Do you ever wonder why people’s lives are so different?

Most of us who are or have been in, what used to be called. white collared jobs have parents, grandparents or great grandparents who had jobs where no one wore collars because they couldn't afford them.

There has always been ways up for those who have the get up and go to get up and go, despite barriers of race or religion, or anything else and for many of us we are benefitting from the easier lives our ancestors struggled for.

The only people for whom the task has often been insurmountable are those with health conditions that limit their ability to work.

Nowadays it is so much easier to work and study and gain qualifications at the same time. DD has just completed an OU degree that she started as the result of an accident that left her with a minor disability and in her 40s has moved herself from a career with limited prospects to one with better pay and which offers more opportunity for advancement..

Three things can decide your future ..... to whom you are born, the person you marry and how hard you work!

Good health is also important and some people are dealt a better hand in that. But others do not look after their health and don’t help themselves.

For me, happiness is about making the most of what so gave ..... but if things need to be tweaked, have the strength to do it.

My hubbie and his brother went to the same school, both of them married local girls. His brother went on to Uni and successful and highly paid career.
Hubbie decided not to go to Uni, (he was he eldest and their Dad died when he was 16), took an apprenticeship, but left after a year. After we were married, he took exams, via evening classes, and qualified as a chartered Secretary. Then the blow struck = he developed MS.
We had five small children, but back then he found it extremely difficult to get any organisation to give a job to someone in a wheelchair.
For years we managed on benefits, whilst his brother went on to become a very high earner.
When our children complained about the things they could not have (holidays abroad, designer clothes, etc.) we always told them to Look Down, not UP.
In world terms, they were still much closer to the top of the pile than the bottom. If they compared their lives to those of refugee children, or those living on the streets in different countries, dying from completely curable diseases, perpetually hungry, cold, abused - then our children - were very much the lucky ones.
Eventually, our marriage fell apart under the strain (adversity does not always drawn people together). but - amazingly, all five of the children went on to Uni (days prior to fees needing to be paid - not sure if they would have in those circumstances), all came out and have good professional careers - in different service/caring professions. All are lovely, caring people.
Do need to realise that for most of us in this country we are so fortunate, and even when we are part of the 'have-nots' we have so much more than much of the population of the world today.
We do not have to leave our homes (however pathetic they may be) as we are being shot at, or in danger of being bombed to smithereens, we do not have to traipse thousands of miles to try to find safety, and risk everything in unsuitable dinghies to cross seas, etc.
Yes, some people have more fortunate lives than others, but we all at times need to LOOK DOWN instead of UP to appreciate how lucky we have been to be born when and where we have, and that is totally just the luck of the draw.

annesixty

Same, my mother is still alive, we haven’t spoken for 20 years, I couldn’t bear anymore of her

Oh I heard that remark too Sara65
My Father died when I was 11 and I was an only child.
My mother thought I should stay with her all my life, it was my duty.
She was very jealous of our success and would put me down in front of people to embarrass me.
Not a happy relationship I can tell you.

annesixty

It’s interesting that some people are desperate to get out of the life they were born into, and others, no less intelligent, are happy to settle for what their parents had

My brother and I both have totally different lives than our parents, but they were never proud of us, i think my mothers most used comment to me was “I don’t know who you think you are!” Followed by “well money grows on trees in your house “

She would have loved to have seen us fail

Well I broke my cycle by going to Grammar school and realising there was a different sort of life and it was one I wanted.
Incidentally I am older than Gilly's mum was, born before WW2, so you can see it wasnt easy.
I and my H, both born into dysfunctional families, for different reasons, both got out of the life expected of us.
I found later on that I actually wanted it more than him and possibly pushed him into a life he wasn't totally comfortable with, whereas I loved it.

It’s a massive question to ask and there will be many different views. Some things in life you can control to an extent and some you can’t. I very much doubt being a nice person has much to do with success. It depends how success is measured. Many business people will be quite ruthless to get what they want in life. I do believe thinking positively helps achieve a better life. I’ve not had an easy life so far but I have constantly strived and worked to improve it and not settled and am doing pretty well. I believe you make a lot of your own “luck” in life. Things happen but it’s up to you how you respond and what you do next. Giving up and thinking you can’t change your life won’t get you anywhere. Families tend to have similar lives generation after generation because that’s how they are brought up and what they know. To change this needs to realise you can have a different life to past generations but you need to push yourself. Education is a key difference in changing your life and having self-belief. Those in successful families probably tend to be happier, healthier and positive in what they can achieve. Those brought up in hardship might not be as healthy or positive. I believe a lot of life is based on childhood and what is the norm. It’s up to the person to break the cycle if not a good one.

I think we could be twins jillybob, I’m sure you’re talking about my mother!

Some friends and I once pooled our money, and bought some hair removal cream, so that we could use it on our underarms for guide camp, I hid it, but she found it. You would have thought I’d taken up child prostitution! She cried, and raged, and called me every name she could think of (limited) and what was worse, she threw the hair removal cream away!!

Oh petra. My mother was born in 1941 and was the most prudish person ever . Her mum (my beloved grandma) was more “with it” than she was. She never dyed her hair, wore makeup, perfume or anything remotely seductive. She never smoked or drank alcohol. She made me and my sister turn our backs when she adjusted her half slip . I honestly don’t know how we came about . She couldn’t bear hearing even a mild swear word. She wrote a letter to my primary school denying me any sex education (1972-3) and I was made a laughing stock.

There you have it .

What made me, me, a girl who got got pregnant at 17.

gillybob
I don't know what your mother would have thought of mine.
She was the person who first dyed my hair and plucked my eyebrows at 15.
Another shock horror for your mum: she always smoked Sabrani cocktail cigarettes when she went out for the evening.
She also had a very good social life when my Father was away at sea for months.

We are what we make of ourselves. Education plays a big part and gives us opportunities that perhaps we would not have ordinarily got. Yes, inheritance helps, born with a silver spoon on our mouths helps, but it is how we use what we've got that gets us where we need to be. People who work hard, do their best and grab any opportunities that come their way usually have better lives than those who don't. It is also important to be positive and find the brighter light - whatever and wherever that might be - even in illness.

My paternal grandmother deeply disapproved of my mother because she wore make-up and went to the theatre and worse still went to a play by Noel Coward. It was suggested that she could be no better than she ought to be. However DF ignored his mother and they were happliy married for nearly 60 years.

I think lots of us see ourselves as awkward and inept, when others see us completely differently. I can remember a conversation in my last year at Uni, we were all describing how nervous and shy we were when we first went up and someone turned on me and said 'You? nervous and shy, you were bursting with confidence, I was so envious'. Actually, no, I wasn't, but I am good at putting a good front on and hiding the nervousiness and shyness behind it.

You were probably cooler than you thought gilly

I once stayed over at a girl from schools house but didn't dare tell my mum that her mum wore makeup, had bleached blonde hair and horror of horrors, went out without the dad. Jeez I might as well have said she was a prostitute !

My household was not a violent one KatyK but my dad was always "the boss" and my mum would never cross him. They were very old fashioned for their ages. I think my mums only goal in life was to get married and have children. My grandparents had a more modern outlook than my parents did.

When I met the girl from my class on Saturday she told me she thought I was cool as I liked Queen (1970s) and didn't even pretend that I didn't when I was mocked. News to me mind you cos' I was probably the least cool person you could ever meet.

I, like gilly, passed the 11+. I was nothing like most of the girls at the grammar school. My household was violent, frightening and dysfunctional. I made friends with some lovely girls. We shared a passion for The Beatles. We used to meet at one of their houses some Saturday nights. Her mum and dad used to go out dancing and leave us in the house. I was fascinated by her parents. Her mum used to be there in a cocktail dress with long gloves, make up and her hair done for her night out. Her husband had a lovely smart suit on. Oh how different from my poor downtrodden, beaten mother and my alcoholic father who could sometimes be found lying in the gutter or come home bloodied from a fight. I would never let those girls across our threshold and how I wished to be like them. They had holidays, days out, went to the pantomime etc. We had none of that whatsoever. I first saw the sea when I was 15 and a school friend invited me on her family holiday.

Meant to add that my grandma lived on the outskirts of the town so it felt like we were out in the country when we were there. Hers was a council house too, but with a lot more garden than we had. No-one in our family (other than that one uncle) had ever owned a house until my parents bought their council house in the 1980's.

M0nica I remember we used to walk from our house to my maternal grandmas house (she lived about 4 mile away). Our walk took us through the middle of a very "posh" area where people had detached houses and driveways...my sister and I used to imagine what it would be like to live somewhere like that. We imagined what they were doing. I never really knew anyone any different to our family except an uncle who we were never close to and who still to this day made us feel like a piece if sh*t on his handmade shoes.

I lived (and still live) in a very poor, working class town.

gillybob Didn't you ever see other kinds of houses and people who dressed differently (do not mean ethnic dress), who used different shops etc? Weren't you curious about them?

The road I spent my first 5 years in was pretty homgenous, but as we went out and about I could see all kinds of different houses bigger and smaller than ours and people who lived differently to us. I knew that some people were poor, and what that meant.

My childhood ended when my mother died. I was 11 and my father worked abroad, so I had to attend boarding school, where I was definitely the poor relation. Strangely, that didn't bother me in the slightest as my father - having been very straightlaced in my childhood, became a new person - the one I think he had always wanted to be. Working in a very creative industry, he waa able to finally indulge in a different sort of lifestyle, one that I too enjoyed in the holidays. OK, I had to cook for dinner guests, learn languages other than the French and Latin at school...and eventually passed enough exams to satisfy my father! I went into the same profession, not by 'who you know' by hard work, then wound up in hospital for 6 months. After that, I decided that I had better get on with living life as much as I could while I could. Í've nearly died another 5 times, but í'm buggered if I'm giving up. Oddly, I never managed to pass this can-do attitude on to my 3 children. They may not have had the most affluent of childhoods, but I brought them up with what I consider to be decent values. Their father ran off when they were very small children and only reappeared when they were teenagers. He has spent his entire life depressed for no earthly reason, believing that the world owes him more than he could ever be bothered to work for or deserve. The children couldn't wait to go and live with him because it was 'easier'. He does not expect them to work or contribute in any way, but carries on paying and moaning about the hard life he has doing all the cooking and cleaning etc whilst having a 24 and 25 year old under his roof with their 22 cats! Yes, I do mean 22! So who made the better choices? Who has the happier life now? Who hasn't given up despite adverse circumstances? Has money made a difference? Bearing in mind that they are living with someone now aged over 80 who is more or less bound to die in the reasonably near future (especially if he is finally successful with another suicide attempt?), life will suddenly hit them square between the eyes, especially as they live in rented accommodation! They say I'm dead - far from it, but they'll get no more money from me...

I didn't feel different until I went to grammar school. Previous to that I had loads of friends and we were all much the same. All lived in the same kind of house, played in the streets etc. It wasn't until I was 11/12 that I realised some people lived very different lives. I think looking back I would have done much better at the secondary modern my friends from primary went to. I hated grammar school and never really fitted in.

Funny the things you remember isn't it? I recall being asked to play at another girls house. Play dates weren't invented then.

My memory is of luke warm tinned mushroom soup. I had never encountered mushrooms or soup that wasn't home made. I might as well have been on another planet.

I was brought up in a coal mining village, most fathers were coal miners or worked in Hoovers.

When I went to grammar school my parents had moved to a rural part of Wales, so weekdays in rural Wales, weekend and holidays in South Wales, there parents were farmers , in the army , a military town so I was quite used to families from different walks in life. It never bothered me who did what or worked, lived where, I had the security of the extended family in the mining village.

In the early 1960s I went to Durham University (Newcastle branch). The Newcastly branch taught mainly science and engineering and was choc-a-bloc with good solid working class lads who had come up and got to university through grammar schools. Their fathers worked in industry and many had been brought up on council estates. I found nothing unusual or remarkable in this.

Down south, in the grammar school I attended, I really didn't know, nor was I that curious, about the home lives of fellow pupils. I had no idea what jobs their fathers had or where they lived. Looking back I can now see that their were a significant number who were not from 'nice middle class homes', whatever that might mean. Several on free lunches and others who had help with uniform, but it wasn't that evident at the time and certainly never talked about.

As a child I never had this obsession with being like everyone else that seems to obsess so many on GN. I wasn't bothered that I was frequently seen as odd and I was quite prepared to accept that other people were different.

I find this obsession with conformity peculiar.