Thanks for all the replies, As expected opinions are varied and thats obviously due to personal experience so I think you are probably all right in different circumstances,
To the guy that wrote about theres a lot of work in any career like acting, football etc thats fair enough but to become a footballer my parents dont need to remortgage their house! Infact 99% of other careers pay YOU to train and then offer a fairly decent salary after that, It just seems this industry is a bit backward and theres obviously many reasons but the airlines have certainly got it the way they want it!
It would appear pilots no longer seem to hold a high level of respect from employers and they manage to get away for paying peanuts for pilots (Not monkeys)!