No smoke without fire?

[mystery]

Why do you want to change your boys' hair colour?

[southbucks3]

I dye it back to their baby colour light blonde, so they can pretend we have been on a winter break in the sun...I kick them in legs too, so they can pretend they went skiing and an olive fork jabbed in the hand mimicks a tropical insect bite perfectly for the imaginary jungle safari.

[doodles]

That made me laugh, my DS1 has been on one plane (when he was 3) and DS2 has never been on one Hey ho there's more to life .........

[JamesDean]

.... and I will continue to struggle on with home hair dye kits for a while yet.

Oh, I gave those up years ago, SB - embrace the 'ash blond' look

JD

[mystery]

I dye it back to their baby colour light blonde, so they can pretend we have been on a winter break in the sun...I kick them in legs too, so they can pretend they went skiing and an olive fork jabbed in the hand mimicks a tropical insect bite perfectly for the imaginary jungle safari.

Brilliant! Reminds me of those fake ski photos in Green Card.

[doodles]

.... and I will continue to struggle on with home hair dye kits for a while yet.

Oh, I gave those up years ago, SB - embrace the 'ash blond' look

JD

Silver highlights are the epitome of chic!

[Snowdrops]

Society has been contrived to have more people earning more money and spending more money than before the eighties, which means two parents earning is encouraged and stay at home parents have their real value publicly diminished.

A few years ago we sold a 3 bed semi, that I grew up in with my family, 5 of us, and a granny for a while, my dad had a high paid job, drove a fast car, but in the main we were frugal. Many people, with two kids discounted the house as being too small, even though we had put an extension on it, and we were selling it a market cost. The house did sell quite quickly, but maybe tellingly to an Eastern European family.

Compare the lifestyle of the 70s and early 80's lower middle classes to those of the noughties, and the real pattern emerges. A buoyant economy needs lots of disposable cash, particularly at the moment, so the government will do everything they can to increase the total monthly salary of the nation, and therefore total income tax, and total vat paid.

As for house prices, and affordability, the real spike has happened since the 90's, and this directly relates to demand for home ownership, increased population and the base rate of interest falling hugely. Remember those mortgages in the eighties, 17% base rate compared to 5% of the first 2000 years. We may have had less to borrow, but we were charged a whack load more to borrow it!

I really do not mind if other people want both parents to work full time, but I do not want this double income lifestyle touted by the uk government as the best way to live, with free childcare subsidised equally by those who choose to have one parent at home, or in deed by people who have no children.
Life is not all about money, and I will continue to struggle on with home hair dye kits for a while yet.

See, I get this. This is a much more, all round, plausible reason. I dread to think how future generations will cope.

[talea51]

I dye it back to their baby colour light blonde, so they can pretend we have been on a winter break in the sun...I kick them in legs too, so they can pretend they went skiing and an olive fork jabbed in the hand mimicks a tropical insect bite perfectly for the imaginary jungle safari.

You really shouldn't say things like that when I am drinking my coffee, it ends up all over the keyboard!