2.8 million delaying parenthood due to housing costs

ukcarper

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

The student room I lived in costs £122 per week this year.

Average student accommodation £2215 per year or £3085 in London take London after accommodation £6k left £115 per week

ILW

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

The student room I lived in costs £122 per week this year.

You could have founder cheaper, it was your choice to pay that much.

ninky_2

Orpheo wrote: »

There have been plenty of idle rich in times gone by, many of whom amounted to little our nothing. Many were satisified simply to squander their inheritance through gambling, drugs and prostitutes - hookers and blow, if you like. Even the best of them often wound up losing all their money to unscrupulous investments. The very best of them dedicated their lives moral or scientific causes and made philanthropic achievements, but these were the few not the many.

have you got any stats on that or is it just your opinion based on a couple of anecdotes? if you look through history the vast majority of movers and shakers have come from wealthy backgrounds.

i also wouldn't have a problem with a kid of mine living a life of leisure if that's what they wanted to do and we had the wealth to afford it.

i've worked hard to get what i have today - some degree of success in a competitive industry. but i can't help thinking i would have achieved far more in life - and with fewer moral scruples - if i had had money.

what happens when you don't have money is you often have to opt between honouring your principles to the letter or progressing your career. not a nice situation to be in.

there are far more 'worthy' things i could have put my time to but they wouldn't have paid the bills.

Orpheo

ninky wrote: »

funny how that is the age most people (if they are going) go to university. do you think women should ideally put off going to university or juggle both commitments?

I didn't suggest anything. It was a statement of fact, women are free to make their own decisions based on the information available to them. Perhaps women could have a quiet word with their own biology and ask it to be fertile later instead of sooner?

Most people are at university between the ages of 18 and 21. I started at university later, at 21, the vast majority of my fellow students were 18 years old. You also forget that university for everyone, let alone women in particular, is a fairly recent thing in the timeline of humanity. The first university college for women was set up in 1870 in the UK but it was not permitted recognition as a university. And while up to 30% of university students were women in the early 1900s, they required permission and were allowed to sit exams, but wer not allowed degrees. In 1921 Cambridge began awarding degrees to women. I guess evolution hasn't yet factored university into the female biology.

Orpheo

ninky wrote: »

if you look through history the vast majority of movers and shakers have come from wealthy backgrounds.

I don't dispute this, but by definition they weren't idle were they? The poor were concerned with survival. Some movers and shakers rose from humble roots too.

ninky_2

Orpheo wrote: »

I didn't suggest anything. It was a statement of fact, women are free to make their own decisions based on the information available to them. Perhaps women could have a quiet word with their own biology and ask it to be fertile later instead of sooner?

.

true. however even if fertility has fallen you are still more than capable of having a baby beyond 24, and a healthy one. there are many factors to having a healthy baby - including the prior lifestyles of both parents such as smoking which damages reproductive dna. maternal age is obviously a far easier one to monitor and easier to collate statistics on.

there are also sadly 20-24 year old mothers who will not have a healthy baby or will struggle / fail to conceive.

Percy1983

I understand how you could say my choies have lead to delay, but I really didn't see it as a choice.

In short if we didn't do the training in our early years we wouldn't be able to afford the house ever, and I wouldn't class renting as stable enough to have children.

In short it was a delay until 28-31 or potentially never, it does seem a shame that while the hardworking like myself are delayed there are chav's dropping kids for fun. Now its not an exact science but children grow up into what they see, so my children will probably have a good working effic, chavs are breeding chavs.

Orpheo

ninky wrote: »

what happens when you don't have money is you often have to opt between honouring your principles to the letter or progressing your career. not a nice situation to be in.

there are far more 'worthy' things i could have put my time to but they wouldn't have paid the bills.

Is this self pity?

We have never been rich, even now our family lives on the average wage, but we are debt free and always end the month in the black. Furthermore, we could easily chose not to work and would be able to sustain our current standard of living for three years without claiming a penny. My wife works in a career that she loves, she is a horticulturalist, not a fantastic paying job, but one that gets her out of bed each day. I work as a P/T teacher and a freelance writer. Writing pays eff-all, but it is what I love. Teaching pays a little better, but I wouldn't return to it full time unless family economics dictates.

Orpheo

ninky wrote: »

true. however even if fertility has fallen you are still more than capable of having a baby beyond 24, and a healthy one. there are many factors to having a healthy baby - including the prior lifestyles of both parents such as smoking which damages reproductive dna. maternal age is obviously a far easier one to monitor and easier to collate statistics on.

there are also sadly 20-24 year old mothers who will not have a healthy baby or will struggle / fail to conceive.

Yes women are. Many women do. All of the lifestyle factors that you are mention are more likely to impact upon older mothers. Yes there are young women who will fail to conceive. A woman's peak fertility and fitness for childbirth remains between the ages of 20-24.

Orpheo

Percy1983 wrote: »

I wouldn't class renting as stable enough to have children.

Why not? While we have lived in a mortgaged property before (see how I refer to myself as a mortgagee rather than a homeowner) we currently live in a rented house and everything is fine. Each night our daughter still survives through until the morning. We have a 12 month contract, if we then get issued 2 months notice then we'll find another house.

What's more our reproductive organs still work, even in rented.

Blimey, only 50 years ago the proportion of homeowners was 40%, you can bet the other 60% were still having children. This modern obsession with owning a house is just that, an obsession. Evidently it appears that owning a house is now more important than having children and continuing your genetic existence. Whatever have we become?