This is so fucking shit for young people

[ssd]

Yeah i know its shit for everyone before you pounce on me

But imagine being around 20 just now...no pubs, no nightclubs, no jobs around, no buzz in your town centre, no excuse to dress up in something new, or planning your latest night out, meeting your pals and all the excitement of the night ahead.

Its just so fucking shite.

I got the train home tonight from work, Glasgow city centre is a ghost town. Places that were always busy boarded up, of course everything except like of newsagents and tesco's shut. Its Friday night. It was always jumping when i was young, absolutely jumping. It was dead. On the train was a bunch if young boys, playing music a bit too loud, all singing along....going home from the city centre at 6pm!!!!. I could have cried watching them all, a nice sunny evening and the only place they are heading was back to mum and dads, or a local park maybe, i dont know. They were about 18, casual dressed, haircuts, all wanting a good time with their pals and probably hoping to meet a partner if they were single.

Where is the life for these kids???

This has gone on long enough. I dont care if i never see inside a pub again. I've had a brilliant social life at that age. Now they have fuck all.

Its too much.

[Truelymadlydeeplysomeonesmum]

The poor kids that should be at university now☹

My neighbor's son has really struggled doing his university course from home. Not to mention them paying for digs on Leeds and him spending his first year at home in London.

[Waxonwaxoff0]

YANBU. I keep thinking of students who are supposed to be having the time of their lives at uni, people celebrating 18th and 21st birthdays. It must be shit.

[IrishMamaMia]

I find it just surreal to contemplate how my 20 year old self would have felt, I was all about festivals, club nights, events, part time jobs, friends and boyfriends, weekends in Europe it was all new to me. It was a great, carefree time and I was lucky to experience it like that.
Those of you who have children that age, what's your and their view on things?

[SteveArnottsCodeine]

I agree. It makes me really sad to see young people now, the future for them looks so bleak.

[ifonly4]

It's hard on everyone. I do have a 19 year old though, she's so fed up and frustrated. She's at uni, and understanding that there would be some face to face support, signed up to a room costing £7500 pa. She's only spent eight weeks there as things closed down sooner than in England and she found it hard literally being stuck in one room - she tried going out with other people in her flat but was refused outside service as they wouldn't accept groups of students despite being from the same household. There hasn't been any face to face contact, and hard to get hold of some lecturers.

She's been home the rest of the time, has been so careful. Only seen one friend, they've taken to walking out late at 9pm to avoid others. She had the chance of sitting in a garden with five others in the week, late after they'd finished work at 10pm - she leapt at it.

She knows she has to wait, but just wants her vaccine now and to get her life back. She meant to be doing a year abroad in September and has worked so hard to get her place, but has to sit it out and hope the foreign uni doesn't cancel.

[Sparklingbrook]

My 19 year old is at the pub as we speak. He and some friends have booked a 2 hour table slot at one pub followed by a 2 hour slot at another. Home for ten. Better than nothing but a bit

My 19 year old self lived for pubs and clubs and rolling home in the small hours every night.
That said I seem to have birthed two very sensible DC who wouldn't want to do that but freezing in a pub garden in April isn't what they had in mind either.

[Cookerhood]

I feel for mine. One graduated last year & had a rubbish last year with strikes & then Covid. No graduation, no end of uni celebrations, no 21sts, no travelling & no jobs. The other has had a year at uni on line. At least he is 2nd year so had a good 2/3 of his first year. This easter they've just been stuck at home & now seem to stuck in a rut & are still barely going out. Not that there's many places to go anyway. When I think of the fun I was having at that age :(

[Tealightsandd]

It's massively shit, but it's even more shit for elderly. At least the young will have a chance to make up for lost time.

[SamBeckettsLastLeap]

I met my now husband at the age my DD is now, in a crowded bar, you know the ones, where you have to slide body to body to get past someone, as I slid past on the way to the toilets it felt like lightning had struck. A bar that neither of us had been before or went again, in a country neither of us lived in. All these chances missed. And that's without thinking of all the incidental things that are being misses.

[Chunkymenrock]

It's sad but there really are no guarantees in life. It'll be behind us soon enough.

[MumofPsuedoAdult]

I totally agree. My 19 year old is miserable. This is going to taint them for years. He had already been saying to me "I wish I was a teenager when you were" (when we watched 80s classic movies) and now this....it's proper shit!!

[ssd]

@Tealightsandd

It's massively shit, but it's even more shit for elderly. At least the young will have a chance to make up for lost time.

Yeah but the elderly have had their lives. The young have barely started.

[NaturalBlondeYeahRight]

Yep, I think they have had it the worst (on a day to day level - not those who have been ill/lost jobs etc)
I have a 19 yr old and a nearly 21 yr old. Both at uni (most of the time ish) but stuck in. Can’t meet anyone new, socialise, festivals clubs etc. Oldest not having a graduation this year. Can’t plan any travel (that’s her first plan), unlikely to get job easily. She hasn’t seen one uni lecturer in real life this whole last year of uni or had much access to library. Not normal at this age to spend this much time with parents.
Saying that, they are both currently at pub with a few friends in cold temperatures trying to enjoy their evening.

[tobee]

No university experience but loan debt piling up

[NaturalBlondeYeahRight]

Mine have wished that they had gone through this as primary aged children.

[SamBeckettsLastLeap]

@Tealightsandd

It's massively shit, but it's even more shit for elderly. At least the young will have a chance to make up for lost time.

Do you know what, I'm fucking sick if this. My gran was the one that really made me realise, she said I've had my chances, I've lived my life, this is a tiny percentage of my life. There are kids now that will die as children, adults that will die before retirement, parents that have lost time making memories with children who will leave home, young adults who have lost the chance to live in a time where they should be without worry, businesses that have lost everything they have worked for. It is shit for everyone, but its not even more shit for the elderly

[avenueq]

I can get really upset thinking about what my children are missing out on (one 19 at uni, one 17), but I try to call myself to order remembering how I privileged I am in my expectations of what a young person's life should be - which many millions never had a hope to come near even before the pandemic

[ChocOrange1]

Rubbish for university students, who have got into loads of debt in order to have some online tutorials and never meet their peers.

[TempsPerdu]

Agreed OP. Covid has been terrible for so many groups, but I feel angriest on behalf of the teens and twenty-somethings who should be finding their feet in the adult world and having wild, carefree, hedonistic experiences, but are currently cooped up in grim flatshares or parental homes conducting studies and social life via Zoom. And then of course the uncertainty of the future on top of all that.

My own university experience, including a year abroad, was absolutely formative for me. I feel so sad for the current students who are missing so much, and who to add insult to injury have been demonised by the media throughout the pandemic. At the very least they should get some kind of fees rebate as compensation.

Also very concerned about our youngest children, and can envisage many knock-on effects of lockdown on toddlers and preschoolers coming to light over the coming months and years - but at least this group have time in their favour. It’s the many unrepeatable milestones that young people are missing that’s most heartbreaking for me.

[Whatalottachocca]

I agree, it’s really awful fir them and they did seem to have the finger of blame pointed at them a lot, particularly around September last year when the Uni term started. They’ve been very much forgotten about. Yes it’s been awful for the elderly too but they’ve had their lives. The mass hysteria that still seems to be all around me, is showing little sign of abating any time soon, so I don’t see them getting to make up the time in the next year.

[GillBungalow]

It's utterly shit. I have two children in their early 20's and when I think what my life was like at that age compared to theirs over the last year, I could cry for them.
What really gets me though, is how they've just got on with it, without any fuss or moaning. I used to whine if I had to stay in on a Weds night when I was a bit broke that week, probably because I'd had to pay an installment for an Ibiza holiday or something.

Poor buggers. They've loved this week though, meeting mates for drinks in the freezing cold

[ChocOrange1]

@Tealightsandd

It's massively shit, but it's even more shit for elderly. At least the young will have a chance to make up for lost time.

Disagree. The elderly have already had the time to enjoy. The young aren't guaranteed that. A friend of mine is 30 and has been diagnosed with a terminal illness and has been given 3 to 6 years to live. A 20 year old could have a heart attack tomorrow.

[OliveTree75]

@Tealightsandd

It's massively shit, but it's even more shit for elderly. At least the young will have a chance to make up for lost time.

How is it more shit for the elderly?

[RJnomore1]

Oh you are so not unreasonable and in no way is it more shit for the elderly who had their chance to live as they wanted as young people. Our young people have ruined educations, wrecked mental health, poor job prospects and will be paying for this shot show for the rest of their lives. And they’re last in the list for vaccines which will let them have some form of normality.

I’m with you @ssd, much as I love a night out, I’ll stay in forever if all of our young people can get a life back.

[Beans13]

I would be absolutely livid if i was a teenager or at uni. These are supposed to be the best years of your life, not to be spent locked up at home for a virus that will very likely not affect you severely.

I'm 28, so feel lucky I got my clubbing days and uni days as normal, but still feel a bit put out that I can't enjoy a bar etc now. So many missed memories and opportunities.

Not taking away from those who have lost jobs, died or been severely affected at all, but this is just how I feel.