I'm getting increasingly angry and depressed for our children's future.

[WhenWillTheShitEnd]

To think that my hard working son, who gets minimum wage is now strugglying to make end meet because of an egotistical, corrupt, millionaire/billionaire pervert is giving me sleepless nights. To think that the whole world is being held to ransom by men like Trump and Putin is making me so depressed and angry that its affecting my every day life. I feel so utterly helpless. We are all recycling, being told not to use our woodburners etc, while the like of the US and Russia are pumping colossal amount of CO2 into the atmosphere with their bombs. I'm so FUCKING ANGRY.

Minimum wage jobs didn’t used to be minimum wage, that’s the point. More and more jobs are being downgraded to minimum wage. And the cost of living is soaring so even traditionally “well paid” jobs aren’t necessarily giving a good standard of living, and may even disappear altogether because of AI. All the careers advice in the world can’t change the facts.

Lots of things, too many really to list out here to be honest we've both been teaching all of our daughters from a young age decision making and critical thinking - which ultimately is the key the rest is detail. We've made sure she understands how the decisions she makes now will impact her later, how her GCSE choices that will close certain avenues and open others. I've been through career directions with her and what sort of pay, hours of work, work patterns they might have again so she understands the choices she makes.

She understands principles of home ownership, budgets, interest rates, compound interest, pensions, investment.

We have taught her how to set up a business, she understands the benefits and risks. They are fortunate in that I am a partner in an architectural practice so they have a real example and I share our accounts with them and decision making with them.

We are based in London but when we visit our families we always go to car boot sales and our children sell their things, they price them, the money they then choose what to do with their money - spend, invest via JSA or put in a savings account. A couple of times a year we look at how the money has grown or not as the case at the moment.

My husband has also always shown her anything to do with cars, she doesn't have the strength to do it but she does have the knowledge of how to change a wheel. She knows where to put water and how to check oil, how to change a windscreen blade.

But the biggest thing we are doing constantly is building their confidence and ability to make decisions in a balanced way.

We are ensuring their life knowledge is built now long before they need it then they are ready when anything arises.

Everything we do we see as a chance to show and teach them something.

The ones who have been taught well will bounce back and in a new direction without a blink. That's if they weren't already being retained as they would also be likely to be already the most useful.

Some people are panicking about AI while others are learning about it and what is needs. Those who are educated in it are not as bothered by it as you think.

Many of my family work in tech and are very worried.
That said, everything you are teaching your kids is very useful. No idea how you pack it all in!

I long ago decided to stop worrying about things I cannot change and to do my best to make a difference in my small sphere.

Anything else leads to insanity - and a wasted life.

Something along the lines of this is the answer, I think.
Not homesteading and growing all your own food, because that’s not achievable for most people, but almost all the worlds major problems can be traced back to greed and the desire of some to amass as much money and resources as is humanly possible. Dismantle that and we may find climate change, wars, politics and general moral compass get better alongside it. And the best way to achieve that is for the majority of us to simply stop buying all the things. Get back to make do and mend. Stop all the mindless consumerism. We simply do not need all this stuff.

I think part of the problem is there is too much access to news.

Regarding the current news issues- how much of it has actually directly affected you?

Apart from petrol prices a little higher it hasn't directly affected me at all.

All reading about it does is stress you out more.

It'll all be over ina few weeks/months and then there will be the next catastrophe hogging the headlines.

In the end the amount it actually affects you is limited. It's more the reading the headlines and the news that is stressing you out.

dont you just love the rich and overprivileged telling us how to look after our children

DFOD

Seriously?? There is nothing you could use in that post?

I’m really optimistic, Iran fund proxies all over the shop that destabilise numerous countries. If the IRCG falls a lot of the middle east will stabilise.

I read an interesting argument today where european and american based nutcases were trying to tell syrians they should be fighting israel and the syrians generally said something along the lines of “fuck off you tankies, we don’t even have regular electricity, we want to be normal”. A lot of Lebanese are sick of being dragged into confrontation with Israel. People cheering on these proxies weirdly mainly seem to be based in the west. Zelensky is playing a blinder in the middle eats and managed to get himself some patriots, cheap fuel and no doubt a good amount of FDI from arab countries in the future. I womder what GCC capitals make of russian helping iran with targeting info…

What I’m actually worried about is the UK and how divided it is now. I’m worried about a culture where anti-semitism is increasingly normalised, we give people longer sentences for tweets than we do sexual assaults, we are loading taxes onto a smaller and smaller number of people whilst accepting fewer people working to their full capacity. The global order is reshaping itself right now, some of that will be painful but I think it will eventually be for the better. The UK needs to decide if it wants to pull itself together or not.

I think people who don’t want children will tell you all sorts of reasons, if they are genuinely not having kids because they are anxious then the anxiety is the problem, the globe had always had upheaval somewhere, we just didn’t know as much about it before.

Sounds like good parenting to me which is sadly lacking these days. Always seems to be someone else's problem to solve.

Agree

Mental attitude and mindset makes a big difference.

If you have already given up at age 15 then you've got no chance.

Good parenting - dismissed as being rich and overprivelidged. Clearly this is just a goady thread, set up to increase anxiety.

Your attitude isn't helping you.

Someone has taken the time to put some really good tips and advice.

I personally found it really helpful and given me some good ideas of what I can do to support my own kids.

A lot of outcomes depends on mental attitude. If you have already given up then no your kid doesn't stand a chance.

I’m furious too op.

I think our generations have been quite apathetic on the whole. When I listen to my teens and their friends, they sound almost radicalised to me , but I genuinely struggle to refute their points because the social contract as we understood it is in tatters.

I don’t think the younger generations are going to content themselves with feeling furious.

I agree, but at the same time has there ever been a better time to be alive? We solve some problems and create others. When was the world perfect? I must have missed that.

Life will continue to be fine for the confident top achievers and those with parents who have the time, money and skills to set them up for life.

But what used to be maybe 70% of people able to find ok jobs and support themselves will now be 30% and no amount of resilience is going to make up for that.

I would much prefer if people worked together to ensure that society in general was functioning rather than just ensuring that their kids would be ok and to hell with everyone else.
I'm angry too, and I do understand why parents want to help their kids. I just feel a bit for those who won't manage at the top, and therefore are going to end up finding everyday things more and more out of their reach.

I was 16 in 1991. How easy do you think it was to get a part time job in a recession? Unemployment was much higher then and people were actually having their homes repossessed left right and centre. Unemployment was 10% in 1992 by the time I did get a job washing up in a pub, and 15% for young people, same as it is now. It's 5% overall at the moment. I graduated in 1998 and spent three years working and going back to education before getting a graduate level job. I qualified in my chosen career aged 28. I didn't get a job I felt really myself in until I was 42. Graduates have always found it hard to get a job in their chosen field in my lifetime and it has always been difficult to get a first foot on the ladder in any job.

What stops you from doing much of that now?

Less of the "we" though. You live your life and I'll live mine.

I think you're right.
As a teen I strolled into the nearest pub (1976) and asked if they needed a weekend cleaner. Job done.
My ds has a Saturday job but it took yrs of swimming lessons, a £250 lifeguard course and me helping him to apply to every leisure centre, private school and spa within 10 miles. We kept checking with receptions until finally there was an opportunity. It was hard work.
I had a small grant for uni and a pub job, and graduated about £2.50 in the black. No parental help. Ds goes in September. I refuse to allow him to run up £60,000 of debt so we'll cover living expenses between us (that lifeguarding course will pay for itself many times over), and I'll downsize the house to pay tuition fees.
Somehow I'll help him with a deposit too when the time comes - no idea how.
I'm still working full time in my 60s. I am lucky, I can cycle to work so don't rely on availability of diesel but at my age, should this be necessary?
I've no idea how anyone on less income or with health issues will manage. It really shouldn't be this tough.

This is such a depressing thread.

And I'm nodding in agreement at every post 😟

The only way to deal with it is to refuse to give up. I'll sort my ds and then I'll work out how to take on a trainee or apprentice at work.

If we all tried to help two teenagers, the problem would be a lot less.

Yes, I think the late 90s were amazing - optimism, progress on inclusion, a bright future.

The last ten years have been dire.

Even H who is usually on the easy going, it will work out ok, view on life is starting to get concerned.

Which doesn’t help because I usually depend on him to be the voice of calm positivity.

Although he did point out the problems of AI after I read him the below article.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/27/number-of-ai-chatbots-ignoring-human-instructions-increasing-study-says

And companies are offering AI at ridiculously low prices to get companies hooked, billions have been invested and investors will want returns. Which won’t be cheaper than humans.

I have four children aged between 18-24. Of course I worry about their future. But, you know what? I reckon they’ll be okay. Life won’t turn out exactly like they plan. But that’s just life.

Things go in cycles. So yes, things aren’t great at the moment. But that won’t be the case forever.

And, FWIW, I don’t think that a random collection of women would necessarily run the world any better.