AIBU to think we've done nothing wrong helping our son get his first full time job in London?

[OneMerryFinch]

Our eldest graduated last year with a First in Economics and Maths from Durham. We were incredibly proud of him because he worked very hard. Worked very hard through school, did lots of work experiences, debating abroad, rowing, essentially seized every opportunity he’s not lazy at all.

While at university he found all of his internships himself and also secured a year-long placement. They offered him a graduate role afterwards on £35k in London, but he didn't want to go back to the place. They gave him a wonderful reference despite out son being very honest saying that the pay was not great and that’s the reason. DH also thought that salary was poor for London given the cost of living.

After graduating he did another summer internship, then went travelling. When he came back in December he was living at home and working in a local farm shop. I arranged that job because I've known the owners all my life (I actually worked there myself as a teenager).

He was applying for graduate jobs but wanted to move to London without being completely skint. His girlfriend already lives there. She earns around £30k in publishing but her parents pay her rent, so she's able to save and enjoy herself.

DH asked around among people he knows. His own company couldn't take him because they prefer graduates with some experience, but one of DH's friends said they had a suitable role and encouraged him to apply. He was offered the job on £40k. We've also offered to help him with his rent while he's getting established.

My friend’s son is a similar age and has been struggling to find graduate work. She asked how our son got his job and what the salary was. I answered honestly.

Now she's saying we've raised him to be spoiled, that it's unfair he got a job through connections, and that other young people don't have those opportunities.

My view is that he earned his degree himself, found all of his internships and placement himself, got excellent references, and had already proved he could do the work. Yes, DH's friend opened a door, but surely that's what networking is? Plenty of jobs are filled through recommendations, especially when someone is trusted.

Why can’t we just help our own son. It’s not as though he took the job from someone else, the job didn’t even exist on adverts. It’s how people get jobs, my first job after graduating my dad got me the job in London in the 90s and then I worked my way. It’s not as though he got me every single job.

The world just isn’t fair, why should our son have to suffer just because the world isn’t fair. We are aware the world isn’t fair that’s why we are using our connections. Everyone just wants the best for their kids it’s not done maliciously.

AIBU to think we've done nothing wrong?

I agree, you haven't done anything wrong. It is a fact that plenty of jobs come about through contacts and networking and there's no reason why you and your son shouldn't take advantage of that. It is, however, also unfair, that young people who have the same talents but lack the connections through their parents and other networks don't get the same opportunities. And the way the graduate job market is at the moment, that is a harsher fact than ever. You could show more awareness of that.

Not really your question, but some of you and your son's comments on pay levels do feel a bit "spoiled". My recent graduate daughter is living independently in London on a little over 30K a year (paying her own rent and bills in a flat share) and having an amazing time. She feels very lucky. My even more recent graduate son is living at home while working in the pub, doing two days a week voluntary work, and job hunting. Having coffee today with a friend of ours who may be a useful connection....( and I'm more than fine with that approach!). He would be very happy to get a job paying 35k in London.

Edited to add: I don't think it is "spoiled" to turn down a job if you think you can something higher paid. But the idea that you can't enjoy living in London as a single young person supporting yourself on £35-40k smacks of over privilege.

Its not at all normal in my field, if that's any consolation, and my son found his graduate job entirely unaided (although I did help him with his CV).

I have friends whose kids didn't go to uni and who are now working as apprentice builders, electricians and on building sites and every single one of those was brokered by their Dads though.

Ultimately everyone does what they can to help their kids, but I'd rather hire a 30y old that stood on their own two feet and had the get up and go to arrange things for themselves.

A number of posters here apppear to be unaware of salaries for econ grads from Russell groups. They are high.
One of my DC is earning nearly half of what the other does, because one is an econ grad and the other a humanities grad.

I agree with you to an extent, but I also think we need to be careful what we consider to be someone’s ’full potential’. Is it the amount of money they earn? The car they drive? Where they live? I think we value the wrong things in life as markers of success.

I’m from a lower middle class background (not that much money but lots of education, cultural capital etc) and my husband is from a very working class background.

He’s clever and extremely hard-working. He was the first person in his family to go to university. His parents sent him the odd tenner and otherwise he worked throughout his degree and somehow came out without any debt.

He probably got a lower degree classification than if he’d had his rent paid etc, but he had the satisfaction of knowing he did it himself. He is a wonderful person and a brilliant Dad. He likes his job and is extremely content with his life. He is confident and resilient and sleeps well at night.

Has he met his full potential?

I’ve got several degrees. Lots of student debts (that my husband has helped me pay off) and a rewarding but extremely stressful professional career that I have had to largely abandon (at least in the short term) to look after our adopted children who have additional needs. I am very tired, sometimes overwhelmed but happily married with two beautiful children and am largely happy with my choices.

Have I met my full potential?

Wtf on 40k do you need to pay his rent? He'll more than be able to afford rent,given London rent he's earning enough. There are people/families on nmw that afford to pay rent/mortgages.
I don't think your son is nessasarily spoilt because he got a job word of mouth but I think youre not helping by paying rent for him,he needs to grow up and learn to budget

If that’s the case, surely he should have held out for higher than £40k, which was only £5k above what he was able to get on his own steam?

Not as if the job his dad intervened to get him was double the first role’s salary.

I think it’s called showing off

I really don't think he was being taken advantage of. Now you are sounding unreasonable.

I wouldn’t have done this, there was nothing wrong with taking the 35k as opposed to turning it down for a 40k one through my contacts.

Not on point but if I were you I would get this post removed as the facts in your OP are on the edge of identifying your son

Your son sounds entitled and insufferable. I think what’s happened is that he’s turned down the first job which he felt far too good for, struggled to get another so his dad had to step in to help him. He did not get his current job through merit at all.

Exactky, 35K was an entirely normal grad starting salary and was likely to increase quickly over the following few years as part of a targeted and reviewed graduate program. Will that be the same at the smaller less etablished friend's company?

Econ grads earn very well, yes, but not convinced starting salaries in year 1 are massively higher are they? Law yes, but people are older as have had to do pupilages etc.

Everyone at every level does this, its just that some have access to better opportunities than others. Why do you need to pay his rent if he's earning 40k though?

Two things, OP:

Please remember that you gave your son this enormous leg-up. If you ever hear him being super-pleased with himself or looking down on others who haven't got to far so easily, please have the grace to remind him of his privilege. I say this because I've come across both parents and children who won't acknowledge the massive advantage they've had in being given an entree into a highly competitive field.

Also, how can less privileged but equally (who knows - maybe better) qualified young people get on in the world if everyone did what you've done? Would that be a fair way to run things? If you answer no to this, then you really do know that you've done something dodgy.

I don't blame you for doing this, but you shouldn't be surprised if other people are pissed off.

Sure. But that's not an excuse for the OP to come on here complaining about her friend's response to her bragging about her son, expressing complete bewilderment as to why anyone could possibly be rubbed up the wrong way by her comments.

Not sure this friend can say much now you’ve also offered to help ask around jobs for her ds as well!

Bear in mind your ds is getting older and might not appreciate you telling people about his earnings and how he got his job op, there comes a point where they’re fully fledged adults and only their business to discuss.

Yes he’s very fortunate and privileged but that’s the way of the world, someone will always have more money or contacts or whatever. I would have said it’s a bit tone deaf to be discussing how you’ve helped your ds with these things, if the other person isn’t in a similarly fortunate position. But you’ve offered to ask around contacts for her ds as well so she can’t really complain now!

Yanbu.

Loads of people get jobs of all levels through connections, whether friends , family or colleagues etc.

Congrats to your son and yes, any parent would do the same.

That said, using social capital (connections with the right friends) to get a job is inherently discriminatory and oppressive. Hypothetically, there might be a better qualified candidate from the wrong background who is locked out of that opportunity.

My beef is with the company who ought to advertise jobs and recruit in a fair and transparent way.

Your son has got a first from Durham, so clearly he is a bright lad and hardworking. You have helped him secure a job which I think is perfectly reasonable. 40K a year in London is not a big salary so I dont think its a case of elitism. Fairness doesnt come into it. Your friend just wants her son to do well. He will just have to do lots more job applications.

I think this is perfectly normal. My parents didn’t help me get a job. They had no connections and would have been absolutely no help in that respect. We were middle class, but not that sort of middle class that they would have had the global connections I needed. I did that myself.

But my mum did pay my rent in a similar city to London (but abroad, think like Paris or Madrid). And she helped me with living expenses so that I could take unpaid internships and lower paid roles that were good for my CV. She also helped me while I did a postgraduate course. This is very normal. It’s a bit like saying it’s unfair that children from farming families grow up learning to farm and have a farm to work on. Of course they do, because their family are farmers.

We will do the same for our dc. It’s rough out there. Everyone needs all the help they can get.

I haven't read the thread yet but my dc has just done his first year at Oxford and says one of the most noticeable things about it is the amount of people who know each other's families/all the networking/limited pool of schools people have come from/people being given work experience and internships through family connections etc. It's depressing and becomes enraging when the people involved act all disingenuous and won't even acknowledge the enormous privilege they and their children have.

We are a lower-middle-class family - parents public sector.

My son went to a state primary and a state comprehensive. He went to Cambridge (no tutors) and got a First. He did his law courses, including barrister training, and got Distinctions.

He got a pupillage by his own efforts. He had no help from us.

He (and we) can always be extremely proud of his huge achievement because he did it himself. That actually means a lot to us all - even though people like OP and her son might sneer.

You did nothing wrong OP.

We? You do sound a bit insufferable OP.

You haven't done anything wrong. We all take advantage of any privileges we have to advantage our young.

But if you talk IRL like you are on here, I'm not surprised you've had comments from your mates. Stop discussing your adult kids salary with people and how you can veto a job because it 'doesnt pay enough ' etc. just keep your mouth shut and life will be no dramas.