The £40k family

Bogof_Babe

chugalug wrote:

The expectation now is that you have everything immediately or you've failed. I suppose thats why there is so much debt, its a way of life.

Don't you think this is linked in to the official definition of poverty - i.e. having less than half the national average income? Which in practice means someone would consider themselves in poverty earning £11,000 p.a.

We are being sold down the river by these government pledges to tackle children living in poverty - it more likely means they don't have designer logos on their trainers, and have to make do with last year's playstation :rolleyes: .

Expectations have been allowed by the media to escalate beyond a sustainable level for most average people. Just look at the fashion pages in the Daily Mail, e.g. £25 for a pair of knickers, £150 for a jumper - all this being sold to us as "normal" :mad: .

Plasticman

It's not just the media that push expectations. Parents have always wanted more for their children but as a society we seem to be giving them more and more without teaching them the value of things.

Plasticman

I've just re-read what I've written and realised that I'm turning into my dad. I'm only in my 30's

HELP :eek:

Poppy9

I have just realised I am old When I got married I had a b&w portable telly, my old bedroom suite, my parents old 3 piece suite, no ch, no kitchen and no carpets. Buying our first house had made us broke. Honeymoon was a last minute cheapy in Majorca (turned out to be a 4* hotel for 10 days. Fast forward 18 years and people ask for money or vouchers for wedding presents. Honeymoon is some Bahamas or Cuba. I relied on wedding presents for a kettle, toaster etc.

Anyway now I have had to admit to being an old fogey to get back on topic. While large families were the norm pre 1960's contraception, namely the pill, changed all that. It gave women a choice which they didn't have before - unless they crossed their legs:eek: . Also the mortality rate for infants was higher.

I went to a catholic school we only had one family of 8, quite a few of 4-6 kids but the majority was just 2. In my daughter primary school (also RC) majority of families between 1-3. Just a couple of 4's.

Plasticman

Poppy - I assume this is because many Catholic's now use contraception?

Poppy9

too right

nearlyrich

Plasticman wrote:

It's not just the media that push expectations. Parents have always wanted more for their children but as a society we seem to be giving them more and more without teaching them the value of things.

There are six of us in my family, we never had things but we had plenty of love and support and we learned a lot about what is important in life. We are all reasonably high acheivers, 2 managing directors, a channel manager for a global company, a deputy head of department teacher, a manager in the security industry and an imports manager. Although we didn't all make it to grammar school we had our parents support for as long as we wanted to stay in education.

We all still like each other and socialise together as often as possible so not having lots of material things hasn't done us any harm.:cool:

Plasticman

nearlyrich wrote:

There are six of us in my family, we never had things but we had plenty of love and support and we learned a lot about what is important in life. We are all reasonably high acheivers, 2 managing directors, a channel manager for a global company, a deputy head of department teacher, a manager in the security industry and an imports manager. Although we didn't all make it to grammar school we had our parents support for as long as we wanted to stay in education.

We all still like each other and socialise together as often as possible so not having lots of material things hasn't done us any harm.:cool:

I often wonder if parents are using the material things to replace the fact that they aren't able to spend as much time with their children as they would like. More and more families now have two working parents which must add extra pressure. Or maybe I'm just over analysing it!!!

culpepper

Poppy9 wrote:

I have just realised I am old When I got married I had a b&w portable telly, my old bedroom suite, my parents old 3 piece suite, no ch, no kitchen and no carpets. Buying our first house had made us broke. Honeymoon was a last minute cheapy in Majorca (turned out to be a 4* hotel for 10 days. Fast forward 18 years and people ask for money or vouchers for wedding presents. Honeymoon is some Bahamas or Cuba. I relied on wedding presents for a kettle, toaster etc.

Me too!
We went camping for 3 days in bognor regis.
We got sheets and a set of towels for wedding presents(small wedding)
We moved into our house on the 4th day .It was furnished with mostly junk shop finds and things I had collected over the years.

shrek101

I didn't even get a honeymoon, the day we got married we got our first house and still live there, in those days the late 80's interest rates were very high, and houses too, the boom and bust period. I moved all our things the day before we got married. We got wedding presents for the house, not big pressies either apart from money for a bed. We accrued a lot of furniture when we lived together before hand.

We still don't have much money, but thankfully we are happy together and have two wonderful girls, mind you, could do with killing them sometimes joke