DD and boyfriend are wasting their lives

Yes Mumsnet don’t tend to like anything in the uk unless it’s centre parcs.

and it’s not a holiday unless you get on a plane.

I think you might have hit the nail on the head with the internet lifestyle promotions. That is one big difference for your son's generation that just wasn't a factor in mine.

We weren't being sold a lifestyle. My life hasn't been entirely conventional, in some ways, but it's been mine, not some dream I have been sold. But that applies across the board. Instagram versions of backpacking, etc, are just as designed to sell an idea.

Nobody's going to be happy with any 'lifestyle' if the desire for it has come from an external source.designed to promote the lifestyle and earn money for the poster.

Is today's generation more likely to be dissatisfied because the lifestyle they bought into is sugar coated? They are bombarded with so much that I just didn't have. But it's someone else's life, and often not even real. Bored homesteaders don't post.

This couple the OP talks of just sound, to me, like ordinary folk doing ordinary things. But I admit, I am not used to looking at things through a 'lifestyle' lens, and will be out of touch in that respect.

Funny. I’ve found MN is very anti travel, unless it’s an all inclusive by the beach for two weeks.

I mean I don’t disagree but I think you’re missing my point. This couple may be totally happy, fulfilled and living their best life.

plenty aren’t. I have cited my son and his friends as examples. There is a cottage core movement that is very prevalent on instagram that feeds the narrative that the slow life and the simple life is deeply aspirational. It’s not achievable for everyone and for people like my ds it is encouraging him to lean into being emotionally lazy and rather ill equipped for the world and the inevitable challenges it can present. It can also make women who want more feel inadequate because they are not picking hedgerow blackberries and making crumbles for their family every day. the irony is that I am exactly the person that wants to visit national trust properties and whose insta feed is full of thrift hauls and flower pressing - I live for that shit. But… I’m also glad I lived a little and came to this when I knew myself pretty well.

both things can be true - I’m acknowledging that these kids might be golden but I think it would be helpful if people can acknowledge that there may be problematic aspects to this too. I can’t really express myself any clearer than in my previous posts - gleaned from observations and life experience. I find it weird that everything has to be so binary these days 🤷🏼‍♀️

Mumsnet is very anti drinking and partying and even travelling really, OP.

They do sound dull. Can’t imagine not wanting to travel outside of UK.

But it’s her life 🤷‍♀️ just leave her to it

It’s getting really common for that generation to be more like that. They’re much healthier than the lot who went out clubbing and binge drinking every weekend.

It's not really about equity, though. My mother wasn't an SAHM earth mother, she was just an ordinary working woman doing ordinary things, as my dad was an ordinary working man doing ordinary things. They met friends in the pub, went to barn dances, went to the Lizard on holiday...

They weren't avoiding anything, they were just getting on with their lives. Were they fully happy and fulfilled all the time? I doubt it, but again that's a modern ideal, and a very naive one at that.

My generation (I am bang in the middle of genX) still weren't really the 'gap yah' generation unless you were rather more middle class than I was.

I've done my fair share of travelling and a bit of LSD on the way, whilst still being married with a mortgage and job in my very early 20s. I couldn't afford to do it all on some big 'finding yourself' deal. We did it in bits. We didn't do things we didn't think we'd enjoy, because why would you waste time and money for the sake of it?

I wasn't (and am still not) stuck, trapped or avoiding anything. OK, I've never gone skiing or climbed a mountain, because I didn't want to.

It's impossible to experience everything. It's OK to find your 'thing' early on and stick with it. Those adventurous people still only do things they want to do, that interest them. Nobody is saying to them, 'but have you tried sitting at home reading a book'. That might be pushing them out of their comfort zone.

There have always been people who want to live different lives. I wonder why we find it so much harder to let people choose the life they want now, despite the fact that it's now easier to do. Why we must assume not wanting to rush hither and yon is some form of 'avoidance'?

Having choice means just that. And, despite what some people think, there's a lifetime to live. You don't have to cram it all into your 20s. My parents travelled a lot in later life. It wasn't any less of an experience for them just because it wasn't interrailing with a backpack on.

Let your kids be who they are. Yes, help them if they need a push, if they have expressed a wish for more, but don't let them feel they have to be something they aren't.

Saying “27 is old for clubbing” is as unreasonable as saying 20s is for clubbing.

There is no “too old”. Clubbing is fine at any age.

I agree isolated people don't tend to go on outdoorsy holidays that will involve going to say s country pub or wherever, quiet people doesn't mean isolated.

We did a week long tour of the Welsh castles and burial chambers, aged 22!! We must be really boring, we loved it

I disagree.
I think "isolated" people don't go out to work and don't go on holiday.
Have you been to the Peak District? They will be talking to people and interacting.
Their life, their choice, even if they don't.

As someone in their 30’s who gave up drinking 2 years ago, after spending my 20’s over drinking, making awful decisions and generally ruining my life before having a nervous breakdown over ‘having a good time’, I wish I had started spending my life like your daughter earlier! I do this now, and I’m 1000 times happier. Not everyone has the urge or disposition for that kind of life, and it’s awful that people are still pressured to do so

I disagree, (just going in what OP has said). They are alternating WFH which suggests minimal or zero socializing with work colleagues through choice and occasional lunch with another couple.

How many people do you think they’ll talk to on the Peak District holiday. My guess is zero.

I think it sounds like they are isolated, but it sounds like you see it differently. It sounds to me like neither have much of a social network beyond their partner. I really would not want that for my daughter, especially if it started in her early twenties or even teenage years.

Yes, but then we had a generation of women who busted their balls for equity. Do we really want to lean in to a pre feminist era?

That’s not really my point though - I’m talking about figuring out what you like. If it’s this and you’ve experimented enough to know, then great. But if it’s because of fear of challenges I would say not so great - and it’s something I’m observing in my sons and their friends much more than in my generation - so not specifically a gender thing. Just some balance needed.

I agree. I hope she never finds out 😥

Isn't this rather a modern interpretation, though?

My parents' generation were generally married with kids in their early 20s. What we now think of as some sort of homesteader lifestyle was pretty much the norm for average working class families. Were they all 'avoidant' or just ordinary people getting on with the business of working and raising a family, which had its own challenges?

I don't think people were 'avoiding life' by just doing the things they enjoyed and could afford. It's how most people lived.

I can't help thinking we've got terribly hung up on 'experience' for the sake of it. I find it very interesting that I once read that those living in areas where the adventurous Brits go don't really understand why we need to put ourselves in danger for the thrill of it when their lives are spent surviving the environments we play in.

💯 agree. I am at the stage of having young adult kids - mine as I say is just starting uni and he is finding it extremely overwhelming. Had he been encouraged (by us as much as anyone) to take a few risks and get out of his comfortable torpor he would be so much better equipped for this stage.

I am having to do a ridiculous amount of scaffolding to get him into a routine that doesn’t involve hanging out doing his comfort activities of reading and gaming - he knows these won’t make him entirely happy but they are easy. he has expressed a desire for more in his life but isn’t used to challenging himself to take the steps to discover what he likes.

he is very much not alone in this - it’s a generational problem.

What do you think is “actually important”. I feel you’re being very obtuse here.

They've got it right! Not all 20 year olds want to sleep around and get drunk every weekend.

No that there’s less experimentation before settling into ‘old age’ style life.

And by that I don’t mean the going clubbing etc. I mean pushing outside of comfort zones. My generation I think are guilty of starting this though as the clubbing etc was within our comfort zone.
For myself personally travelling solo is something I’ve never experienced that I think would probably be of huge benefit (although terrifying and unlikely at this point due to kids)

I also think this is something started from a much younger age. Quite a few of my friends lament that their kids (teens) won’t join different clubs and don’t get involved in things socially. (These will be the same ones that will end up like OPs DD.) They stay well within their comfort zones already because their parents never took them outside of them when they were younger and showed them it’s ok to experience new things.

That we focus on what’s actually important?

Don’t disagree - the wording of the op’s posts have been pretty awful. As I said - I’m just musing on the wider issues I see with gen-Z

I don’t disagree. I’m just talking about the wider issues I see in gen-Z

Frankly it’s just sad. If I found out my mum was saying this about me I’d be heartbroken.

Nor does it prove it. All I know is that the OP seems embarrassed by her daughter because of friends talking about their kids trip to NZ. She calls her "old". She's "dull".
I just think there's more to the story, and I think the problem is the OP.