I realised this last Tuesday, sitting with my old school friend Michael in his kitchen in Leeds. We were both nursing lukewarm tea, his pension statements spread across the table like tarot cards predicting a grim future. Neither of us said much. What was there to say? His modest semi-detached – bought for £45,000 in 1989 – is now worth nearly ten times that, yet his adult son can’t afford a studio flat in the same city.
“We had it so much easier,” Michael finally muttered. “And I didn’t even know it.”
For our generation, the middle-class pathway was brutally simple: decent work, modest house, adequate pension. The formula worked without much fuss. Not lavish, but secure.
Yet somewhere along the way, that reasonable expectation evaporated. Not with a dramatic crash or revolution – that would have been too obvious. Instead, the middle-class dream died of a thousand cuts while we were distracted by mortgages, careers, raising children, and caring for ageing parents.
How did ordinary security become extraordinary privilege? When did “doing alright” transform into “doing the impossible”?
The mathematics have shifted beneath our feet. A house now costs eight times the average salary, not three. Pensions require fortunes, not just regular contributions. University education saddles our grandchildren with debts larger than our first mortgages.
We’re told this is progress. The screens in our pockets are certainly cleverer, but they’ve become expensive tickets to watch our children struggle with basics we took for granted.
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