Do you feel you have a better quality of life than your parents?

[justponderingalong]

Just pondering really because I can’t get off to sleep. My upstairs neighbors are re arranging furniture 🙄 and I was thinking how lovely it would be to have a house like my parents did when I was a child so I didn’t have to listen to it ! When I think back my mum was a stay at home mum and my dad worked for the council. Me and my husband have what I would consider better jobs but we couldn’t afford a detached with a big garden. My parents deffo had a better lifestyle than my grandparents so I’m wondering if it’s a generational thing ? I imagine the next generation will probably be feeling like my generation won the lottery by having a flat so I know I’m lucky. What changed the each generation doing better than the last thing or is that a myth ?

I definitely have a much higher standard of living than my parents. Not helped by my dad dying when I was 8 but even so, there’s no way they would ever have been in the position I am and both my children are.

So sorry for your loss that’s a terrible thing to go through at such a young age. It’s good to hear things turned out well for you 🥰

Can’t compare really- we have internet, mobile phones and streaming services, all the norm now, we buy junk food in our shop, go on foreign holidays every two years- they had none if that as most weren’t a thing, saying that as kids we didn’t wear the cheapest clothes and we did activities and they had savings so I guess a better quality of life than us

A lot will depend on your age, my childhood was more comfortable than my parents childhood. But zi would never be able to afford my parents home & their early retirement etc particularly not on one salary.

No.

more money but I’m disabled and my dad was in good health most of his life and my mum still is.

No I don't think so. My mum never worked. They had a big house, holidays abroad, a busy social life, lots of parties and 5 kids at private school.

I am a single mum, work full time, rent and rarely have time, money or energy for anything fun.

Broadly, yes. I think we have the massive advantage though of being able to work flexibly in a way that my parents couldn’t. DH and I spend more time at home and more time with DS than my parents could spend with me because they were out at work all week.

I'm much worse off financially than my parents. I grew up in a big house, with holidays i could never afford for my children. My mum never had to make a mortgage payment or put any money into a pension and she's still had a far more luxurious retirement than I'll have, despite me having a good job.

100%. They both worked in factories on poor wages . No proper bathroom . Bath was off the kitchen . No car until stepdad , who had a motorbike licence, decided to buy a Reliant Robin which crumpled when he hit a wall! 1 holiday in Blackpool in a holiday flat otherwise it was coach trips for the day with a flask and sandwiches. My mum could make meals out of nothing. Stepdad wouldn’t put the lights on until we really couldn’t see . One TV and he controlled what was on. But all the bills were paid and we were secure .

interesting answers I hadn’t thought about flexible working we don’t have jobs that can be done from home. Although like I say my mum never worked she did a bit here and there once we were older but never anything that was relied on to pay bills or anything

Impossible to answer really

I mean, central heating wasn't even a norm for them when they left home for example - but they had access to better resources in other ways. By the time I was a little kid, it was that you could keep the heating on for an hour a day when it was very cold.

Oh thank you, it was a very long time ago now (1970) but my mum was a trouper and much tougher than I think people expected. We all did ok and she survived him till the grand age of 97.

Yes, 100%. My mother didn't really work outside the home...it was discouraged a bit. I would hate that. Tax rates were high, disposable income low. Heating oil pretty much unaffordable. I was a teenager before we got a shower put in. Flights expensive so holidays were to Wales, off-peak times.

They have a lot more disposable income now and a more comfortable life. And so do we.

I wonder if it makes a difference which generation you are too and which generation your parents are 🤔 because I know the generation who went through the war had it incredibly hard ! and their parents would have gone through the First World War. Then we are going back to victorians which can’t have been pleasant unless you were incredibly wealthy

My quality of life is far better. My mum was an alcoholic with an alcoholic husband, neither worked and had no interest in us or anything except alcohol. Lived in a council house on benefits in a really rough estate.

My dad worked all week and was alone at night missing us, spent all weekend with us so had no social life till we were teens and never really had loads of spare cash due to paying maintenance. Never had a relationship till we were older. Our holidays with him were a couple of weeks down south staying with family, but they were always great.

Edited to add ages after your latest post. I'm 40, my mum would have been 69 in a November (passed away three years ago). My dad's 72 this year.

My maternal grandparents (born around 1910) started married life living in flat without much money (both were born into poverty) but by their mid 40s lived in a detached bungalow in an affluent suburb. My Gran didn't work outside the home once she married. Paternal grandparents were poor, small council flat with multiple children.

My parents were able to buy a fairly large semi detached house in the same suburb around the age of 30. Mum worked part time. Decent but not high earners.

We are mid 40s, living in a small terrace in an ok but not great area. Both working in jobs that required many years of study .So if considering only housing, we are definitely worse off. In terms of wider life it's harder to say. I've had educational and travel opportunities my grandparents could only have dreamed of. My world is much bigger than theirs was. But they were happy.

@DidYeAye16 that’s heartbreaking I’m so sorry 🥰 and I’m so glad your life turned around.

Significantly. We lived in a council house, dad had periods of unemployment in the 80s, both he and my mum left school at 15 and had low paid manual jobs, caravan holidays in the uk, plenty of memories related to things being financially very tough. Childcare wasn’t really an option so my dad worked days and my mum worked evenings or nights. I did a lot of babysitting from a very young age for my siblings.

i have a four bedroom house, senior leadership job, highest earner in our family, some great holidays abroad with a few short breaks thrown in every year. We’re not what I would consider rich or wealthy (still got a chunky mortgage, no other assets), but we have a good income and a decent standard of living. DC upbringing is significantly different from mine. DC also have a good financial start in life, but that’s a mix of inheritance/compensation so so it’s a pot tinged with sadness.

DH would suggest he’s not better off than his parents if they were both still here, but I think it will pan out fairly even.

Quality of life isn't just about assets and income though.

I think there is a lot more pressure in our working lives than my parents experienced, mainly caused by the immediacy of email/teams etc. where 40 years ago it was letters and visits in person.

Traffic wasnt as manic and aggressive.

Parenting wasn't as guilt-riddled and we would disappear to a field most of the summer.

You could call the Dr and they'd visit the house same day if you were really ill! All my dentistry was free - I'm looking at 3k or a 6y wait for DS braces.

I think quality of life has been quite negatively affected by life becoming too fast, too much information, not enough resources and everyone being quite stressed and overloaded by it all.

Overall, yes. My Mum was a SAHM but I would not have wanted to do the same. My Dad worked abroad when I was teenager and DH comes home every night. That was a red line for me when dating. I grew up a Third Culture Kid and my DC have only ever known one house, one school, one community.

They possibly had more disposable income adjusted for inflation but I think we have more savings, more investments and will have better pensions.

We just have different priorities. Eating out every week, dinner parties at home and holidaying abroad were big priorities for my parents. DD1 is autistic so our priorities are really different as parents. I think that might be generational. My parents were early Boomers. As children, we fit in to what they wanted. DH and I tend to do what DD1 will cope with.

Yes and no.

No’s the easiest - financially, definitely not. They bought a house on low, unskilled work with my mum in her 20s and my dad in his 30s. They paid that off just as I left home. My mum worked part time all her life and my dad thought he was hard-done to for having to work. My dad retired at 65 and my mum at age 60 and were supported by the state until they died (my mums still with us).

Yes, well in all honesty it’s hard to say, I believe I have the richer life in terms of accessing and appreciating nature and making and growing things but then that’s my interest. My dad loved his sport, football primarily and like most men expected everybody else’s lives to centre around what he wanted. They were also able to travel more and have more leisure time which I would do if I could. I started this post thinking I’d be able to say that in my choices I’m richer , I’ve given myself more freedom by not having more kids than I could afford and, gaining an education enriching in itself and planning a career, but economics restricts everything and my finances are nothing like what they got for less work. I couldn’t even think about buying until my 40s, I actually thought it wouldn’t happen and had to make significant sacrifices for it. Sign of that generation, they were both baby boomers.

Quite similar i think. My advantage is is I can work part time and my mother worked full time.

I would have hated my mother's life - being expected to give up work once she got married / pregnant, just stuck at home looking after husband and children, however nice that home was.

Nope, I can only dream of a life like my parents had: massive house on one income, kids at private schools, sports cars, skiing holidays… whereas DH and I live in a tiny house in a crappy area, earn quite badly despite being well educated and working bloody hard; kids are struggling through their overcrowded, underfunded schools and have never been abroad. It couldn’t be more different and I worry for today’s DC.

@TisEye that’s really interesting what you say I would agree that life has got much faster for sure !.