To wonder what people actually expect and why they can’t just be happy to live simply?

[Terrazzomazzo]

So many posts on here of people saying that they are running out of money and “I have no fun money” et. Why can’t people just be happy that they have enough to pay their mortgage pay their bills and feed their family and clothe their children? When did holidays , excess “stuff” and weekends of fun days out and take away etc become a given right and expectation?

All I am saying is that my kids are not an inferior race, and there's no reason why they should be satisfied with nothing when others have everything. They will never have super-rich parents, of course, but there's a lot they can have, that everybody can have.

nothing to do with SM. There was no SM when I was a child, my parents still provided us with as many opportunities as they could. I don't give opportunities to my kids to put them on tik tok, but because that's my responsibility as a parent. I don't even use tik tok 😂

If you believe everyone is only living their life for social media, it's you who has the problem, not me

I think the issue is that pre-COL crisis, people had these things and now they’re taken away. DH and I both earn far more than pre-covid and have taken on inordinately more stress for the pleasure of earning more yet we have less to spare because so much more goes on bills.

Honestly, I don’t see the point of life; work, stress, go home and feel anxious about the next day, budget for food, spend the weekend trying to catch up on all the jobs you don’t have time to do in the week and feel even more anxious about Monday morning, and then do it all over again next week. If it wasn’t for DS and my dog, I’d put an end to it right now.

they weren’t spending a fortune on luxuries that are now deemed to be necessities alongside.

But you have just decided this, they had more dc for one which is the height of luxury.

Even 20 years ago my kids went to the beach, had a picnic and were lucky if they left with an ice cream .

Why do you think this still isn't a thing? I was in Cornwall in the summer, loads of families including me had bought food with them...

@Londonmummy66 my parents went out far more than DH & I do, we are more tired because we work more and babysitting is more expensive, life is more expensive in general.

I can assure you that my kids did not get a toy a drink or a McDonalds everytime we went to the supermarket - nor did they wander around glued to a tablet.

Lets just agree that you never had more than an orange and a lump of coal for Christmas, had one day out a year and your teenage fun was knitting your own socks huddled over the single bar electric heater in the one room your family occupied. However the level of childhood poverty in the country now is truly appalling and family referrals to the foodbank I volunteer with are significantly increased. A lot of those families have no resident father - I expect the flashy cars and expensive tech is being bought by the deadbeat dads who weasle out of paying CM and let the state pick up the tab. And the expensive days out are no doubt paid for by a lot of Disney dads who see their children EoW and think they are parent of the year for taking the children to the cinema and Mc Donalds.

But that isn’t true. That may have been your experience, but those that could afford the equivalent of that time period were spending money on them.

Hell, my parents grew up in Communist and socialist countries, and there was a huge black market in both for non state sanctioned luxuries that those with the means certainly took advantage of.

I don't know where you got that "family had fun staying indoors" when that's not the experience of a lot of us. Read the thread about the kids bored to death and dreading Sundays because they has nothing to do.

Playing board games, cards, watching films and documentaries together, drawing, painting
that's my idea of hell, and my kids would go nuts if that's all they could do. They can enjoy a bit of quiet time because they do other things first.

Nature walks are 'boring' well, they are?😂

Doesn't it occur to you that a lot of people are active, need to be active and it's the opposite of a modern thing.

On one side people keep banging on that kids in the past used to be outside, running, walking, climbing - and never home but on the other side, some posters pretend that kids must stay home pottering around doing nothing all weekend.

I also think too many kids are put into afterschool dance, music, activity clubs.
As opposed to..? Clubs were cheaper when I was younger, so we all used to do a lot more after school sports!

Between sport tournaments, clubs and parties, I dont' have to organise anything at the weekend, my kids are busy. So were my parents.. It's not a modern thing.

Again, we tried the quiet life during lockdown. Never again.

I don't think you are wrong OP.

People complain about having so much less than their parents or grandparents, not being able to have a house, etc.

But the fact is most people expect far more in terms of consumer goods and services, and "experiences" like travel.

Most research on happiness says that those aren't the things that really increase happiness though.

Of course people were spending on luxeries as soon as they had disposable income to do so, just as they are now.

It's just that what is seen as luxuries has changed, fairly obviously.

I grew up in the 80s. I remember multiple holidays a year, new bikes and computer games. Things haven't changed that much.

I like long walks, going to the library, reading and I'm even sort of starting to like cooking (a bit). But I work quite hard, long week after long week and actually like to use the money I earn to live a little. That's why I go to work, to earn money, to spend, sometimes on lovely, lovely things.

I think there are a huge benefits to more simple activities like nature walks, board games and reading. It’s an antidote to all the screen time.
There’s nothing wrong with spending on luxuries either. People work hard these days. Both parents work and try to raise a family. Why shouldn’t they have takeaways and holidays?

Listen to the song Bread and Roses, OP. Hearts starve as well as bodies.

Oh I love that song ❤️

Because the quality of life in the 90s was a "blip". That generation had it far better than generations before and generations after. We're still all paying for it now as it was a generation based on debt and unrealistic investment returns (i.e. massive endowment mortgage pay outs never seen before nor after!). It wasn't sustainable so now we're having to scale things back.

Not saying they shouldn’t but expecting them every week and year and other things on top is ludicrous. Pick what you want but you can’t have it all.

Your point only works because you make fun sound shitty and trivial. Fun can look like a singing lesson, strawberries in summer, books to read, a bucket and spade for the seaside. Plenty of people are priced out of these things. Especially out of buying them ethically, before you tell me you can get that for 20p in your crappy local store that shafts workers and the environment all the way down the line. It's bloody expensive just staying afloat.

Sorry but that isn’t true. People didn’t have multiple holidays a year, even the richest didn’t in our village. Re computer games the only computer to be had was a Sinclair spectrum which weren’t widely owned and even those only had a couple of games you bought once. I taught in the 90s and the only computers kids came across were a couple
of moldy old BBC’s an entire class clustered round.

This is so true. Our quality of life has tanked in so many of these less tangible ways, and on top of that the communities that people used to live having these simple lives have been fragmented and we do it all with less support and further from people we love in many cases too. You put it well.

Whilst I do feel there is more to life than just achieving the basics, there is something around 'higher expectations' having potentially an adverse impact on enjoying life. For everyone, there will always be people with comparatively more money, better houses, holidays, cars, kitchens etc. but it is debatable whether any of these really matter, or equate to happiness.

I see half the things listed on this thread as 'living simply' as actually being signs of wealth whereas some of the 'luxuries' are signs of poverty.

I still think this is spot on.

Reminds me when Kate Middleton was talking about "simple things" with the kids, baking cookies (or whatever it was) and "fun in the garden". 😂

I volunteer in a club with kids raised in your typical suburbian high skyscrapers and not the nice ones. Telling me they should enjoy "the simple life" and stay indoors instead of expecting entertainment in clubs and after-school activities is hilarious.

Holiday towns and destinations were already thriving so it clearly was true!

Ah yes, because if it didn’t happen in your village it didn’t happen anywhere.

🥴

But people weren’t having multiple holidays a year. in them.They just weren’t

Care to share some stats. Just because you say it happened doesn’t mean it did.