Been having serious conversation with some youngsters born in the 80s, generation Y. They have said their future is bleak or, at least, uncertain! We are at war with Russia, China next, our financial system is broken with banks on the verge of collapse.
My generation, “baby boomers had it easy”.
So I had to remind them what life was like 50 years ago: recession, record inflation, cold war, unemployment, 3 day week, oil crisis & ration books, and worse, things they have never had to suffer. Life was tough but we didn’t dwell on it.
So we were optimistic, but that optimisms gone, probably because todays middle aged were, as children, spoilt and sheltered. Anyway, what are your thoughts? I do know I was lucky to grow up when I did, because life today is comparatively boring, even if it is less precarious.
I am not sure about Gen Y but I do think we baby boomers had it relatively easy.
There is no doubt the baby boomers hold a lot of wealth which has been a problem for the millennials.
We certainly had golden times with music and entertainment, we also saw massive strides in health care with polio, rickets, small pox and so many other diseases no longer the threat they once were when I was a child.
The cold war was a constant threat in the background but I can’t say it was a hard life, I was always able find a job whenever I wanted one, always earned good wages, could buy property at the drop of a hat with a little saving - my first house, and the one I still live in, cost less than my annual salary at the time, once you own one house the banks fall over themselves to lend you money to buy more. Now houses are at least eight times a person’s annual salary.
Yes. Times have changed. But a lot of the things we did when we were young, are not even considered now a days.
I remember we only had one TV station where I lived. We didn’t have video games, cable tv. Hada party phone line. If we were really lucky, I might get a soda once a week. Got our ice cream by spending time on the hand crank. We played sport events a lot of the time. We didn’t have much money but when you did, you earned it, 5¢ a bale (60-80 lbs) getting it from the field into the barn. On a good day, you could make $5.
I remember when it was Gen X who moaned about Baby Boomers–we had it easy…didn’t have to work for anything. Jobs were easy to come by. Ditto housing. We could travel more easily.
Now, it’s Gen Y. Yet, in fairness to this generation, I have found many of them have far more courage than I ever had–numbers of them have opened up distilleries, brew pubs, and other businesses that I would never have dreamed of doing. They’ve moved out of the city to have the sort of life they want for themselves. Something I sort of did–well I changed countries for awhile.
Then there is the entitled crew–who have cell phones, laptops, cars, expensive bikes, and whine.
Life has always had its challenges, it’s only hind sight that makes it look rosier than it really was.
I went to a Grammar School in the late fifties and early sixties where it was always quietly assumed that you would end up in academia or employed in a large enterprise as a uni graduate.
I cannot recall any mention of starting your own business, working for yourself even getting a trade etc I admire the young who seem far more enterprising.
I am not sure Gen X, Y or Z should be encouraged to follow a life of crime. There is no shortage of criminals.
I was lucky to be born just after WW2.They needed fit workers to rebuild so we got the NHS and council houses.The boom was still going in the sixties so plenty of jobs.
I don’t envy the younger generations at all.
So where are we now in the big scheme of things? Everybody knows everything because it’s googlable, the news we are fed is riddled with drama and scare. We are addicted to the internet which is propped up with scam and conspiracy. Is it any wonder the Y, or whatever younger generation, feel insecure. Or do they expect too much?
Hard time in many ways but then your so young that your goals are quite different to say now…I was a 1948 babe and left school at 15 with no qualifications as such although I had been taught Typing and Shorthand which got me an interview with the Forestry Commission in Saville Row London…(Jobs two a penny back then of course)…was the heart of Club and Music Venues…My World was made!What more could a young gal want…I had very little interest in men at that time but Sport was my love also…mainly running an swimming…
Now of course education is pushed and pushed on to youngsters as it is a real requirement with employers.
Thanks to various government decisions… Mr.Average was convinced that he can afford to buy a property… just was fooled by the banked money in the Governments Kitty as they gained that easily by selling off much of the British Industries to the highest Bidder…
Rich have got richer and cleverer accountants etc…making their million by bending the rules to avoid high Taxes. With doubt the Less Well Off People are at an all time high.
Crime and Violence have increased beyond belief and Jobs are not what they were in the 60’s for sure.
All in all many Young’uns are at disadvantage from the word Go…
It is a age old tradition, the older generation complaining about the younger generation, the younger generation complaining about the older, but yet, as each generation passes we become smarter, and much more advanced.
The Rainy Day
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
----by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
the main thing though, soon the skies will clear, before us lies a clear blue wonderful day, just radiant with possibilities.
It is human nature to think that every generation had it easy. In some ways we had it easier, I some ways, we did not.
My Z’s think that we did until I described reality that we faced a recession and stagflation, few jobs and we didn’t even think about buying a house for years because we had zero low-cost options and interest rates were much higher than they are now. I worked two jobs in college because there were no such thing as loans. We drove junker cars and vacations were not a basic need but a dream. In a good year we would get a camping trip with a tent or weekend trip somewhere. Airline travel was a luxury. Working a 50+ hour week was generally expected, and didn’t choose our working hours - we worked when we were told and we were grateful for our jobs.
The one thing we did have was more civility in society and thankfully, a much easier dating scene that wasn’t based on algorithms and swiping left or right. There was a lot more mystery and romance between the sexes and rather than leap frogging right into sex like it was a fast food trip to McDonalds. We had the art of the kiss, waiting by the phone (attached to the kitchen wall), and the excitement of dating. Children grew up protected from the harsher side of the adult world, allowing them to grow up slowly and developmentally appropriate, rather than ill-timed exposure to fringe elements, sex, and drugs.
Most of us were also fortunate to grow up in nuclear families. Education based on academics and not the social experiment that it is today. Parents were expected to make sure that we were well fed, clean, and doing our homework. We grew up patriotic, religious (or at least with some religious education), and with a social framework that looked pretty good. In short, we had a model of life that worked pretty well for our parents and grandparents - with more opportunities. We had an optimistic view of the future and the steps to get there were attainable. We also knew that if we worked hard, we could determine our own futures.
I think we were fortunate and that kids have more opportunities to have things but fewer opportunities for simple, less hectic, more family-centered lives.
If Gen Y are worried, and they have reason to be, then millennials are even more worried. I know it differs from country to country but in the majority these younger generations face:
a housing crisis that means they have to rent but rental costs mean they can’t save to buy whilst the older generation got their dream home and made hundreds of thousands from property
massive national debt with no clear plan to pay it off which looks like decades of benefit for the now older generation and leave the problem to the next generation
increasing gulf between the very rich and everyone else, whereas the 60’s & 70’s saw more social mobility and a closing of this gap
environmental trashing of the planet meaning extinction of species, poisoning of lakes, rivers & seas, micro-plastics seeping into all living systems, ‘forever chemicals’ (PFA’s) seeping into all living systems - both likely to be causing cancers - meaning the previous generation are directly causing health problems for the next generations
two hundred years of burning fossil fuels that have also polluted the planet and now a slow, slow effort to replace these with other energy sources - which the next generations will need to address and to pay for
global tensions largely caused by either individual country’s desire for grandeur or mass exploitation / subservience by others or environmental changes (that is, global tensions caused by man made wrongs)
a few countries with weapons of mass destruction and not all of them stable
a job market that greatly favours the well connected, not the able
I could go on.
Against that what the older generation argue is something about how tough it was with no mobile phones or internet, only a couple of TV stations and a bit of industrial unrest. You do know how pathetic that sounds.
Everything around us is in a state of constant evolution, as is our lives, but evolution is good, it forces us to grow / mature, with evolution comes a newer better tomorrow, and while with growth, there comes pain, without it, life stagnates and dies.
Well, thank you for such a positive perspective.
Unfortunately, in the context of the world’s problems (even the problems of individual countries) your assessment amounts to no more than survival of the fittest. Which is not even how nature and evolution works. It is a dismal, uncaring perspective. It allows, even encourages, great suffering and misery. It basically says “hey, can’t help, soz, but us lucky few are ok.” What a horrible, less-than-human way to think. Tens of thousands of years of humanity can surely do be than that?
Besides all that, the notion that without pain there is stagnation is made up pish. Such tosh.
In my experience of these people, unhappy intellectuals, they are expecting the breakdown of society as we know it, the capitalist system, and death by decrepit world leaders with a finger on the big red button. They think it’s a situation unprecedent, but we’ve heard it all before.
Does not matter whether you think it is “tosh” or not, it is fact. Everything in life is constantly evolving, especially us, as people, which nurtures change which nurtures growth. You are not the same person you were 10 years ago, you have evolved with your life experiences, which encouraged change within you, whether you admit it or not, which in turn nurtured growth, and in the majority (if not all) pain was the driving point.
Evolving (or progress or whatever) is certainly the case. But that was not the principle point you were putting forward. You were saying collapse and pain is necessary for change. You were saying change and evolution necessarily means pain. That is the bit that I disagree with. What is the point of progress if it is not to improve things and reduce pain?
No ma’am, I said pain creates change, said naught about collapse, it is a proven fact in everyone’s life, society, and the world as a whole. Only in times of adversity are we compelled to grow, satisfaction creates stagnation.
. “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”
-----G. Michael Hopf
