To feel sad watching all these kids going to school

[Artvanderrlay]

and wondering what sort of world they are going to enter when they turn 18 or 22.

I am sure many will excel but I fear a large number will end up financially insecure for most of their life.

When I graduated all those moons ago, I joined a graduate scheme, nothing fancy like investment bank, law or consultancy, it was with a well known high street retailer and I was earning around £23k, but many of my fellow grads were homeowners in their mid 20s, and their financial security is almost exclusively down to purchasing a property when they were so young.

A friend, who joined my scheme 3 years before me, purchased a flat in W12 for £240k in the early 00s. Her father was a postie and her mother worked part time in a supermarket, so the purchase was driven solely by her. She sold the flat this year for £800k, having rented it out for almost 15 years.

She is going to use the money to get her children onto the property ladder as soon as possible.

I was able to purchase my first flat 2.5 years after finishing university. A similar flat recently sold for £500k. There is no way I would have been able to do that now, and it terrifies what is going to happen to all these kids when they try to make their way into the world.

That’s unrealistic for the majority of people though. There won’t be many countries that will be open to those without specific skills/qualifications. Obviously there will be some but they won’t be the type of countries the youth of today would chose to go to.

To get in to ten likes of Australia and Canada is beyond difficult for the majority.

I would too, especially if they were boys - unfortunately, trades aren't seen as desirable jobs by girls, some are still misogynist, some involve going to people's houses alone, and some require physical strength...

@HelenHywaterThe rental system is what it is because we don’t build enough homes to rent! When tenants bought the council homes they were not replaced. Not by Labour or anyone. That’s the problem and Labour have done next to nothing in a year. They are not getting homes built in London any more than others could. So reform housing by all means! No houses - no reform!

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. Hoping ds gravitates to something AI proof like a trade of some description- my feeling is that a lot of other kids will be thinking the same thoughts.

& many girls are fit, strong & able to look after themselves as well as any boy.

my last plumber was female & the last boiler inspection was done by a woman.

neither of which I 'chose' as they were sent by the companies I chose.

The boiler inspector was in her 30's & very feminine, as well as fit (physically)

the main reason trades aren't seen as 'desirable' is because of attitudes that 'girls' don't do these jobs, you might want to look at your attitude, because it won't change until these attitudes are buried with the dinosaurs.

We don't have true AI, just some limited pattern-matching rubbish spitting out semi plausible junk, and so many people are already outsourcing their thinking to it. You may as well let PacMan or Donkey Kong run your life for you.

The kids who know how to read, think and truly write will be a truly precious commodity.

Why do you think that home ownership is central to happiness? I was 35 before I had a mortgage — owning property doesn’t make you happy or unhappy, it’s just another commitment. Your post is laden with assumptions about what is essential for a fulfilling life and I think those assumptions are deeply subjective and mainly false.

I worry more about my children potentially growing up under a government that is anti-Immigrant, nativist, will gut public services even further, and probably make life harder for women. But I know what you mean. The future looks a lot bleaker than it did even when I was graduating just after the 2008 recession.

But because we don't know what jobs they'll do or what skills will be useful in the future, I'm going to be encouraging my kids to be as open to ideas and curious as they can. There has been a lot of talk about encouraging children down quite narrow, strictly vocational paths (learn to code! do an apprenticeship!) but transferable skills and a capacity to learn are likely to be more important than ever - this is the same for trades and professional jobs. DH and I are both quite unusual in that we got jobs we trained for and have been - and likely will be - in the same industries the whole of our lives. Amongst our friends, the pattern is much more mobile - between sectors, roles, going back to training.

I'm pretty sceptical about the claim that employers "struggle to find staff" when not a single one of them even so much as offered me an interview (and I've done cleaning and cash-handling jobs before).

Not even when I passed the Tesco test.🙃

I don't have an "attitude". I would love to see more girls go into trades, but if we want this to happen, we need to look at why they don't.

My eldest 2 dc (teacher and engineer) have bought houses in their early 20s by going to places where property is affordable.

There’s a hugely widening wealth gap developing. Those young people whose parents are now inheriting large property wealth so can afford to gift large deposits or buy their kids properties outright and those who will never be able to get on the property ladder or will have to wait until they’re late 30’s.

owning property doesn’t make you happy or unhappy

It depends what you want in life though. In my 20s I was more than happy to rent. I didn't want to settle down, I didn't want to have to think about plumbing or mortgages. In my 30s it was a very different story. Having to move every year, never feeling settled, not being able to put down roots or make a home feel your own, became genuinely life limiting.

I have a friend with 4 kids who had a great deal on her rent, she and her partner made the house beautiful and they were just down the road from the school. Then one day the landlord decided he wanted to up the rent by 20% and their whole life was turned upside down. It's no way to live.

To do this though, you need to have a job which is in demand in those places, and which also has a measure of security, so you are unlikely to find yourself out of work a year after buying a house.