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?

My own DS gut a degree apprenticeship that had a guaranteed job if he did well. Took weeks of interviews and tests, that was down to him. But DH had got him an amazing work experience place at a global company, he also got places for two of DS friends.

Funnily enough I did help his ex GF get her first job after graduating as my mate is accounts manager for a huge local firm. She is doing well, and has her own clients now. It was just a basic admin role which she was over qualified for, last I heard she was representing the firm at the county show as so personable and being invited out to dinner with the directors. DH also got her a work placement within the University he worked at with his mate who was a biochemistry Professor. Lab and science placement’s are very hard to get. She always said we helped her more than her parents.

Connections help it’s obvious. I remember one of my students returning from the summer hols and she had been on a placement at the UN as her Aunt worked there. Another had spent the summer harvesting as he was a Farmers son. Everyone would do the same for their kids.

It works at every level it’s just that your DS has got what is probably a foot in to a well paid career. People get people in to work at every level. My mates DS first job after school was working as a labourer on the motorways. His Uncle got him in.

Wow, the nepotism is off the scale there 😅

Wow. My recently graduated, private school educated son just found his first graduate job in London entirely on his own paying 29K (plus commission) starting salary and is absolutely delighted with that. It wouldn't even occur to him that he can live in London for awhile and instead he will be living at home initially, paying us a small rent, until he gets established, and he couldn't be happier. He's also going to keep doing his minimum wage hospitality job at the weekends so he can crack on with paying his student loan off - a graduate tax he feels.is fair as we have younger children to pay for.

I do find it astounding that your son turned down the graduate role from the place he was interning at because the entirely normal starting graduate salary was too low. That will be remembered in his industry. I do think you have to be careful that you're not contributing to producing an overly entitled adult.

Parents help if they can. We couldn't help our DC get a job, although we asked friends if they knew of anything going in the industry. But we do subsidise the rent as they are paid minimum wage for a trainee job in Surrey.

There are some pious souls posting this morning!

Life isn't fair, not sure why your friend thinks you shouldn't help your son just because others can't.

Also on the subject of graduate pay - they should obviously be paid enough but some grads (and more pertinently parents of grads) forget they are trainees. A grad salary is a trainee salary.

You want to attract good grads as they hopefully go on to be valuable employees, but for the first couple of years they require a lot of support and work.

We all get grads in our projects at work. They are sought after because they come out of central budget but you do have to (rightly) put a lot of effort in to training and supporting them, in a way you don't for someone at the same grade who comes through the job rather than grad scheme route.

@TheFairCat The overwhelming majority of people want to do the best for their children, but will differ in what they are able to provide and in what they think is in the best interests for their children.
Is this unfair? Yes of course, it’s hugely unfair. Are their lots of other equally talented, hard working young people who won’t be given this advantage? Again, yes of course.
That doesn’t necessarily make it ‘wrong’. Sadly life is very unfair for many.

But what most aren't willing to recognise is that life is unfair for many because the privileged have built it that way, in order to keep hold of their privilege. We could have had more of a level playing field, but in choosing to champion diversity and equality, those same people could ignore class. There are tons of hard working talented working class kids who, as a pp said, don't even know where the door is let alone open it, who never achieve their full potential because it would mean putting them in direct competition with the kids of the privileged.

I don't know any.

Well done for helping your son.

Your friend is just jealous.

Are you aware of how privileged ALL of your posts sound?!

And here's another example. Rent paid, then enough financial support for him to pay the deposit for his first property purchase in LONDON!!

I have a kid similar age as yours, similar degree but better university (😉), their 2 job offers they've found themselves, will be moving from London to Manchester and recognise it's a stepping stone to bigger things.
No nepotism, no privilege, first child ever in our family to go to uni., supported themselves with a job with little financial support from us.

Can you not see how you're coming across?

It is this type of post that is getting people's hackles raised. The entitlement that drips out of it.

Of course young people want to have fun. For the vast majority though, they have to pay 100% of that themselves, saving from a mediocre salary, stretching to afford their rent and other bills. You have handed the lifestyle to your son on a plate and are posting as if it is absolutely his entitlement to have the fun lifestyle he wants without having had to do the graft to achieve it.

I was fully in support of you after your first post. After most of the subsequent ones, not so much. If you come across this way on MN, I suspect you have presented your case even more badly to your friend.

This. Most of us would help our kids into a job, if they’d worked hard to get their qualifications. I don’t blame OP at all. Good for her.

It’s a bit cringe that you’re supplementing him having a bit of fun living in LONDON on a grad salary. Most new employees are working hard and saving, just getting by. Absolutely you were right to help him, most parents would. That’s not spoiling him. But enabling a lifestyle beyond his means is doing him no favours. It’s not like he’s made it in life, he’s got a job that was handed to him, he should be knuckling down, not having fun.

Even the hard work you mention is rooted in an an educational environment many can't experience. That's part of the privilege.

I'd do the same. YANBU

As they say 'it's who you know, not what you know' - a system which has worked for years and years. I don't see anything wrong with it, OP.

I mean I am a second gen immigrant, whose parents came with nothing in the time of Enoch Powell. I have a funny foreign name, and my kids have funny foreign names, which hamper them in job searches. We worked our way up over two generations. DH is a first gen immigrant son of poor Indian farmers, who climbed to the top. He wasn't even educated here.

Now many of us are told we only got our jobs because of DEI. Reform and Restore want us out. Rupert Lowe said only yesterday that he only wants people with Christisn names in this country.

So I will use every bit of privilege I have to help my kids, even though we are no longer working class.

Nepotism and parents finding their children jobs through their social and professional contacts is very frustrating for those without access to these privileged circles. I don't know how you stop it without unacceptably curtailing individual freedom.

It doesn't make it right though. If the boot was on the other foot, OP, and your high-achieving and deserving son was being rejected while someone else's son walked into a lovely job through parental contacts, please think about how you'd feel. I don't think you should have told your friend how he got it - if I were her I'd feel resentful and it would change my relationship with you.

My children are high-achievers too and my son has navigated the incredibly, incredibly selective and exclusive world of the law as a barrister. I'd be furious to hear of people who'd got a pupillage through Mummy or Daddy. Seriously - I'd just rather not know, if that were the case - my blood pressure would go through the roof!

“other young people don't have those opportunities”

She’s absolutely right about that and your son is definitely in the privileged minority.
However most parents would do the same if they could.

Important to acknowledge that whilst your son has worked hard and been proactive in looking for work, internships etc - the same is true of so many young people who just don’t have the same leg up in terms of connections and financial support.

I think it’s natural to help your children get a job, why wouldn’t you?

We didn't help either of ours get the jobs they have. One's a lawyer, one's in marketing. Me and DH have no connections at all in either of those fields🤣🤣.

Edited to add DC went to state comprensive schools in London. And yes, we're very proud of both of them 😊

I don't think you have done anything wrong but also I think you should recognise the innate privilege that allows you to find your son a job All parents want to help their kids but the majority don't have the social currency to do what you have done.

He is very lucky decent parents help their children where they can even if it isn't on the Op scale, what i think people are commenting on is the Op doesn't see his privilege she thinks because he went to university for a couple of years he deserves the world ! she doesn't see how easy his life is she seems genuinely baffled that people don't agree with her that he has an easy privileged life.

Am I the only one who thinks this company sounds a bit sketchy interviewing friends kids without even advertising the job in this day and age?

Or am I just hopelessly naive? 😯

I imagine in some bubbles this is normal the op seems to think so.

Nothing. But when he's doing it on a job that he only got through connections and his parents are paying his rent; he didn't have to take out a student loan so doesn't have those payments going out, and he has a good deposit to buy in London thanks to extended family ... well .... can you really not see why your friend thinks he is spoiled?

Yes, I'm sure he is hard working and able as well, but those aren't the main things contributing to his current situation.