.

So all Scottish people are alcoholics? Did I make that statement? No. Scotland, as a nation, has a drink problem. Boomers, as a generation, have accumulated and retained the greatest portion of wealth compared to any other generation. Which is what makes the 'spending your inheritance' remark so barbed, cruel and deeply unfunny.

No, we don't.

Look at OPs exact words. We don't want the money. Or feel entitled.

If someone is going to write "it's not even feeling entitled" and you still prattle on about "they're entitled" there's something wrong with your comprehension.

Just can't understand how some parents are that ignorant, self congratulating and selfish. And the common theme is that they fall into one generation.

The generation before was nothing like that. Nor the generation after. In general. Which needs pointing out because some people can't get their head round the notion that identifying a handful of individuals on a thread, to the contrary, accounts for dismantling the renowned stereotype of the entire generation.

You're just pissy because it's your generation and hitting close to home. People who didn't achieve something, just had it "happen" to them by nothing more than luck, don't like having to admit that. And that's what the hundreds of thousands made via the housing market situation is.

None of the millennials are getting offended. Because as a PP said, the only stuff in response is utter bollocks. And that's not offensive. Whereas the boomers aren't liking the facts...

Well I'm not a boomer and nor were my parents and I still think you're talking out of your arse.

Ah, that's your confusion. You think we think we're the worst off.

Let me clarify. Loads of people have had it worse. Loads.

Boomers had it the best by far.

The generation before was nothing like that.

You’re wrong. The generation before didn’t pass on their wealth in their lifetimes. That’s part of the reason the boomer generation is wealthy because of large inheritances. It remains to be seen what Gen X does as it inherits large sums of money. My guess is they’ll be the ones to be reviled in 20 years time.

Sigh. Do you often struggle this much?

No, they didn't pass on the money they didn't have. I didn't realise we were at that level of explanation...

They weren't selfish, self absorbed and self congratulating. They helped their children where they could. Not declare how clever and shrewd they'd been, and they've "done their bit" regards raising and "owing" their children anything, scoffing that they just need to work harder, because in their minds, that's all they did.

They helped their children where they could.

Except they didn’t unlike most of my generation. Where do you think house deposits come from now? One in seven first time buyers receive their deposit as a gift. That’s an element of house price inflation. I know someone who bought their only child a house outright when they inherited, the grandparents had the money to do that except they didn’t.

How do you know "what the generation before" did?

I very much doubt you were there.

So you're either just guessing or extrapolating from the small number of people you knew about.

But I know my parents (born just after the war) and their siblings were telling their parents to spend on themselves because they deserved it. I know this because I heard it.
So maybe the difference is these "boomers," that you say are so selfish and greedy, didn't complain about "their inheritance" being spent which is why you think it didn't happen.
You are judging them by your standards of greed and vocal complaints when their standards were better.

1. One poster's family is just that - one family. In most families one set of grandparents behave differently to the other set of grandparents - imagine! Even within the nuclear family, the two parents may behave differently. So you can't generalise from your own family to everyone else the same age as your family members.
2. Of course Boomers are getting it in the neck from some MN posters. MN disproportionately attracts parents of young children and teenagers and would be parents, who at the moment are likely to be aged between 20 and 50. What age are their parents going to be? Take a wild guess. I am 63. My parents were in the so called Silent Generation. They were the ones who in some cases (my Mum being one of them) got the chance to retire early on good inflation-linked final salary pensions. They were the first generation to be able to buy their own homes on a large scale. They benefited from house price inflation. Do they get pilloried on MN? No, because they are mostly now dead or very elderly indeed, as my Mum is. And guess what, the supposedly selfish self-centred Boomers are the ones looking after their very elderly relatives as well as their children.