Working-class in the 80s and 90s - how is parenting different now?

Council estates, free school meals, latchkey kids. If that was your childhood, raising a teen in 2026 hits differently.

If you grew up working-class in Britain in the 80s or 90s, your childhood probably included things that would horrify modern parenting forums: walking to school alone from age seven, a key on a string round your neck, hours of unsupervised time on bikes, second-hand uniforms, and the assumption that you'd leave school at 16 and get a job.

The world your teen is growing up in is unrecognisable. Average UK house prices are roughly nine times average earnings (in the 90s it was around four). Renting a one-bed in most cities now costs more than your parents' mortgage did. University, which was free for your generation if you went, costs your kid £50k.

Some of that change is good. Mental health isn't a taboo anymore. Kids aren't being smacked at school. Casual racism and homophobia aren't background noise. Free school meals reach more children. Domestic violence is taken seriously. None of us would actually go back.

But some of it is genuinely harder. Your teen has less freedom, less privacy, and less unstructured time than you did - and infinitely more surveillance, both from you and from every app on their phone. They've never known a world without constant comparison to filtered strangers.

Where working-class parents often have an edge: you know what 'making do' looks like. You're not panicked by your kid being bored, getting a Saturday job, taking the bus alone, or not going to university. You know status isn't safety, and that resilience comes from being trusted with real things.

Where it can trip you up: assuming your teen should just 'crack on' the way you had to. The job market, housing market, and dating market they're entering are structurally different. 'I had a paper round at 13 and turned out fine' isn't always the right answer when a 13-year-old today is dealing with group chats, AI-generated nudes, and a cost-of-living crisis their school can't shield them from.

What seems to translate well: a sense of humour about hardship, not catastrophising every setback, knowing the value of a hot meal and a clean bed, telling your kid you're proud of them out loud (the thing many of us never heard), and being absolutely clear that home is theirs no matter what.

We didn't have much. A lot of us turned out OK. Pass on the good bits, leave the rest behind.