How would you set your child up for the future in a world like today? Or how are you doing this?

[cactusdog]

I don't know if maybe people have always felt this way but it feels like we have very uncertain and scary times ahead (economy and environment among others) so much so that some people are choosing not to have children at all!

What would you do or have you done to try and set your kids up the best you can?

Instill resilience?
Put away as much money as you can for them?
Get them on the property ladder?
Private education?

Or even more extreme like survivalist stuff?

Savings, a good education, resilience, confidence and all the love i can possibly find.

@Bacter

Prepare them to leave. We are a black British family - we have bought land in Africa. Hope to educate our children here (as we have a right to do so) and then go ‘back home’ as we’ve been told to do for decades - so hey. We’re doing it

Whereabouts in Africa, and why, if you don't mind me asking? You say "as we've been told to do", is this a duty thing or a QOL thing?

@Bacter and what will you do if post-education (I'm assuming 18) your kids don't want to go?

I haven't but a lot of my friends have bought very cheap, buy to let houses with inheritances......their tenants pay the mortgages and the idea is to either gift the DC a fully paid off house in their early 20s or they can sell it and get onto the housing ladder.

@pollylocketpickedapocket what was nasty about it?! There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to return to your ancestral home! Your comment there gives an impression of you that is far from flattering, i have to say.

Private education is so far at the bottom of my list. If the world is anything like it is predicted to be in 50 years time, private education will be the very least of anyone’s concerns.

I also think it wouldn’t take too much of a drastic world event for money to become much less relevant too. We’ve seen the world economy nearly collapse, and this pandemic is pretty gentle by virologist standards. Squirrelling money away might help a bit in the short term, and maybe property would too, but again I don’t think it will cut it in the long run. Especially if that property is anywhere near the coast..

I’m aware I sound like I’ve got my tin hat on, I promise I’m normal and have a regular job and house and everything I just think we are probably all quite naive about the way things will go.

We live in a golden age compared to the rest of human history. So I disagree that things look really scary. I have prepared my children for life now and hopefully for future as well. So far so good. :)

[quote Ohalrightthen]@pollylocketpickedapocket what was nasty about it?! There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to return to your ancestral home! Your comment there gives an impression of you that is far from flattering, i have to say.[/quote]
Oh give over, that was not how the original comment came across

Love, resilience, ability to grow their own crops

See @PlanDeRaccordement this is sort of how I feel in general. However sometimes I start to buy into the fear and have a little mental freak out/break down.
Whenever I read about someone who wants children but chooses not to have them because of some imagined dystopian future I find it silly in relation to humans through history if that makes sense. Especially here in the west.

Totally disagree with you @pollylocketpickedapocket

@pollylocketpickedapocket you've read something into it that no one else seems to. Certainly something that i didn't see. The UK isn't a promised land of milk and honey, especially if you're not white, and wanting to go home is a hugely understandable position, surely?

@IJumpedAboardAPirateShip

Totally disagree with you *@pollylocketpickedapocket*

Ok

@Bacter

We have been focusing on spending our holidays in English speaking African countries for a while now. The children are becoming fully immersed in the culture and though also immersed in their English culture. They now know they have choices. It’s all about choices (in answer to the OP). As for who asked us. Not sure what QOL means. But I was referring to the endless times my DH and I have been told to ‘go back to our own countries’ by our ‘neighbours’. It’s worn is down. And hence why we (and many others) have started to look to Africa as a next live. A bit like the brits moving to Spain. But not just for the sun; for a sense of belonging. Not sure how I was being nasty. Just honest. We all want the best for our children and our own well-being comes first IMO. Which ever path that takes us. My children will always have a roof in the UK should they choose to stay or flit between the two.

Sorry, QOL = Quality Of Life.

That all makes absolutely sense. Sorry if i sounded goady, was typing in a hurry. You didn't sound nasty at all.

Whenever I read about someone who wants children but chooses not to have them because of some imagined dystopian future I find it silly in relation to humans through history if that makes sense.

Me too.

I’ve been paying into pensions for my DC for the last 3 years.

Yes our current world is so much better than our ancestors have ever had things. However, our ancestors didn’t have an impending climate crisis. So unless there are massive technological advances in the next 10-20 years that can delay or avert the series of significant climate disasters that look fairly certain to be on their way, then we’re all fucked
(Merry Xmas!)

@thecakebadge

Yes our current world is so much better than our ancestors have ever had things. However, our ancestors didn’t have an impending climate crisis. So unless there are massive technological advances in the next 10-20 years that can delay or avert the series of significant climate disasters that look fairly certain to be on their way, then we’re all fucked (Merry Xmas!)

Yes our ancestors did have climate change disasters. Ice Age- much much colder than now, sea levels dropped. End of ice age, sea levels rose far far more than they could possibly now as there is only a fraction of ice left. Britain was just a peninsula of France until the thawing glaciers created an ocean and sunk doggerland- which was inhabited and sunk by a series of tsunamis. There was the land bridge between Asia and Australia, all now sunk into chains of island. Also a

Then we had the planet as warm or warmer than now for hundreds of years at a time from 8000 BC to 2000 BC which actually helped the ancient civilisations to take root and rise. The dark ages and collapse of the ancient civilisations correspond to the cooling off that went from 400 AD to the end of the little Ice Age in 1600 AD when we then had a renaissance and things started to warm up again so civilisation once again moved forward.

True but those were completely different times. The modelling of the social impact of even a relatively small climate disaster is scary. That is what worries me most, not that the whole planet would actually implode or anything but that events would lead to economical and therefore societal breakdowns.

Yes, they were completely different times. Times when we had next to no technology. No renewable zero polluting sources of energy or heat. Primitive agriculture with corresponding very low yields of food. No way to clean sewage out of water or change sea water into drinking water Etc etc. We have more going for us now than our ancestors did, and they managed it. It’s not something to ignore, but I just have more optimism and hope about the situation.

I imagine I'm doing the same as parents everywhere. I try to support their education and teach them both practical skills and personal qualities that will see them through difficult times in the future. I know that the main thing I can do is ensure they have a stable and happy childhood with strong attachments to the adults around them.

We are also saving for them and hope to help with uni fees and/or a house deposit.