LIFE-CHANGES – THE NEXT GENERATION

I was 8 years old when it happened. My father won the then magnificent sum of £5,000. At the exchange rate at that time, it was about US$15,000 – an enormous figure.  I suppose in today’s’ terms this equates to several million (pounds or dollars). It also represented some four or five years of salary! (How times have changed!).

I remember him bringing home the good news and my parents and I sat around the kitchen table discussing this amazing piece of good luck. Having always been prudent with their money and remembering it was just after the Second World War, they decided on two courses of action. The first was to buy their house and, apologies for using the figures from then, this amounted to £500 (yes, I know, what can you buy for that money now? Very little of lasting value).  The second thing they did was to invest much of the balance. And the investment was in me.

They decided to give me a high quality education since, in their view, this was an investment in the future for all of us. I hope I have given them a good return on that investment; certainly whilst they were alive I believe I did. Their investment certainly changed my life forever and for the better.

Times change and attitudes to not only the family but also the “battle” between ‘buying’ and ‘investing’. More and more I see that the average family (of which I was proud to be a member) is focused on the buying side rather than the investing side and I wonder what this means for the future. In many countries, families complain about the quality of education their children are receiving via the state. I cannot deny or confirm but if this is the case, why are families not ‘investing’ in their children and their joint future? One reason is probably the high cost of living – merely staying alive; secondly perhaps due to the fact that now there is no such thing as a ‘job for life’, in a state of uncertainty investment into the future is the first thing to go.

I have noticed over the years that when times get difficult, people have usually rallied around each other to offer mutual support and help; this esprit de corps has been a vital link for many. However, now I observe a different phenomenon – a closing of attitudes and values; if you prefer, an inward-looking approach to life that excludes all except the immediate family circle. I am unfamiliar with these new values and they do not “sit” kindly on my shoulders.

Each generation has, in my view, a huge responsibility to pass on whatever it can to the next generation, so that it (the new one) can achieve a better style of life, and that means investing in them.

Given your special circumstances, if you had the same degree of luck that my father had, what would YOU do?

Until next time (and extremely thankful),

Peripatetic Scribe