Are the elder generation at liberty to criticise the younger?

[content_protector password=”pavlova17″]Back in my day… We worked hard for what we wanted and we got it. We studied hard and got a degree. We saved up and bought a house by the time we were twenty-four. We worked to support our family. That was just the way we did it back in the good old days… Back in my day.

Sound familiar?

Of course it does. Every young person has heard the ramblings of a grandparent or parent, (usually spurred by a comment about how when they were younger weren’t always looking down at their ‘devices’), that has become a forty-five-minute lecture on how they had achieved in their youth what they expect us to do also, but in a fraction of the time we seem to be taking.

We will skip right past childhood because I will concede that they typically did more chores than young people do today, their Christmas presents were not as extravagant, they most certainly did not get a lift to school and so on and so forth… Let’s instead begin with the crucial years of beginning your independent life – university.

Chances are your parents never had a student loan and it’s almost certain that your grandparents didn’t have to pay for University either. Their generations had it sweet, blessed with a tertiary education system that may as well have been free and student bursaries that were enough to live on. If you had either ambition or nothing to do, provided you received University Entrance, you could become a student.

Nowadays, it’s not so simple. Course fees ranging from $5,000 to $15,000 accumulate yearly on your student loan and student allowances of $178 add up weekly to another $7,000 at the end of each year. After a four-year degree this number is sitting somewhere around $60,000 – not exactly the best head start for a future.

When you do have a degree, and start making a salary, how on earth are you supposed to afford a house? Even since 1995 average house sale prices in Auckland have increased from under $200,000 to over $700,000. But to make it past your student loan debt, and manage to put a down payment on your mortgage, means finding a job with a salary that pays enough to make this a realistic goal, yet another list on The List of Financial Struggle.

Let it be said, though our parents and grandparents do everything they possibly can to make our individual futures as good as or even better than theirs were, maybe it is worth considering the difference between then and now and the new challenges we face that make this a little simpler than they expect.

I’m just saying, I can’t afford even afford my University textbooks, it beats me how I will be able to afford a house!

Hannah Skelton

Critical Thinking Challenges:
1. Do you believe we have it easier than the older generation?
2. What are the differences in job salaries between the 20th Century and the 21st?
3. Make a list of necessities that need to be bought as well as housing, such as a car, food, power, etc.

Practical Tasks:
1. Ask a parent how much they paid in their youth for the items on the list you have made (above)?
2. Ask a grandparent about the financial difficulties they faced in their day and how they combatted them?
3. Research how the war affected finances for your grandparent’s generation and the challenges that posed.

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