To feel there is no future for children unless they

[Honeyyourfamilar]

unless they start a business or are super academic or excel in their careers.

I grew up in a working class neighbourhood in London (zone 6 so maybe not London London) and so many of the parents were normal working class people who owned their own homes: postman, bus drivers, dinner ladies, mechanics. There was a couple who both worked in supermarkets and they owned their own home. In a few families only the bloke worked and that was enough to sustain the family - I am maybe showing my age.

These were people in their early 30s who were financially secure. Now those houses are worth £500k plus and there is no way someone working a low paid job could afford that.

Two people making £30k a year will get £240k mortgage, where is the other amount going to come from?

I think that young people don't have a future here anyone.

The only way someone who isn't earning a decent wage can afford to buy a house is if they get an inheritance or if their parents sell their £500k house, that they purchased for £30k, and downsize, and give a deposit to their kids.

The amount of families renting and dependent on housing benefit is just a disgrace. It also means people stay in horrible relationships because they cannot afford to leave.

This country is a ***.

I would have left London but I'm a Londoner as is DH and parents are getting elderly plus all extended family is here.

The jobs you are describing:

postman, bus drivers, dinner ladies, mechanics

Of course!

So teachers shouldn’t live in London and teach London’s children?

Or do you think no children should live in London?

And of course no one should have family and a support network in London, or for it to have been their lifelong home.

I for one am glad there are teachers in London, teaching my child, and it’s outrageous that a teacher would struggle to afford to live in London. A shame anyone thinks otherwise.

It baffles me that people in London don’t understand that they’re in a full, entire country, and that life exists outside of the M25. Astounding.

To question if there are jobs outside of London 😂

no, there aren’t, once you get to the midlands we all turn into Neanderthals who live in caves with no amenities and we hunt our own food 😂 ffs 🤦🏻‍♀️

I live in North Cumbria on the Scottish border, we have electricity and everything. Of course there are jobs, good ones. The quality of life is great, I live in an idyllic little village on Hadrians wall. My house has three bedrooms, two reception rooms and a large kitchen, gardens back and front. You would pay around £190, 000 for it.
I'm a proud northerner so even a throwaway comment suggesting we are somehow inferior to those living in the south raises my hackles. My last job before I retired was in senior management and I earned 85k.

But again, you weren't born in London and didn't grow up there so of course you don't have the same connections and identity with the place.

The thing with "get a trade" is if everyone does that it reduces wages. Plus many are self employed so won't get the same sick pay, maternity pay, pension as say a teacher & it can be harder to still work in a trade into your late 60s/early 70s (state pension age) as people physically decline.

What is your point? The OP is talking about having no future not an affinity in a place.

@zoemum2006
@DorothyStorm

Yes, the suggestion that less academic ‘pupils’ (read ‘boys’) should learn a trade is all over the media at the moment - lots of radio phone-ins with caller after caller saying that university is a waste of time and plumbing/building/electrician work is the way to go. And every time I’m left thinking ‘But what about the girls?’

I get it in the context of Adolescence and the current crisis around boys’ underachievement, and I think it would be great if we could encourage a few more girls into trade, but realistically it won’t be the majority of non-academic girls who choose this route. I’m fortunate in that my own DD is academic and will have choices, but the wider implication, which worries me a bit, is that there won’t be many solid, well-paying, non-traditionally masculine jobs available in the future, and that gender roles will become more entrenched, with many women having to rely financially on the men who train in these more lucrative trade jobs.

So many places aren't much cheaper though and if your friends and family are all down south you might not fancy moving to a cheap part of the Midlands, or Norfolk or wherever.

A 3 bed terraced house in an ok-ish area in the town I live in is about £500-650k. If you want a nice area it's more like £800k+

I dont think people who have owned their house for 10 years or more realise how bad the rental market is.
We bought our house in 2021. At that time we were renting a 3 bed house for £650 a month. That same house with no improvements has just gone up to rent for £1700 a month!!!!! how are people supposed to rent AND save for a deposit when rents (and other bills) have gone up so much??

Lots of people can afford a mortage but it is saving the deposit that is the killer.

I’ll be absolutely flamed for this but I do think that people in their teens and 20s these days generally spend a lot of unnecessary money, that my generation didn’t (unless they were wealthy). I see a lot of low income people in my job, and they all have fancy phones. The women often have their nails professionally done, and Botox. Many young people wear designer clothes, and trainers costing more than my car. My son is turning 16 soon and has asked for various designer items. I didn’t even know designer clothes and cosmetic surgery existed outside Hollywood when I was that age. My clothes all came from charity shops. And no one can walk 100 yards down the street without spending £5 on a cup of coffee these days.

I know it’s a tiny amount of money, compared to the cost of buying a house, but these little things do add up.

I think these days there is more of a focus on spending to enjoy the moment, rather than saving for the future. I was turned down for my first credit card in my mid 20s, despite being a junior doctor. These days everyone seems to have them.

Such an ignorant post. You are one of those people that thinks London is the only decent place in the UK. I am from London and hated it. Left and now have a big house in the SW for under £300k. Both me and DH have good jobs and we live a lovely comfortable life with our DC. Oh and we are not "academic" just worked our way up.

I don't think you mean what you've written.
Unless there are 100 women qualified in trades and only one of them is working.
Why don't your DD want to go into trades? Have you told them women can't do them?
My DD loves making things. We are encouraging her towards a trade.

People will have to leave the south east. Which I think is a good thing actually. What will / has happened is a huge wealth divide - I wonder when the tide will turn and most people will finally start voting for more socialist based politics that actually benefit them; instead of them voting conservative in some kind of epic brainwashed/aspirational false reality!!

But that's just defensive, theres nothing wrong with thinking there is a huge problem with large numbers of people (not just a few) being able to stay in a region of the country they have roots in. I am not sure why the government is so passive about it all, it's call regulation, surely they can't implement something like in Denmark where you have to be a resident for a certain amount of time before being allowed to buy.

Houses do not cost anywhere near that much where I live in a working class area. We are in the process of buying a 4 bed large terrace for £100,000.

Some of the best careers a person can enter are working class, do you think trades aren't making money or are not in exceptionally high demand?

Why not girls?

There's nothing to stop a girl / woman training as an electrician, engineer, etc. I use female decorators and I know of a female plumber who is very much in demand especially with single women households.

There are lots of schemes to encourage women into more manual skilled jobs like this too.

Maybe it's prejudice like yours that these jobs aren't for women that is the problem.

That aside there will still be lots of other jobs available.

London still needs retail workers, bar staff, cleaners, nursery workers, tfl staff and a host of workers who are typically on below average wages....and they need somewhere to live.

I believe they have been replaced my economic immigrants who live in mouldy houseshares. A deliberate policy by subsequent governments, BTW.

Yes, but is that 1% of the women who are in those trades or 1% of all the people in them, men and women.

If the latter then that statistic is meaningless - only 1% of the trade is women, because women don’t go into those trades. It doesn’t mean if they do they’re likely to be unemployed.

Having no future in London and the south east, which is a very large region of the country, why should our kids have no future here, if that's where they are from!

I’m not the OP but very similar position, zone 5 London. I appreciate what you say… But it’s just (un)luck of the draw being born so close to London - therefore to have to leave all your roots and family, my mum is in a council flat and works locally, and helps out with childcare, if I moved north I would have no support network at all.

What everyone will have to leave the south east who can't afford it, how's that the answer and how does that bring about wealth equality?

The only way to change it is to move away from unfettered capitalism. Trickle down economics doesn’t work. We need to redistribute wealth and address inequality. I’m no socialist but we do need move towards that on the continuum. The pendulum probably needs to swing more towards that than we might like for a while until over time it can move back again. You are right. There is no way to wealth or even a decent quality of life, if you are poor, apart from for a lucky few.

Vote wisely.

Or do you think no children should live in London?

Well, that’s well on its way to happening; I’m a school governor in outer London and in our meetings we are constantly discussing how to secure our school’s future in a landscape of plummeting birth rates and families leaving London. Schools around us are closing or amalgamating as pupil cohorts reduce in size year on year - started in inner London and has spread outwards.

My own family is a good case in point, as despite a household income in the top 4/5% nationally, a small house in an unfashionable suburb and only one child we are finding the cost of living here a struggle, and between that and the general deterioration of our local area since Brexit/covid we plan to leave London too this year. It just isn’t sustainable.