English

Noun

Thatcher’s children pl ‎(plural only)

1. People who grew up or were born in the United Kingdom during the premiership of Margaret Thatcher (1979–1990) and who adopted the ideology of Thatcherism.
   • 1986, The Economist, v 311:

     She has not begun to stem the tide of British ugliness—the yobbish teenagers shivering in their torn gear; the shoddy streets littered with fast-food packaging; the drunks urinating on London's tube platforms; the drug culture. It is facile to call those concerned “Thatcher's children”: she is not responsible for their actions.

   • 1990, Anthony Lejeune, “Class”, in National Review, v 42, n 21, pp 81–84:

     London's financial district, like New York's, had its “big bang,” after which, as though from dragon's teeth, Yuppies sprang up, armed with Porsches and mobile telephones. They included, inevitably, some unattractive specimens, and much of their wealth has proved evanescent. To call them “Thatcher's children” is both unfair and unhistorical. Just the same corner-cutting, money-obsessed types can be found in the novels of Trollope and Galsworthy. At the other end of the scale are the workers in moribund industries, the unmarried mothers, and the feckless young, all those who have come to expect more from the welfare state than the welfare state could ever provide: They too are called “Thatcher's children”: but their problems would have existed whatever government was in power.

   • 2005, Justin O'Connor, “Cities, Culture and ‘Transitional Economies’: Developing Cultural Industries in St. Petersburg”, in John Hartley ed., Creative Industries, Wiley-Blackwell,p 255:

     Negus (2002), for example, characterizes intermediaries in the music industry in London as “public schoolboys”; in Manchester they have been seen as “Thatcher's children,” the unemployed and disaffected.

   • 2007, Nikolas Coupland, Style: Language Variation and Identity, Cambridge University Press, p 96:

     The social group in Britain that came to be known as ‘Thatcher's children’ (benefiting from the right-wing monetarist policies of Margaret Thatcher's government) were also called ‘yuppies’ (young, upwardly-mobile professionals, especially those working in money markets and the Stock Exchange). They often originated in the south-east of England and their profit motives were legitimised by government policy in favour of free market economics.

   • 2007, Anthony Seldon, Blair's Britain, 1997–2007, Cambridge University Press, p 228:

     Non-unionism was now the norm across swathes of the private sector so that only an estimated 16% of employees were organised by trade unions by 2006. Increasingly younger workers aged between sixteen and twenty-four – known as Thatcher's children – saw little point in being trade union members.

2. Used other than as an idiom: see Thatcher,‎ children.

   Margaret Thatcher is a former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Denis Thatcher is Thatcher's husband, and Mark Thatcher and Carol Thatcher are Thatcher's children.

Usage notes

• The singular one of Thatcher’s children is more common than Thatcher’s child.

Related terms

• Thatcherism
• Thatcherite

See also

• Wikipedia article on Thatcherism
• Wikipedia article on Margaret Thatcher