Vent - My Mother (and her generation?)

Jagraf

heuchera wrote: »

What the heck is a poo lorry??

Mum and dad lived in the country and it used to come round at night. once they had a flushing loo, it was outside next to the coal shed and my mum used to share it with mice if she needed it at night. In fact she shared her whole childhood with mice. There were also cockroaches by the open fire. I love her stories because she comes across as very posh now and people think she had a lovely upbringing. There was always fag ash in her sandwiches at school and holes in the soles of her shoes (used newspaper to fill the gap).

Pollycat

Jagraf wrote: »

Mum and dad lived in the country and it used to come round at night. once they had a flushing loo, it was outside next to the coal shed and my mum used to share it with mice if she needed it at night. In fact she shared her whole childhood with mice. There were also cockroaches by the open fire. I love her stories because she comes across as very posh now and people think she had a lovely upbringing. There was always fag ash in her sandwiches at school and holes in the soles of her shoes (used newspaper to fill the gap).

We had silverfish in our old house (late 1950s - the date, not the house age, that was an old terrace).

fierystormcloud

Pollycat wrote: »

We had silverfish in our old house (late 1950s - the date, not the house age, that was an old terrace).

URGH! One of my friends has them now!!! (She has an old 1930s house like this...) And it hasn't been renovated since the 1970s! :eek:

It's private let. I think the landlord needs a kick up the bum. It's a real pig hole inside.




And what the hell IS a silverfish? :huh:

prosaver

http://www.orkin.com/other/silverfish/
yuck

pelirocco

NewShadow wrote: »

Pure vent. Nothing to see here...

My mother just really !!!!ed me off.

I need to vent or I'm going to say something really mean.

And I love her, and I respect her, and I think she's fab so don't want to hurt her feelings. You understand I hope?

What happened

She forwarded me a link to this article - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20044862

Fine, she's not noticed it's from 2012, it's a shocking proposal that I wouldn't support (and never commented on), and it's trending at the moment with lots of inflammatory comments on both sides.

I work for 'the government', so I'm used to her sending me vaguely offensive emails blaming me for the ills of the world. (FTR I organise meetings for a living! How much power does she think I have, really? I could not order enough coffee... the entire economy might collapse!)

The the thing that got on my wick a phrase in her email:



Great, so 'it's the fault of the young' is it? We're all lazy scroungers?

Because some old bloke (of 'her' generation) decided to make a stupid suggestion...

Well, at least I can use punctuation!

This is the thing.

It's not just this random, out of the blue email after a !!!! day doing unpaid overtime.

(Some)'Older People' make a hobby of (unsolicitedly) bashing the 'young' and blaming 'us' for the state of the economy... and the awful amount of interest their premier account is achieving at the moment... and the forecasted value of their fully mortgage free house that they're looking to sell to move in with their new 'toy boy'. (Not thinking of any particular old person, of course - and he is really lovely and adores her.)

She's my mum.

I grit my teeth, go away to dig out my copy of Logan's run, and try not to point out the free education, cheap houses, and final salary pensions. Oh, and the point that I also had a job from 14 and didn't get paid or pocket money for it (working for her and my StepD).

But honestly *tiny violins*

Her generation never claimed a penny from the system; paying in and slaving away from the tender age of 13 until they were finally able to get their meagre and pitiful state allowance (not benefit!).

~Really?~

Admittedly, the state pension isn't great, and she was 'forced' to wait a couple of extra years than she was 'promised' - Maybe it'll be better by the time I retire at (probably) 75-80. That's assuming the state pension even exists by then, of course.

But it was a tough time in the 70s and 80s. I can get that.

Maybe having no student loan helped? Plus the free granny child care, free driving lessons/car, granddad finding her a job via 'work contacts' right after she graduated with her 'free degree'.

But to be fair, the mid-70s were a tough time to be starting a family.

Lucky, I guess, that she was given that lump sum by her parents to buy their first house - It was really expensive at £8000. I can't get how someone could ever have afforded to buy a house at prices like that without parental help.

But at least when she had us kids the market had increased so she and dad could buy the next one at £45,000 with 'only' a £20,000 mortgage.

I understand interest rates were really high there for a while I guess.

Must have been tough. Especially with two young kids - though (I can't say luckily) inheriting my great-grandmother's house helped pay that off.

Footloose and mortgage free at 40 - living the dream and not a dole cheque in sight!

Maybe she was right

Is it all "my generation" being selfish and !!!!less and eating up the benefits that should pay for her pension for the rest of her (hopefully long and healthy) life?

The bitter part of me says "her generation" introduced student loans, kept their lump sums, were too busy 'traveling' to babysit, and are using the 'inheritance' to fund retiring at 55!

I look back at the state of the economy, and I wonder how people of "my generation" managed to have so much power that we passed all these laws she's angry about? Given the average age of MPs elected at the 2015 General Election is 50.

But, ignoring the little green monster, is the basic premise accurate?

Let's see... "My" generation compared to "hers."
(all figures ONS labour market surveys)

Well, She was born 1951, so about 25 in the mid 70s, and around 40 at the end of the 80s.

That was the period of the highest (ever) recorded levels of unemployment.

During the 80s there was record 12% unemployment and it stayed around 10% for nearly 10 years!

Compare that to the last 15 years - 2000 to 2015 (obviously no figures for 2016 yet).

Unemployment was around 5 - 6% between 2000 and 2008. between 2009 and 2013 it stayed between 7.6% and 8.1% and then dropped back down to between 4 - 6%.

From 2000 to 2015 the average unemployment rate was 6%.

From 1975 - 1990 the average was 7%.

(That's about 300,000 extra people unemployed.)

Unemployment is currently around 5% (which given the average since records began in 1971 was 7.5%, isn't bad!).

I mean, she could be talking about youth unemployment, but oddly the percentage of young people unemployed now is actually roughly the same as it was in 1984 (c.20% of the total).

Which given the number of young people has gone down (proportionally), and there's been a big increase in the numbers staying in education or going vocational, I'm not sure it means much.

Seriously though...

Fundamentally the numbers haven't changed much - there are about the same proportion of unemployed people as there were back then.

About the same proportion are probably 'lucky' enough to get a lot of parental help, about the same probably have a stick of entitlement the size of mount fiji up their bottoms, and about the same are probably scraping and striving and doing their best to make good for their families.

I get this Lord Bichard is a prat. I get you're angry at him.

Why's that always my fault?

• Why can't "your generation" accept your pension contributions have already been paid back to you in the lump sums your parents gave you?
• Why can't you accept you're now living off "my" taxes?
• Why can't you accept (the good news) that you're living longer than anyone expected?

• I didn't expect you to pay my uni fees.
• I didn't expect you to pay for my driving lessons.
• I didn't expect you to help me find a job.

• I don't expect a lump sum from you if I ever do manage to earn enough to afford a mortgage.
• I don't expect you to live your life around my domestic needs.
• I don't expect to ever inherit anything from you.

• I don't expect to ever receive a state pension.
• I don't expect to ever retire.
• I don't expect to you to respect my job.

• I do expect you to respect me.
• I do expect to be there should you ever need looking after or somewhere to live.
• I do expect people to broadly remain people and for society stay at broadly the same level of brokenness.

Is that really so unreasonable?

• (I don't expect anyone to have read this far...)

Stats bring catharsis.

Now to the sweet arms of sleep... oh to awake in the morn to a new day of work.

Havent read it all , but you sound very alike:rotfl:

neneromanova

Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHFZBUTA4k :rotfl:

missbiggles1

Person_one wrote: »

Yes, I agree that employment was definitely easier to find (and to keep, in most cases) but I'd also argue that the housing situation was much better for the 1945-60 generation. Not just in terms of it being cheaper to buy your own home in relation to average incomes, but also in terms of there being much more council housing available, and not the vast numbers of private landlords of varying levels of professionalism there are today.

There are definitely things that are better now. Anti-discrimination laws, human rights legislations, the minimum wage etc. No time period has ever been perfect and never will be!

It was never easy (or even possible) to buy somewhere in the area where I grew up and my parents were on the waiting list for a council house for 40 years! Probably easier for both outside the south east.

Otherwise, I agree.

prosaver

neneromanova wrote: »

Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHFZBUTA4k :rotfl:

luxury

missbiggles1

fierystormcloud wrote: »

Really didn't have half an hour spare to read all of the OP, but I get the general gist. I agree with both sides of this argument, that people cannot apologise for, or help the time they were born, and the constant attacks on baby boomers is unjust. Also, yes they did have advantages that the people of Generation X and the Millennials didn't/don't have, like free uni education, very affordable housing to buy, lots of social housing to rent, a time when you could walk out of a job one day, and into another the next day, and salaries that are double what we have now.

However, this generation has advantages that the last one didn't; especially the women. Better rights, more chances to advance in the workplace, better pay, a much better chance to go to uni, and more chances to travel etc.

I mean, even though uni was free back in the day, the working classes didn't generally get to go, and now anyone can go to uni, and do well, if they work hard enough. Many years ago (80s and beyond,) some working class women would leave school with a few CSEs and go straight into the workplace, as many families demanded it, because they wanted the income. There was no tax credits then, and I am not sure there was even housing benefit. (Happy to be corrected.)

And for many women (from working class families,) who were just nudging 20, their best hope was to find a man to marry, as their income would not have been enough to survive alone. Indeed, the working class women I know who never married, (who were born pre early 1970s,) still live with their parents.

It was definitely 'expected' that by the age of 18/19, you should be at least engaged! Every neighbour and every part of the extended family would crow 'are you courting yet?' from the second a girl left school! So as long as a man had his own teeth, and a job, he would do. These days however, women can be more choosy. (Not saying ALL women married a man that was just 'ok,' but some certainly did.)

So it's all swings and roundabouts. I am OK with being born when I was though (late 70s.) I've done OK.

Each generation has it's own advantages and disadvantages though, and we should all cut each other some slack. Including when people of a certain age (born before 1970,) say the 'wrong' terminology.

Actually, when we had grammar schools everywhere, many working class boys and girls could get a first class education and go on to university in the days when it was really worthwhile. Abolishing them really hit social mobility and often meant fewer opportunities.

pollypenny

Person_one wrote: »

Yes, I agree that employment was definitely easier to find (and to keep, in most cases) but I'd also argue that the housing situation was much better for the 1945-60 generation. Not just in terms of it being cheaper to buy your own home in relation to average incomes, but also in terms of there being much more council housing available, and not the vast numbers of private landlords of varying levels of professionalism there are today.

There are definitely things that are better now. Anti-discrimination laws, human rights legislations, the minimum wage etc. No time period has ever been perfect and never will be!

I still don't agree that house prices are relatively higher now. We had to pay for top soil and lawn seed, lay a garden path and our drive was only roughly finished.

Think back to the new builds in the boom of the late 60s and 70s. Wimpy etc and compare with now.

Mostly semis - now mostly detached
One bathroom - now even two bedrooms often have an en suite
Sink unit only. Now fully fitted kitchen, including appliances, very often.

We couldn't even afford central heating. It was £350 more!