Among the top parenting strategies it’s widely accepted you should avoid is the old “do as I say, not as I do” technique. So, there’s at least one silver lining to the bleak state of affairs in this country at the moment. Kids today doing as their parents did? Chance would be a fine thing.
New figures released by the Office for National Statistics showed an unusually large number of people getting the hell out of Dodge. This year 693,000 left the UK, with the rate especially high among younger age groups – 59,000 of them were 16–24-year-olds and 52,000 25–30-year-olds. Who can blame them?
Polling in the summer revealed 28 per cent of 18- to 30-year-olds were actively planning or had seriously considered relocating abroad, because they feel “overtaxed, underhoused and undervalued” here, so it’s not like we weren’t warned.
Selfishly, of course I’ll be devastated if my 11-year-old son goes to live in another country when he grows up. My mum broke her mother’s heart by moving from Cape Town to London, apparently not realising the gravity of her actions until she had a child herself. As a result, she has always (slightly hypocritically!) told me emigrating is the worst thing you can do to a parent and that I simply wasn’t allowed to. If this curse skips a generation, and my son does it to me, I will definitely hate it. But given the lay of our land, I’ll understand.
Once upon a time – this genuinely isn’t a fairy tale, despite how it sounds – in the late 90s, my landlord suddenly put the flat I was sharing with a friend on the market. We met with a mortgage advisor just to see how out of reach buying it ourselves was, mostly to avoid having to move.
We discovered that if we put five grand deposit down each, our monthly repayment would be £100, which we would split. In other words, much cheaper than rent. Our parents kindly lent us the necessary money, which we paid back extremely slowly, and abracadabra we were homeowners. So grown up!
If we’d kept that London pied-a-terre, I’d be writing this from my yacht, but even selling it a few years later we made a good profit. None of this was canny financial planning, just a complete accident of good fortune. The mortgage deals back then were ludicrous, and it felt like companies were falling over themselves to give them to you.
The difference between then and now could not be more stark. My son will be lucky if he can even afford rent, and getting his foot on the property ladder, never mind in his early twenties like I did, is a pipe dream.
My parents were really keen for me to go university, which is probably a big factor in why I didn’t – I also have a terrible dolphin tattoo reminder of my rebellion phase – but will my husband and I even bother nudging our son in this direction? A degree is not even a guarantee of an interview these days, let alone a job. And then there’s the crippling student debt he’ll be saddled with afterwards, which will mean he’s destined to feel he’s moving one step forward, two steps back financially as he begins his working life.
Your next read
square SARAH BAXTERTrump’s cruelty has gone too far – and America will punish him
square WILL GORE How I ParentParenting in the Home Counties has become a lesson in class warfare
square PATRICK COCKBURNThe EU is a busted flush
square JULIE COOKMy children have the life I didn’t – I resent them for it
My mum and dad also had the luxury of telling me to shoot for the moon when it came to what I hoped to do for a living, whereas sometimes I wonder if it’s my duty to suggest my son learns a manual trade rather than pursuing a career he is more suited and drawn to. The so-called Godfather Of AI, academic and Nobel prize winner Geoffrey Hinton recently opined: “I’d say it’s going to be a long time before AI is as good at physical manipulation as us — and so a good bet would be to be a plumber.”
In fairness to the UK, artificial intelligence will be taking our jobs all over the globe, not just here – but I’d prefer to be a plumber, or do anything actually, in the sunshine over gloomy cold and rain, so Blighty 0, Rest of The World 1 there too.
Another parenting cliché it’s advisable to avoid is constantly boring onto your kids about how much better everything was back in your day. What are you supposed to do though, when that is so very clearly the truth? Send us the odd postcard please, son.
Hence then, the article about i bought my flat in the 90s with a 5k deposit my son will be lucky if he can afford rent was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( I bought my flat in the 90s with a £5k deposit – my son will be lucky if he can afford rent )
Also on site :
- Iranian Foreign Minister spokesperson in exclusive interview discusses cause of the war and Iran’s stance
- Walmart’s 'Very Sturdy' $53 3-Piece Patio Set Is Perfect for Small-Space Entertaining
- ‘Inflationary surge’: Fed economists warn AI hype is overheating the economy whether or not the technology ever delivers