Is the modern life of making money bad for us?

Lately this is something I’ve really started to ponder. Yes, life expectancy is increasing, but I’d like to see research around life experiences of middle class people who work full time related to their health. In the last week I’ve seen endless examples of supposedly healthy people, having significant health setbacks at an early age, the one common denominator of these people is they are career people working full time. Within the blogging world, JW mentioned a health issue he has been facing, through my letter box came my annual school news, a woman a couple of years older than myself with a good city career and 2 young children has just died of breast cancer. I saw 2 city couples on repeats of Relocation Relocation who just had miscarriages in the midst of city careers and moving, I saw another 2 full time working couples have a late miscarriage on Till Debt Do Us Part and as I’m reading Affluenza yet even more stories jump out at me.

Of course this isn’t a scientific study, but the reality is, I have to wonder, is all this social mobility, all this middle class lifestyle really good for us? There are so many people, young people, on medication for high blood pressure and high cholesterol. People working 10-12 hour days, picking up take aways and convenience meals that they’ll warm up in the microwave and sit in front of the TV watching. People spending their weekends paying bills, catching up on errands, doing the grocery shop, instead of actually spending quality time together. Children doing a “working day” from 6 weeks or 3 months or 6 months or even a year, spending 8-10 hrs at a daycare centre/nursery, in their spare time they accompany parents on errands or are in even more structured activities. People talk about the obesity epidemic among children and really is it any wonder when so few families have the time to spend walking through the countryside, swimming in lakes and beaches, instead the children are in cars being shuttled back and forth, the same goes for their parents. So many parents and families never take holidays, sometimes for fear they won’t have a job to go back to or because they don’t want to “spend the money”and yet they have no trouble blowing £200 + a month on stuff they don’t need that won’t increase their quality of life. How do they separate year from year? How do they take a break? How do they show each other and their children that spending time with them is a priority?

Studies show that people are no happier earning more, compared to their happiness level when they earn enough. This means that once you have enough to pay your bills, save a small amount each month to cope with emergencies, afford a small holiday each year, you are just as happy as if you had another £10=$20K to spend more on “stuff”.

And while I write this, I’ve had a telephone call from a friend. She is married, both earn in excess of £50,000= $100,000 each. They have a £300,000 = $600,000 house, 2 rental properties they let out. She took 3 months off after the birth of their daughter, who now spends every day from 8 to 6 at a childminders. Their daughter is 3 years old and has never had so much as a week away with her parents to enjoy the countryside or beach. She has in fact been to the beach once at my insistence (!), instead her weekends are spent accompanying her parents on errands, watching her parents do catch up emails and getting more new toys. Her toy collection could rival that of a large toyshop. I don’t think she has more than 1 fruit or veg a week, when you rely on take away meals and pre-cooked meals it’s pretty hard to get your 5 A Day. Their daughter is clingy, her parents are stressed out, yet they feel they’ve made it. Their emails to friends and family always show a child surrounded by the latest toys and I am sure many reading would feel inadequate that their child doesn’t have the same. Yet, despite only being 40 both having high blood pressure, high cholesterol stress and anxiety, what use are toys to their daughter if they end up having a stroke in 5 years?

I believe in the Western World we are making major mistakes in our approach to life and work. We work harder to buy more to keep up with the Jones’, only the Jones’ aren’t the people next door on a similar income to us, the Jones’ have become the couples on property shows who earn far more than us, the mega rich whose blogs we read, the celebrities lives who we see every intimate detail of and want to emulate.

This week at Nelson Mandela’s 90th Birthday party he mentioned his regret in life is not having more time with his children when they were young. I’m starting to think, that before we became middle class, the working class male was a pretty smart man we should aspire to. The working class men, often working in factories in the North of this great country really knew how to live. They worked 8am to 4pm with a 40 minute lunch break (!), the factory shut for 2 weeks every summer when they all went on holidays with their wives and children, the factory shut for a week @ Christmas and a week @ Easter, giving them a break every 3 months to be with their family. There were no emails you could check from home, weekends began at 4pm on Friday and finished at 8am on Mondays. At the weekends, they could be found enjoying a drink with friends in the pub on Fridays, spending Saturdays in the allotment growing fruits and veg and perhaps treating the family to a tea and cake at the local town and Sundays were often spend reading papers, attending Church and then having a Sunday drive with their families. Eating out was a treat that occurred once or twice a year for most. They lead a simple but good life, where there was honour in putting your family first – that didn’t mean earning more and being away from them, but instead having days out in Southend or Blackpool.

As we supposedly move forward to a place where the average person can afford a detached house, to spend money each and every month on clothing, magazines, dining out, home delivered food, cleaners, gardeners, yet more new towels, sheets and furniture, I have to wonder if we are actually moving backwards in life, becoming more ignorant and cutting ourselves and our children short?