Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Money matters

Find financial and money-saving discussions including debt and pension chat on our Money forum. If you're looking for ways to make your money to go further, sign up to our Moneysaver emails here.

Original poster

Do your dcs have a lower standard of living than you had as a child?

80 replies

Podrick · 07/10/2009 20:54

If so what is your take on this?

OP posts:
Cicatrice · 12/10/2009 11:01

DS has a higher standard of living.

From central heating phone washing machine TV that we didn't have when I was a child, to the fact that he has two parents.

Comes up a bit short on the grandparents though.

MaggieBehave · 12/10/2009 11:03

Yes, mine do, and will continue to. I had an idyllic childhood. Flute lessons, ballet, summers in France, private school. That's my childhood. My x won't contribute a penny. I can't get through to him that I've HAD my childhood and the children will only get one and they are having it now.

I hope that so far, lack of money hasn't limited their opportunities or harmed them in any real way. So far, I don't think it has. THey don't have DSs and we haven't had the lovely holidays, but so far, no disadvantages, socially or academically. I worry about the secondary school years though. I feel they will be pigeon-holed as chldren from a poor/single-parent family. they may see themselves in that way. ALthough I will tell them that it doesn't matter how much money people's parents have... what makes them successful is what THEY achieve and they can achieve as much as anybody.

BUT>..... having said that, I won't have the money for extra lessons and coaching and so on.

MaggieBehave · 12/10/2009 11:06

Podrick, good point about happiness. My children are definitely NO LESS happy than I was at 7.

Sourdough · 12/10/2009 11:28

I had a more privileged upbringing than my DDs, although their childhood could be described by no stretch of the imagination as anything but fortunate. They have reaped the benefit of having well-off grandparents , although DH and I are now finding our efforts coming to fruition despite having had some very rough times in the past. At least we have good family - solid, loving and dependable. That's the main thing.

shonaspurtle · 12/10/2009 11:58

Lower but I don't think for one second that ds cares (too small to want stuff much though).

DB & SIL have about the same standard of living re: finances, housing, area as we did growing up and I think ds & dn have equally happy lives.

I do wonder if it'll be more of an issue in the future (dn likely to go to private school, will do stuff like skiing, will be less likely to have to support himself through higher education), but meh. Can't change it. We made our choices and we are who we are.

naughtymummy · 12/10/2009 12:17

Higher, I didn't take a plane until i was 20. I worried about money A LOT as a child as did Dh, that is something i want to spare the DCs if at all possible.

MrsJiggle86 · 12/10/2009 12:26

Much higher, i had a good childhood but there was the days off bread dipped in gravy for dinner more than once and in those days a good meal was lidl pasta and some sauce which came to 50p. Had a nice casserole last night, life is better now

EdgarAllenPoo · 12/10/2009 12:30

much higher. the first house we lived in had orange curtains...eugh.

and no central heating, and a demolition order!

all our clothes were of he pre-loved variety, and not even nice pre-loved....second hand stuff is greatly better now.

CommonNortherner · 12/10/2009 14:14

Definitely higher than I had. I liked my childhood though and never thought we were poor, even though it turned out we were!

Rhubarb · 12/10/2009 14:21

Hmm, I grew up in a house without heating either. I shared a room with my sisters until I was 9 and my mum got this huge council house for us all (6 of us) which meant I had the little boxroom. It had a bed in it and not much else! My clothes were stored in drawers in the hall.

Our clothes were all from jumble sales and never fitted properly.

Now my kids live in a house with heating, although we don't turn it on very often, therefore we have a mildew problem that the letting agents refuse to sort out because it's our problem.

They wear second-hand clothes, but good quality ones from Ebay.

They play out a lot, I make sure of that. And we do a lot of walking as a family. We walk to school and back every day and we go for a walk every weekend.

They are richer in terms of attention. We get involved in their school work, we take them on family days out, they've eaten in restaurants.

So financially I'd say we're about even, but in other ways they are having a much better childhood.

BonsoirAnna · 12/10/2009 14:31

DD has a higher standard of living than I did, but only marginally so - she has many more material things, and gets to go out and about and to travel more than I did, but her educational opportunities are similar to mine, or evenly slightly less good (for reasons beyond my control). She has less space and freedom than I did.

The DSSs have a much, much higher material standard of living than I did as a child, and far fewer educational opportunities. I do my utmost to change this balance so that they are less spoilt materially and learn more.

Swedes2Turnips0 · 12/10/2009 14:35

I spend half my life telling my children that they must not fall into the trap of taking their good fortune for granted and how lucky they are to go to a really great school, live in a lovely house in a lovely town and have real choice as to what they want to become and what sort of life they want to live when they grow-up. As well as holidays, tennis lessons, piano lessons, lazy Saturday lunchtimes in Pizza Express, new sports kit whenever the need arises etc.

BonsoirAnna · 12/10/2009 14:38

Swedes - and do they hear you? I despair of DSS1 sometimes - he had a crying fit the other day when we told him to put his sports kit in the washing machine himself and to turn the machine on. He is so pampered that his ego is severely dented when he is asked to perform small chores for himself...

Prunerz · 12/10/2009 17:02

The thing is that kids simply can't take in what it means to compare their standard of living with a parent's. I don't think it's until later when you've seen a bit of the world that you realise your place in time.

(I got my dad's impoverished upbringing rammed down my throat rather a lot as a teenager, and I wasn't a lazy, grasping sod - still, I obviously frustrated him. I wonder if he could have handled it rather better.)

sarah293 · 12/10/2009 17:03

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Lizzylou · 12/10/2009 17:06

DS's have a far better standard of living than I had when I was their age but about the same as when my Mom moved in with with my Stepdad when I was 13.
But I hated having divorced parents, so wasn't bothered by suddenly living in a big house with 2 cars and my Mom not having to worry about money during the last week of the month.
Hopefully the DS's won't have to go through having divorced parents (but if they do, God forbid, I'd like to think I'd be a bit more mature about the whole thing than my parents were).

BoffMonster · 12/11/2009 13:31

I probably had a higher standard of living as a kid (more ballet and piano lessons, private school, more foreign holidays) but my parents clearly had less money. Perhaps things are just a lot more expensive now?

Sakura · 13/11/2009 03:40

my kids have a lower standard of living
At my childhood home we had rolling fields behind our house, a huge back and front garden with an orchard, lots of pets. So my parents were easily able to have lots of kids.
Now, DH and I have got a garden because a biggish garden was a priority, but we've got a small house.
Also, at Xmas there were always loads of presents from Santa, excessive really. I'll never be able to re-created that sam childhood for my own kids, and I'm a bit sad about that I suppose. As I teenager I could go on "shopping sprees" at the weekend with my kids. Its a bit of a shock for me now realising that I have to think twice before I even buy a starbucks.

But my mother worked full-time at her career, and I've chosen to stay at home, but I think even if I worked the standard of living would be lower.
It's DH I feel sorry for. He had a privileged upbringing but the family business went bust about 2 years before he met me. The difference between our lifestyle and what he grew up with is huge.

Sakura · 13/11/2009 03:41

shopping sprees at weekends with my friends. Not kids. I did have a life that didn't include kids at one point, I think...

Sakura · 13/11/2009 03:45

Oh, just realised, my kids have much better food than i had. More of it and better quality.

Wonderstuff · 13/11/2009 06:53

Lower at the moment, my parents had a nice 3 bed semi when I was dd's age, we are (still) in a 1 bed flat. My parents always had a huge mortgage and I know my mother always worried about money. I was determined that I would have a smaller house and worry less. As it turns out I have a smaller house and less money Not entirely sure how it worked out this way, my mother was a sahm before I went to school and I am better educated and have a good job. I think they were a lot more careful with money before they had us than we were pre-children. When I was a child we had a package holiday every other year, either in the UK or occaisionaly abroad, we go away camping with dd every year at least once.

I think we will get there and dd will have a good childhood. I think that there are more important things than material wealth. She is only 2 and is a very happy little thing.

I guess some things like houses are much more expensive than 30 years ago, other things, like food, eating out, travel, clothes are much cheaper.

alfiesmadmother · 13/11/2009 17:03

Higher.

We were in poverty but I was happy until I got to about 13 and realised how different we were. It has toughened me up though and done me no harm and although we have little compared to a lot of our friends I value friendships and support and do not value material things.

My kids are so lucky. We live in a lovely area, they go to a lovely school and have lovely friends. This is not because we are wealthy though but we are warm and fed and have good mental health which my parents didn't have. We don't eat out though and only do cinema etc on birthdays if we can afford.

sweetkitty · 13/11/2009 17:14

Much higher standard of living than I did, I lived in a damp ridden council house with no central heating, I remember always being cold.

Food - they have more and a better quality

I never had a holiday growing up, we wore second hand clothes everything in our house seemed to be second hand from beds to carpets, my Mum and Dad were rubbish with money and frittered it away.

lavenderkate · 13/11/2009 17:20

My Mum was Margo Ledbetter and we lived according to her OCD rules in our very large house in our very nice clothes driven around in very nice cars to very nice schools.
Hands in lap and minding our manners.
We had everything she could have wished for financially.

In contrast, my DCs live in an average and ever so slightly scruffy house, with dogs and cats, running barefoot through the woods, lighting bonfires in the garden, falling into bed at dark with smiles on their little faces.

Compared to my childhood, I think they live like Kings in terms of happiness.

IdrisTheDragon · 13/11/2009 18:06

Worse I think. At the moment anyway.