Sydney "haves" and "have nots" and social classism

Yep! Some grandparents may be up for the challenge and volunteer, but you see others that are forced to help their kids and are not up to it. They are just dragging the kids around to occupy them to get them through the day. Not exactly stimulating.
Everyone parent and grandparent is different but for us, their ways of raising kids do not meet our parenting philosophy. Yeah people say"i turned out alright" that's ok if your happy to settle for "alright" I'd much rather settle for the best.
Plus the other side is they deserve to enjoy their retirement

 

True dat.
And Joe Peanut won't want the pay cut to move as he doesn't understand the other cost savings involved. Plus it's all to hard to pack and move. Easier to be a slave to Sydney!

Plus a lot of Sydneysiders don't realise there's a big world out there. The world revolves around sydney... or The Shire if you hail from that country

 

Wot? There's civilization beyond Hornsby?

 

What's cruel is your generalised comment without knowing any circumstances.
I dont 'expect' or 'dump' my child on our parents. Our parents are still young, and basically BEGGED to look after her. My mother had a go at me 4 days ago for booking my daughter into a 3rd day of daycare starting this week.
I work a rotating roster, so on non-daycare days, im home 50-60% of the time to be with my daughter. If for some reason theres a day when our parents aren't able to watch her, and we're both working, both of our workplaces are flexible.
As good as daycare is, my daughter is well ahead of her friends mentally/socially because she is well cared for by FAMILY who WANT her around, and constantly teach her new things and take her travelling. Shes not a burden.
I don't do it for the 'savings'. I believe shes better off this way.
Didn't expect that from you at all.

 

Each to their own life choices ours was not to impose on family after hearing nothing but ******* from those who have looked after those who had kids before ourselves.

 

Not quite "civilisation", but there's some nice humpy's I'm lead to believe

 

Nope. ACT, WA and NT have the highest salaries in Australia

6302.0 - Average Weekly Earnings, Australia, Nov 2016

 

Nice!

Would you say that Sydneysiders per capita have a net worth higher than other Aus capitals?

 

This is a few years old so not sure how accurate it still is.

States and territories

Household net worth varies between states and territories. In 2011-12 Tasmanian households recorded the lowest mean net worth at $601,000, or 17% below the average for all Australian households (table 30). Canberra (ACT) households had a mean net worth of $930,000, 19% above the capital city average of $781,000 (table 26) and 28% above the average for all Australian households of $728,000 (table 30). Household net worth was also higher in capital cities compared to other areas. The mean net worth of $781,000 for capital city households (table 26) was 22% above the mean for households in the remainder of Australia of $638,000 (table 28).

6554.0 - Household Wealth and Wealth Distribution, Australia, 2011–12​

 

I'm currently living overseas in a culture where it is normal for grandparents to look after the kid while the couple go to work.
I think often grandparents actually don't mind grandkids becuase
1. After a few hours they send them back to the kids parents; and
2. They actually like to play with them becuase they can spoil them since they are not the parents who will be doing most of the disciplining.

I think this removes a lot of the stress, plus lets face it, grandparents don't do much and often love spending time with their grandkids instead of doing nothing much else.

Then there is the fact that parents have no clue what they are doing and end up screwing up their kids, often yelling and abusing them out of the stress of having a kid (which is an insane amount of work) on top of all the other work in their life. A grandparent can come in with the confidence of having gone through it all and bring some comfort and experience into the whole family dynamic.

Obviously if the grandparents find this a burden, that is different, but I think a lot of them don't and actually enjoy it and everyone benefits enormously.

 

Anglos typically hate kids that aren't their own, even grandchildren are seen as great inconvenience. A bloody unattractive feature of modern Oz culture unfortunately. The wogs do this far better, and as a result in their dotage aren't typically carted off to a nursing home, never to be visited again.

 

Absolutely. NSW certainly isn't the highest in terms of GSP per capita, either. From 2016 (so even accounting for the recent economic downturn):

WA: $98,012 GSP per capita
NT: $96,906
ACT: $92,173
NSW: $69,266
Qld: $65,416
Vic: $62,308
SA: $59,371
Tas: $50,327

In terms of net worth, dwelling ownership goes into the calculation of GSP per capita, so is accounted for - Sydney doesn't have substantially greater 'net worth' than Australians from other cities. By earnings logic alone (i.e. if high earnings determined or influenced house prices) WA, NT and ACT should be the most expensive markets.

Sydney's median household (rounded) income is $88,000, which is also middle of the pack.
(Perth $87,000; Brisbane $79,000; Adelaide $66,000; Melbourne $78,000; Canberra $104,000; Darwin $114,000; Hobart $61,000)

 

Yep..this is generally what it is in many other countries.
However..I wonder how kids may end up feeling about this especially if it's extended. Eg parents get divorced and the kids keep being raised by thr grandparents...or alternatively in boarding school.

 

Speaking from personal experience, part of the reason why I was hesitant to move away from Sydney was the fact that I really did not know what else was out there.
I was already in quite a poor situation in Sydney and my assumption was that opportunities would be greatest in the largest centers. That turned out to be false - thankfully - and I am now established in a much better (by all accounts) regional center.

Having lived in my new location for 1 year, I can not think of any reason as to why I would want to move back to Sydney.

I highly encourage anyone considering a move to do so. Except I would make sure that your income and employment would be guarenteed.

 

For interstate migrants it comes down to career opportunities. I could be earning a lot more money in Sydney and have a more satisfying career than what I'm currently doing in Adelaide. On the other hand I'd literally just be working to pay rent and the lifestyle of spending 3 hours commuting to and from work every day. I actually did live in Sydney in 2014 but I moved back to Adelaide because I thought home ownership was unattainable and I was looking at suburbs like Minto, Ingleburn, Macquarie Fields etc. Now in 2017 it's even worse. In Adelaide I have a decent job but importantly I've managed to purchase 2 houses since moving from Sydney. My net wealth is decades ahead of where I would be living if I'd stayed in Sydney and at the end of the day we work to live not live to work so my lifestyle here is superior.

 

A bit of a stereotype perhaps. My parents are anglo and love looking after the grandkids. They complain a lot if they don't get to see them enough. My Aunties and Uncles all love looking after the grandkids too. Maybe our family is a bit different.

 

Yep, totally a stereotype. I'm an Anglo and know there are exceptions, my parents are the same as yours. (i.e. Blowing up when the kids daycare attendance increased).

 

Amazing to hear of this attitude. Personally I love kids and indeed always happy to have extras over at my place to play with mine. The more the merrier I say! I'm looking forward to be day when I can be a grand dad and have some young whippersnappers come visit me

 

Well where I am currently residing (outside Aus), there is no safety net of welfare, so as a result families must stick together to be able to survive. As a result, yes children do look after their parents as the norm, but following from that, in socialist socieities people become lazy and irresponsible and it is very normal for a family of say 6 to have 1 person doing well financially, 2 people doing so-so, and 3 people not pulling their weight leeching off the 1 person who is doing well. That person can't do anything to shake these parasites since it is their "duty" to help family even when the family take advantage of them. A close friend of mine always tells me how lucky I am to have freedom to leave my family, unlike her who has to support her parents who never stop taking and never will stop until they die.

I was the same as you, initially comparing to Australia thinking how nice it is here that people take care of their parents and thinking how screwed it is in Australia, but after while I found out it is not by choice but out of a cultural guilt that makes them feel that it would be wrong to tell their leeching family to f*** off and stop taking advantage of them. There is an understanding throughout the culture that the parents had the kid, and as a result the kid literally owes their entire life to the parents, so they must do anything that the parents want. There is no escape for them because in their mind this is a fundamental truth.

Ideally parents would less selfish and instead do the best for their children (good education, health, emotional care, etc) and do it for the sake of their children, not for what they get in return, and as a result the child would appreciate it and then take care of their parents out of choice, but that's not really the human thing to do. Humans are selfish by nature.

For this reason, if I had kids, I would not burden them with feeling like they must take care of me. I would save enough money so that I can take care of myself if that means a nursing home, and then the child can have freedom and choose what to do in their own life.