to be hard pushed to think of ways in which life will be better for my dc (born early 2000s) than it was for my generation born early 60s?

[Mintyy]

Or in comprison to anyone born in the 70s/80s/90s tbh.

All I can think of is that they will be treated better if they report sexual or domestic abuse, or if they come out as gay. Those are excellent developments, and I am so glad about them.

But are there any other ways that life is better now?

Admittedly I am coming at this from a priviliged middle class angle, so was always warm enough and had mod cons in the early 60s, where I know millions in the UK did not.

[lindtteddy]

DS was born in the early 2000s and has a diagnosis of AS - which didn't even exist as a diagnosis a few decades earlier. He is quite severely affected and has excellent provision (hard fought for) in a top private special school. I've read stories about children who lived through the 60s/70s who have been diagnosed as adults but never given support as children, who were bullied and had MH issues, ending up exploited or in prison or the mental health system, or dead through suicide or abuse. So that is something which I'm glad has improved.

[BewitchedBotheredandBewildered]

Well, that's mostly positive then.
Hope you can stop worrying now Mintyy and have a happy Christmas.

[scousadelic]

I think that it is swings and roundabouts as young people have a lot more choice in life than we had. When I did my A levels in 1978, none of us had ever been encouraged to pursue careers we would find fulfilling. It was very much "You're good at maths, apply for accountancy, you lot are good at science so push the boys to be doctors and the girls to nursing, physio, etc" Loads of my generation have been miserable at work and wish they had had the chance to do something else

Interestingly my DS and his lovely GF bought their first home this year 30 years after DH and I bought our first home. By coincidence it cost almost exactly ten times what ours cost but their combined salaries are less than three times what ours were. However they aren't paying 11% interest on their mortgage either!

[RokensWife]

My dad was put in hospital in the sixties for being a bed wetter and wasn't allowed visits from his parents.

I was given an alarm that woke me up when I wet the bed and I stopped within a week.

My Grandad died in the seventies (in his 40s) from a heart attack.
My dad had his heart operated on and his life saved a few years ago.

My son's special needs have been picked up at the age of three and everything is being put in place to help him - I dread to think what would have happened to him had he been born a few decades ago.
He has a bright future ahead of him because he was born in 2011.

[ExitPursuedByABear]

Who knows what the future holds.

[SabrinaMulhollandJjones]

And if you grew up in the 80's like me - NO MAGGIE THATCHER.

She was a blight to my childhood. I grew up on a road that had "PROTEST AND SURVIVE" graffitied on a wall. We lived in fear of nuclear war. We watched The Day After and Threads. There was a very public nuclear stand-off in the 60's - so much so that when my mum was taking her A levels and they were all saying 'there's no point to this, we're all going to die' - they really thought they were going to die. There was a (less public) near nuclear attack in 1984 due to a computer malfunction. It was a constant threat.

We do not live under that level of fear any more.

[southeastastra]

i think it will be alot better for my ds

for one he is at university and has a much better furture than i did

he gets to talk to people from all over the world via the internet

he isn't into any pop culture though, he is very conservative and not interested in music etc

he isn't being forced to find housing and will probably live with us until he retires

[museumum]

I was born in the 70s and it seems like a LOT of children were being abused then :(
In the 80s HIV was a certain death sentence
IVF was brand new and experimental (I am the same age as the first "test tube baby")
Scottish men were expected to get heart disease in their 60s and die in their 70s
Most people smoked and all public places were smoky and horrid.
Racism and sexual harassment were "normal"
Women weren't allowed to run the marathon till my lifetime and not in the Olympics till 84.

Financially and in terms of social mobility I don't think my sons generation will be better off than mine but I believe social attitudes are much better.

[SabrinaMulhollandJjones]

No smoking in public - your children are less likely to take up smoking in the first place.

Incredible medical advances since the 60s/70s. Mindblowing in fact.

Better standard of living, better welfare state (imo, even with austerity cuts) We are generally ignorant of the poverty that swathes of people lived in in the 60s/70s.

Cheaper clothing, goods, utilities.

More tolerance to sexuality, lifestyle choices.

Less tolerance to racism, sexism and so on.

More enlightened society regarding sexual abuse. My mum never knew child sex abuse was even a 'thing' till she was in her 20's.

More enlightened society towards domestic abuse.

Greater social mobility (debateable I know).

The internet!!!!

Of course, some of these come with a negative side too.

Personally, my feelings are that the the later you are born, the better things are. Not counting some global war/disaster of course.

[Pandora37]

I was told by an old teacher that when he taught in the 80s teenagers were convinced they were going to die due to the threat of nuclear war. Of course, there's the threat of terrorism now but I don't think anyone thinks they're going to die in a nuclear war any time soon.

Better support for single and teenage mothers and better treatment for STDs. HIV isn't an immediate death sentence like it used to be as someone else said. Better access to contraception. I think there's less stigma around being divorced as well.

Premature babies are more likely to survive. Much better support for women who have miscarriages and stillbirths. There still needs to be a lot of work done in that area but it's not the case now that it's hushed away, never to be spoken of again.

More opportunity to go abroad.

[Stealthpolarbear]

Though I bet the internet connection was faster 50 years ago


Julia Donaldson!

[BackforGood]

So, so many ways - as listed in several posts above.

I was going to start with the incredibly fast moving developments in medicine and medical research

Communications - where to start?? How can you compare someone whose dc has moved to Australia now (e-mail, mobile phones, texts, WhatApp, Skype and probably several others I don't use, along with relatively much cheaper and quicker flights) with waving off one of your dc as a "£10 Pom" in the 60s ?

Access to all sorts of information

Road safety

Equalities entrenched in law, if not all business cultures (all sorts, from disabilities, sex, race, throughout anything else you can think of) as well as attitudes to situations such as single mothers and children 'born outside of wedlock' - mothers able to keep babies that would then have been put up for adoption.

Ease and cheapness of travel round the world

Awareness of abuse, and so much support now surrounding what was once very, very deeply hidden.


Currently taxes are so much lower, personal allowance so much higher, inflation so much lower, unions aren't stopping the country from functioning as they were in the 70s

[Stealthpolarbear]

Y children are 7 and 5
They've probably inhaled as much passive cigarette smoke in their lives as the average newborn of the 60s did in its first 24 hours

[TheCountessofFitzdotterel]

Teaching in primary schools is much better- there were always good teachers but the bad ones were allowed to be amazingly bad with no comebacks.

[TheCountessofFitzdotterel]

The wild flowers on the verges now they don't spray indiscriminately, and lovely clean rivers to swim in.

[ouryve]

The first one, that is!

[ouryve]

Your post is making me crave crispy pancakes and spaghetti hoops, Trills

[Trills]

Without modern dentistry I would not be able to eat an apple.

Without transplant technology my brother would have died at 20.

[ouryve]

Oh - and all those massive coins we had in the 70s are a source of endless numismatic joy to DS1. They were just money to me :o

[daisychain01]

Increasing knowledge about mental health, psychology, teaching methods.

[Trills]

Better Medicine

Better equal rights (gender/sexuality/race/disability/etc)

Better food

Better access to information

[ouryve]

I was born late 60s, the boys early-mid noughties.

Both of them have neurodevelopmental disabilities. Despite some often violent meltdowns, DS1 was welcomed at the local village primary school, until it became obvious that the sensory experience was too much for him and we got him a place at a small, quiet, specialist school with a focus on meeting academic potential. DS2, who has severe learning difficulties and extremely delayed and disordered language, is positively thriving at the local school.

In the 70s, DS1 would possibly have been at a correctional school, by now and it's highly possible that DS2 would have been institutionalised at an early age, without me having any say in his care. They're possibly in that rare cohort for whom life might just be a lot better than it was in previous decades. We've still got a long way to go, mind and the occasional glimpse of attitudes that would have us going backwards does frighten me.

And while those alternative situations don't sound too frightening written down, the revelations about things that have happened to children in these institutions makes me think that they're actually rather lucky to have been born this century.

[ReallyTired]

Great choice and quality of food.
Better medical care.
Safer roads

[Stealthpolarbear]

Muchlower chance of a baby dying in its first year
Less chance of being killed in an rta

[Stealthpolarbear]

T'internet
I was trying to remember what we used to do in the olden days when we didn't know something. I believe the answer is we lived in ignorance