Compare and Contrast

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Compare and Contrast

How is my life different from that of my parents? Surprisingly little overall. In purely material terms, I live in a near identical house, with a near identical commute to my place of work. I can also afford a car, now fortunately more reliable than my parents could afford. Another improvement in our fortunes is that we now take annual holidays, although this does require some ingenuity, we cannot afford family passports, but we can afford Youth Hostelling Cards. In my childhood we only had a couple of holidays, but neither were overseas. However I certainly did my share of travelling with the Scouts, I loved outdoors stuff like camping and hiking. All of which my parents happily paid for.

As a child I did have the feeling that we had less money than most other people on the private housing estate where we lived, as a parent I now have a similar feeling. However now I suspect that people in traditionally blue collar work are more comfortably off than I am, with a traditionally white collar job. I am not suggesting that this is wrong, I don’t think of the level of someone’s earnings as any kind of moral judgement on their worth. However it is a change in society worth noting.

What is different, well I have two children, my parents had four. I have a far better paid job than my father. I am an established civil servant, now with twenty years of experience. I have a better education than my father, I have one honours degree, and two HNCs. However compared to when my father was working, civil service salaries have fallen dramatically relative to other salaries, and the financial rewards associated with qualifications and experience, now seem relatively paltry.

As a civil servant, I do have an assured pension, although this is at constant risk of being eroded, and it does mean I cannot change employer or work pattern without sacrificing my most significant financial asset. My wife works part time, but when the costs of supporting childcare are added in, it is uncertain whether this brings a net benefit. She does supply work with mentally handicapped children, in local schools. It has so far proved impossible to find a full time post, and she is doing nightclasses two nights a week, to improve her chances. She already has a degree, and substantial other training from nightclasses, and the Open University falling short of any recognised qualifications.

We have both had to move to find work, something my parents never did. Our first civil service postings entailed a substantial move, and we eventually moved back. The latter move probably meant that my wife could not undertake teacher training. She has been knocked back on numerous other occassions from teacher training, despite having two children, a relevant degree and extensive paid and voluntary experience with children. Basically she has spent her whole life working with children.

Somewhat unconventionally, I do not drive. With children, we could not manage without one car. My wife uses the car to ferry the children, and get to work, I rely on public transport.

We have to meet the increasing care needs of one of our parents, these needs already entail weekly visits, no significant support is provided by the Local Authority. The care needs are likely to increase. If we are to provide any significant financial support for our children when they go to higher education, it will need to be met from inheritances, we are simply not saving sufficient amounts of money at the moment.

My wife and I, both do substantial voluntary work in the local community, and have done for some time. I believe this to be well worthwhile, but it is unpaid, and there is no direct evidence that our employers place any positive value on this, or provide any significant support. None of our parents were involved with local voluntary work, although as children we benefited from the work of local youth organisations.

What conclusions do I draw from this?

We have done exactly what our parents generation would have recommended, we studied hard, we moved to find work, we chose secure, worthwhile jobs, we had children, and gave them the best possible start. We have also provided substantial support within our local community and our extended family.

In these terms we have made the most of opportunities that our parents never had.

Although our standard of living is ostensibly better than our parents, with the general advances in society, relative to the rest of society we are no better off than our parents. Society now feels even more unequal, and polarised, and it now seems even clearer that the wealthy can confer benefits on their children that other cannot. We have not achieved the social mobility that our parents would have expected of us, despite doing what they would have wanted us to.

As a parent, I am more concerned that I cannot provide more effectively for my children, and now believe that their chances of social mobility are no greater than mine, and that they will need to work substantially harder and smarter, to maintain the lifestyle that their parents had, or even rely on inheritances to get on the housing ladder.

It seems that choosing to be a parent means you choose not to have a “comfortable” lifestyle. Being a parent is hard, it is expensive. You can see why so many marriages fail. It is incredibly difficult bringing up children now.

As an individual, I feel that my life is substantially at odds with the world portrayed in the media, I can never aspire to the lifestyle that I see portrayed. Colleagues without children enjoy a far better lifestyle in material terms than I do.

I believe that if society expects parents to devote the personal resources to bringing up children that are required, then society and government need to do vastly more to support children and parents. The current shortfall in support for parents is a major driver for the current lack of social mobility. Children grow up on sink estates, and go to a bog standard comprehensive, or they can go to a boarding school because their parents run an international business. Bringing up children requires a vast amount of money to do properly, and if you need to substitute hard work and ingenuity for non existant money, you need a prohibitive amount of both.

Like all parents, I simply want to give my children the best possible start in life, and I feel that as a society we are failing parents.