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'm a bit gobsmacked by your logic here. Your son was well off because you were giving him money but you think he was underprivileged because as a result of that money he didn't get free dental treatment??

There is only limited entitlement to free dental treatment: under 19; pregnant or with a child under 1 year; or on specific benefits. I really don't think you paying his rent 'worked against him'. And it's not clear how the money you paid him would come up when the NHS checked those categories anyway.

Honesty he got his job. Good on him..he should thrive at it and work hard

I trudged through your very detailed opening post @OneMerryFinch, which due to the differences to your other posts in general construction and grammar, I'm assuming to be chatgpt written?

I don't have any issue with helping your kids out. We've done the same. But I don't understand why you chose to tell a friend who was clearly not in a position to do the same? Or why £5000 a year was the difference between being an acceptable job and being 'taken advantage of' as far as your son was concerned? It makes no rational sense whatsoever.

I get that but some were from people I knew via my parents or knew of my parents (Had worked with) so not all off my own back!

Unfortunately recent advancements in AI have made it harder to get jobs because you never interact with a real person therefore although for a while we were as a society moving away from the whole "who you know" world" we are now 100% back in it.
And your friend can always ask you for a job for hers can't she? I ask around for my friends kids as well as mine.
She's being a bitch

Well done you and ignore your friend.
Sometimes its not just what but who you know.

But what you said was "Unless they’re from absolutely nowhere near London ALL his friends are currently living back at home". But it seems you don't actually no-one anyone other than those who are "much less than an hour away" or "properly out of town from Manchester/Leeds".

Imagine being bitchy about someone else's child's success in life

Quite. Nonsense post. University students don't get free dental treatment anyway.

This. So many youngsters get bucketloads of help from parents: I had a couple asking for bifold door installer recommendations for their daughter (who lives in a house in Hackney which they also probably helped her buy). I’d estimate she was well into her 30s. There’s a time to cut the apron strings and too many parents leave them dangling for far too long.

My dd has got a first in Economics and has a very well paid graduate job in a bulge bracket investment bank . She will out earn most of the people we know and definitely many graduates
Do you know what ?We haven’t told anyone not even close friends where she works and how much she is earning . It just breeds resentment and jealousy
Op, your mistake is that you are tone deaf to the realities out there , most people would be grateful to be earning £35k . So your graduate son turning down that amount of money will obviously irk

I think even if the OP has done her son a disservice and he does not succeed despite his privilege the bigger problem is the disservice done to society when people who have been given a leg up succeed. I think it's easy for privileged people to think they are the best at something if they are successful without understanding that their field of competion was narrowed by privilege that excluded equally or more talented people from the opportunities they have enjoyed. It means that the people we elevate to positions of power and influence may be the best within the field of competion created by privilege without necessarily being the best there is. It's why we end up with so many mediocre and arrogant people in highly influential jobs. We all pay the price for nepo babies.

I do wonder if all the HR initiatives and AI are actually making things swing back around so an introduction from a relative or work experience via a friend’s dad can make the difference.
I see so many virtually identical CVs. All 2.1 or 1st. Often a masters. We do a point scoring system against essential criteria. If one has 3 months legal office experience it scores a point over yp without. Yet that experience could well be with dad’s friend from the golf club.

How does he have a house deposit when he hasn't really worked?

This reminds me of a wealthy friend when our dds were 15. They wanted to go
on an 'experience' weekend for teens. Turned out it was £800. I said it was a bit expensive for her to do that. She said "Can't she just use her savings?"

Which launched into her telling us how good at savings her dd is, and she saved all the money she got. Thing is, the grandparents are wealthy too, there's a lot of family money and they often put a few £k into her account. She had a 5 figure amount when she was 10 apparently. Well that's not really saving, is it? It's being given money.

DDs savings consisted of birthday money given over the years (that she'd managed not to spend) and was a few hundred. That's more like saving.
Anyway, said friend seemed stunned that it was a no go for want of £800
It's different world.

Agree with others, you’ve done nothing wrong, if you can help your children then absolutely do it!
I helped my 3 older children get their part time jobs and later the older 2 full time jobs through people I knew!
They’re all successful and that’s not down to me, it’s done to their hard work!

FFS. This is how it has been for all levels of class in the UK - how do you think people got jobs in the pits, on the local farm, on the manufacturing line at British Leyland before the internet?

Your dad, your mum, your uncle all had a word with with their boss and you were told to turn up on Monday on the basis that the boss thought your dad/uncle was a good bloke and wouldn’t recommend a twat for a job. You went along knowing that if you fucked it up, the dad/uncle would have words with you. Oh and yes, in the pub on a Friday night there would have been the same ‘ah did ya pa get you that job then, lucky bastard’ jibes from mates looking for work or muddling in jobs they didn’t like.

Every job my mum ever got, from cleaning, waitressing, being a croupier in a casino, window dresser and later manager of a boutique on Oxford Street, was procured through people she knew, who knew somebody else.

So shove the ‘elite’ bollocks. I was able to go from a failing secondary school, to university and on to investment banking/finance in the City thirty odd years ago - as a woman. Didn’t have to sleep with anyone to get there either. There have always been opportunities for us ‘peasants’ to make something of ourselves if we dump the chip on our shoulder and put in the hard graft.

@OneMerryFinch on the basis of what I’ve written I hope you will see that you have done absolutely nothing wrong. Regardless of how he was invited to apply for the job, there would have been a stringent recruitment and assessment process carried out by the company and its HR department. Your son didn’t get the job because you asked around. He got the job because he met the criteria for consideration for the role and then passed the assessments and interviews - and was clearly the best candidate. Ignore all the envious and bitter replies here.

Congrats to him - he should be proud of himself. I am sure you are bursting with pride. As you should be.

@OneMerryFinch ,

‘We did not have children to make them pay. Our children do not owe us anything, if he ends up hating London he can come home, I would never take my child's money from him. I chose to have him I knew I would have to help him for most of his life’

I do find the above a bit bizarre. It is kind of the type of the thing you would say about someone with special needs, not a bright and academically successful young adult.

Most parents want to help their children have a good start in life, but not beyond that unless something goes very wrong. Why on earth would you have to help him for ‘most of his life’?

I wonder how many of those complaining about the unfairness of your son’s job would refuse a call from a headhunter for themselves as the role may not have been fairly advertised to all???? Total hypocrites!

Lots of MNers would get into a hissy fit and say "oh she doesn't deserve it....nurses and teachers"

You did absolutely nothing wrong. Your friend is being absolutely ridiculous. Best of luck to your son in his new job. With regards to helping with his rent I dont see any issue with it.

I don’t disagree with you. We have a lot of mediocre people in positions of power. However, those people aren’t respected. If you’re in a job where there are people there will be undoubtedly be gossip. That’s why it’s better to earn your stripes. Being on 5k extra a year for a short while isn’t worth not having the respect of the people you’re working with and I’ve seen for myself a Team bulldozer over someone’s authority when they don’t respect them.

Didn’t have to sleep with anyone - but will have had to work much harder and make more sacrifices than the person of equivalent rank who was just handed everything on a plate through their connections. That’s the unfairness.

As for your mum’s jobs - she may have got them through who she knew, but those aren’t the jobs of the elite and that’s not what we’re talking about here.

Does anyone remember last year when Kate Winslet was proclaiming to all and sundry that her 21-year-old son's screen-play writing debut which was turned into a film she directed (starring Helen Mirren et al) was purely down to merit and graft?

No privilege whatsoever. And that all anyone needed to do to succeed in life was to 'follow their heart'.

Good times.

Life’s all about connections though. I got my job through a friend—she told me about a job at her company, gave me the contact details, and put in a good word for me. Yes, I interviewed, was qualified, and got the job. But that first foot in the door was through a friend.

Same for my teen—he applied for dozens and dozens of jobs, but didn’t get any responses. A friend of my DH got him a trial shift at a local pub. He had to prove himself, but a connection is what got his foot through the door.

It’s not about being elite—it’s about building networks and connections. This is the way the world works, and people can either complain about it, or get on with building networks.

I wonder whether the OP had thought the friend was a much better friend than she actually is. I have some people in my life who I can be quite frank with about how much I earn, how much we paid for our house, how much I have in my pension fund etc.

The friend asked how he got the job and how much he was being paid. The OP assumed it was safe to answer honestly and then had the friend tell her how “spoiled” her son was and how unfair it all is.