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?

Your son is immensely lucky to come from a life of privilege where he can be given a leg up through family contacts and wealth. Any parent would do the same but few have the ability. Please recognise your privilege and separate what's down to hard work and what's not. Its entitlement otherwise which never comes across well.

YANBU I would do the same for my son.

I did not have any help what so ever through family connections starting out. But of course it helps!

Even away from 'elites' you see it everywhere, DH hires his niece to do some farm labour, shops hire their main staffs children for summer shifts, trades people take on their child or the child of a friend.

He’s not done well at all. He’s as average as you get in today’s tough graduate landscape and job market. His mummy and daddy got him the job. No one else. The people who have done well are those who went to the interview and got turned down due to not having a connection/network/privelege to draw on, and pulled themselves back up the next day, on their own, to go again in the unfair world in which they find themselves. Don’t even get me started on the sickening system of unpaid internships that exclude the bright, brilliant, hardworking young working class people who will NEVER be able to take one up because they don’t have rich parents paying their living costs for them to do it.,

Nope not my idea he left it as he didn’t want to be overworked for that wage. He said it himself. He has studied economics and maths he’s worked everything out for himself in that regard. He also worked there during his third year out on placement so he’s had the experience there to know he doesn’t want to work there.

Any patent who could do what you’ve done and doesn’t is failing their child.

IMO the only thing you’ve done wrong is openly discuss it.

It was some time ago but my first London salary was a measly £16k in the early 00s and yes it was hard going but i got a room in a nice shared house and managed. Agree to let him pay his own rent!

But this works at every level to be fair. I have got some pretty basic jobs like waitressing through connections.

100% agree

Everyone on the planet who was alive at the time was affected by Covid!

You were always going to pay his rent and yet he still turned down the job he was offered on merit because it payed the average graduate rate.
Sorry, I don't believe one word.

YANBU

My kids are still little but I have made a conscious decision to have kids in a current climate where it is more difficult for young people to get jobs. So I will help them as much as I can.

Over 20 years ago I also got my first paying job in my dad’s shop. It was just a little job but it helped me at least get paid work experience on my cv. Many people do it where possible.

Who said he should suffer? Normally, when we talk about giving someone a break, it's because they're down on their luck, and desperately need one. That hardly applies to your son.

The older I get the more I realise it's important to be private and "beige".

Breezily gloss over details, answer questions but don't tell anyone anything of substance, just chatter about benign stuff, never money, never politics, never religion, never peoples' identities, never economy, never parenting, never childrens achievements, your own achievements, home improvements, or holidays.

I see it a lot. Something has shifted in society, and everyone is primed to get mad at any moment. It's sad.

This. I don’t get why he can’t earn extra money. He left on good terms was honest with them, they gave him a very good reference. I don’t see an issue. Why do a job he doesn’t like if he can get another that he’s more inclined to do. This new job matches his interests more and sets him up for future roles.

Suffer? On £40k with no family of his own to support? 😂 This is so tone deaf I am
speechless.

Well this was quite risky.
He clearly knew daddy would be able to intervene and this is where the spoilt privilege comes in.
Most people would have taken the job as £35k is better than nothing (especially if you were paying his rent). What if Daddy hadn't found something for him? Would he be fine doing his farm job for the foreseeable?

I think giving a helping hand is fine, but I think he was doing ok on his own and got greedy.

No one with a first class degree is 'average'. He got that on his own merit - he's done extremely well.

£35 k is actually on the lower end for Russell group eco grads, so I see no reason why he shouldn't aim for more.
Especially as all those jobs will soon be taken by AI

Farm shop job you arranged travelling which you facilitated parents get a job for him, girl friends parents pay her London rent, what a privilleged life he has, i think you should have just accepted what your friend said about the job and moved on, really.

Unless Mummy and Daddy paid for coursework for him?

The issue here is you telling your friend. Most parents would have done the same for their child but telling others about it is inevitably going to lead to bad feeling. Constantly amazed on here by what people decide to broadcast.

Correct.
Though sometimes ppl ask me. I just change the subject.

Why can’t he turn down a job he doesn’t like ?

Lots of people will have got jobs like your son. I know someone who got a job through recommendations of their friend’s father.

My mum helped my husband get his first job, that was 40 years ago, he's in his 60s and she's long gone.

In our case, nothing at all to do with being elite. DH a few months out of uni and searching for a job in engineering. Mum, a single parent who cleaned houses. She used to go bowling and mentioned to the other ladies that her daughter's then boyfriend couldn't find a job. Turns out, one of those ladies had a contact and that got his toe in the door.

Luckily for us, that toe in the door was amazing, working with guys who taught him the ropes and really set him on a slightly different path, still engineering, but a different specialty.

Would DH have got a job in engineering eventually? I have no doubt he would have. Pure luck that he found this particular small company though, as I do think it changed the career trajectory he would have been on.

Me though? The exact opposite, I always had to find my own jobs, mum didn't know anyone in my field at all, I had to do it all by myself, just to balance things out I guess. We've got 4 adult kids, none in any field that we could help with.

I don't think you've done anything wrong OP, but I don't think you should be quite so open about it in future.