What will the U18s of today vilify older generations for?

[Serada]

Boomers get a tough time for a myriad of things - irrespective if whether they had any control over them or not.

What will today’s generation blame us for? Brexit? Environment? Housing costs? Lockdown? Large numbers of children or their parents with long covid? Falling healthy life expectancy?

Actually I would say increasing the National Debt to record highs is more important . Without money there is little the Government can do including slowing down climate change and mitigating its effects.

I think it’s going to be environmental. How did we allow the world to burn and do nothing.

Plus all the frequent flying everywhere. That will absolutely be vilified as one of the main causes of climate change in the future.

Brexit, the environment, choosing our retirement over helping them financially (which will be kind of unfair but a choice I think a lot of people like me will have to make). Potentially, though the whole thing may crash and burn before it can happen or just not work out that way, not stopping huge swathes of jobs being automated without any mechanism for the companies that benefit to actually give something back to the economy to enable people to live.

With some of these things, there is denial, then recognition that something must be done, then an arrangement for a plan, then stern words about how we really need to meet the plan whilst timescales are pushed out and aims are watered down (e.g. environment). However, if there’s a personal/political scandal of some sort, the powers that be can move like lightning to throw resources at it. I was talking to a friend about his mum the other day (she was a victim of the infected blood scandal) - it’s not like the practice was stopped once impacts were known, similar to how this country continued to use asbestos long after other countries and ignored the consequences of construction worker/ teachers/children/nhs staff who get asbestos-related cancers now etc.

There may be some children who think it is a great idea and a great use of time that minor actions are recorded or that you have to declare it’s your period to try to get a “favour toilet pass” to change sanpro as though it’s a special privilege - and they may implement them in schools or workplaces when they grow up. They may just eyeroll like a lot of us do and think what a stupid waste of time and a stupid allocation of stretched resources.

The older generation gets vilified as their properties have increased in value. What do people want them to do? What do the people in our generation do now because rents and mortgages eat into so much of our wages and will get worse for next generation? If properties aren’t being built, if social housing was sold off and not replaced, how is that our fault anymore than the older generations? Every political party has failed on this front.

I also wonder what jobs some of the current U18s will be doing in the future - we won’t even have heard of them yet.

I think whatever AI brings, climate change and the impact of "social media' on anxiety /developing brain. By this is mean the dopamine hits type of media.

Not sorting out environmental issues faster, the world is burning to a crisp but nothings happening.
Sharing photos on social media, especially embarrassing ones.
Gentle parenting will be hated I'm sure.
Why did you let us all sit on iPads?
My brain is mush because of social media why did you let me?
I'm unemployed because the min wage is too high and nobody wants to hire me.

All completely fair.

Most schools are academies and are totally unaccountable. At least when they are LA-run there is someone to complain to.

To be fair, I’m not U18 and I hate gentle parenting, and helicopter parenting.

It’s probably a worrying admission, but I parent almost exactly like my mum.

Part of me hopes that when these kids are older, they think they should have had more independence and have been taught some resilience.

Yes to blended families
setting the world on fire
putting them in full time childcare

Not being a part of extinction rebellion or just stop oil. Not doing enough to save the planet when we all knew what was going to happen. And it’s happening now.

I am a late boomer and have a ds about to turn 18.

He blames us for the fact that there are no jobs and he thinks he'll never own a house, despite the fact I paid for his lifeguard training and found him his job.

I'm paying his halls room and have promised to pay half his student debt. He's my only dc so in line to inherit whatever is left.

I'm hoping some time in the next 5 years he'll realise, as a single mum I've spent 18years providing everything I can for him,and really haven't shafted him. 😁

People are going to complain about schools being strict when they were younger.

100%

I think kids are expected to do alot more work than we were. It was also the norm for lots of us to have Saturday jobs as young teens, but it’s not their fault they can’t. With regard to medicalising normal feelings, I’ve read various threads on how people can’t get help for their children as thresholds are high and services are so stretched. With regard to resilience, I think that’s subjective, but I also think it’s overused for failing structures.

I work with young adults who are already blaming their parents for labelling them with various things. I can see that getting a whole lot worse.

As someone who paid £9k a year we blame the government for that one… and I’m a millenial

Government borrowing causing sky high debt being passed on to our DC and GDC. It's shocking.

Strict and fair is one thing, it’s when it’s pettiness portrayed as best interests for children and education, when it’s really not that irritates people.

AI - I fucking hate it

Making the planet unliveable.

Allowing children screens and social media.

Not resisting the creep of fascism.

Allowing them to use SM before the age of 18.

Maybe that we sent them to schools that prepared them for the world we grew up in rather than the one they are growing up in

As a Gen Xer I’m pleasantly surprised to see that GenZ seem to hold us in high esteem while vilifying Millenials. We seem to have got off lightly. Actually, they don’t vilify Millenials, they just think they sad, which is possibly worse.

As a society, prioritising safety and safety alone without balancing safety with other aspects well being. For example, kids never getting to have an adventurous day with their friends. Never being free to develop their own skills at their own pace. It's well documented in child development, children these days have poor risk assessment because they have never been allowed risky play. They have been told what is and is not safe all their lives. Play is about negotiating and learning to be a team or a leader, but many kids have never truly developed these skills cos an adult butts in to take control time and time again. Even when they are old enough to be allowed go somewhere unaccompanied, parents track them using devices. Their behaviours are analysed, questioned, categorised, labelled. They are never just free to do whatever kids want to do without adult input. This I think is very troubling and will be where we went wrong, I think the next generation will be all about hands off parenting and like we did, they will overcompensate and take it too far.