To worry about the resilience of adults

[MyKingdomForACaramel]

Am not trying to come across as goady or insensitive but have seen a distinct upturn recently both irl and online of adults not being able to deal with, what are essentially day to day life/set backs in a rational way -what was once a mishap is now a crisis.

To be clear I’m not talking l about those suffering with mental health issues (I have had my own), but more generally

As so many pps have said, living your life through a screen , in a very passive way, is not a good preparation for tackling the gnarly realities of life.

But I hate the term snowflake. If young 'uns are lacking in resilience it's because we've raised them that way.

Call me old-fashioned but I think part of it is an education system that focuses on academics to the detriment of character, when we should be focusing on both equally. And instilling values around what we can do for others rather than all this self-fulfillnent, self-confidence, self-care malarkey. Yes, all those things are important, but it's all too "me, me, me". Helping them to see themselves as part of a school, local community, society where people achieve things together rather than seeing themselves as just one fragile individual in a dog-eat-dog world is a comfort I think.

And another issue is having news of earthquakes, terrorism, wars, murders, etc from across the world delivered to your bedroom via your phone 24/7 from the age of 13 yrs or whenever people get smart phones nowadays. Even if you avoid the big existential stuff, fear pervades every news story and tv soap whether it features dementia, knife crime, paedophiles, etc or whether or not you should put butter on your toast! (But be careful, the charred bits could give you cancer!). No wonder so many of our young people suffer from anxiety!

A newsreader a decade or so ago said that news was so skewed towards bad things happening that the picture it was painting was completely inaccurate. He was laughed at. But I happen to think he was right. If you talk to the elderly, they tend to say that they wish they had worried less throughout their lives and mostly the bad things thry worried about didn't happen. And if they did, in the main, they coped.

Finally, there are the justified fears If you are a teenager currently, you are probably (understandably) concerned about global warming, antibiotic resistance and some sort of pandemic. That probably makes them a bit twitchy and I can't say I blame them.

@BrownGirl22 sorry if my post was a trigger for you

I knew that employee quite well, and don't think he faced the struggles you did - but you're right, you never know

I suppose what got to me the most was his expectation & insistence that someone else - me, in this case - should move mountains to make these tasks "go away" for him.

Had he approached me with any sense of self-awareness, saying that he struggled with life admin, and told me what he was doing to work on it & improve, I would have a totally different attitude

My eldest niece is a massive achiever. The melt-down she had after one of her maths GCSE papers was so bad that I was asked to talk her down from it by my brother. Of course, she got all A*/grade 1s across the bloody board.

Two weeks before her recent A levels, I was again asked to talk to her as she was in a state, "nothing's going in, I'm going to fail, blah blah".

She's a complete fecking snowflake at each particular hurdle. I really do worry how she'll cope at university.

OakElmAsh Thanks for that, but you're alright! I just took the opportunity to explain how it can be for some people. Your post didn't trigger me It's fine.

I'm more resilient

browngirl22 thanks. The problem is, it might not be the job, it might be me! I'm not sure I'll do better in a different job, but I hope so!

@HopelessLayout yes it does and those women who married and gave up work but were entitled to claim a full state pension on the basis of their husband's contribution. It's quite easy to be resilient when you have a very generous welfare state, plentiful jobs and high real wages behind you.

Yes there were plenty of injustices, including the fact that marital rape was legal until 1993, but the boomer generation were and are the most entitled and financially blessed generation in history! Not to mention the fact they avoided all major wars and most will escape the affects of catastrophic climate change, which they have contributed to.

@MyKingdomForACaramel if you are barely a millennial how are you in any position to assess the resilience of your contemporaries? Resilience comes with age and experience. Things which would have panicked a younger me leave me totally unflustered because I have survived and coped with so much and learned that things are rarely as bad as they seem. But all this comes with age and wisdom.

I grew up in the 1960s. The adults around me had been through WW2, many had lost friends and relatives, had near misses or had been through 11 weeks of bombing night, after night, after night. Many had body parts missing. Many behaved very strangely at times. I would think a large proportion were suffering from what today we would term PTSD. But they just had to cope as best they could. Odd behaviour, such as sudden crying, shouting, abruptly leaving a room, etc was met with understanding shrugs and possibly people mouthing 'the War' to each other.

Today, for most people, life is generally comparatively safe, yet, as demonstrated on this very thread, we are encouraged to concern ourselves with the mental health of others. Anxiety is now a disorder, rather than a common negative part of the human experience. Being upset by a distressing life event is considered traumatic, requiring treatment, rather than normal, requiring sympathy and support to fight through it. We are discouraged from saying anything that might be 'triggering' or 'insensitive', even if there is no particular reason to think it would be to any but the tiniest fraction of the population, if at all.

I can't blame young people, but I do wonder at some of the parenting ideas I see on here. To me, a worrying number of parents won't give children from mid-primary-age upwards the chance to take on a little responsibility: perhaps a trip to a nearby shop, keeping an eye on a younger sibling for up to half an hour while the parent pops out, beginning to go to school alone, or wait unsupervised in the playground before school. There's so much 'what if something happened?', which to me is the point - the child learns to handle that vague idea, or to think about what s/he would do if 'something' did happen, with trusted adults only minutes away.

I'm saddened at how many young people seem to find it hard to express their needs and fight their own corner. I was shocked by the picture of Harvey Weinstein with his arm around a young lady; she appeared to be happily laughing into his face, but it turned out she was hating the situation. Why had her mother not taught her to say 'keep your hands to yourself, you creep'? (Unless she had decided that she would go through with what he wanted in order to get a job, which is a deal she could choose if she wanted; but I would prefer it to be her positive choice, not just a 'daren't refuse' situation.)

I'm not thinking of abuse of vulnerable children, but we should be teaching our adult daughters - and sons - to speak out loudly when someone invades their space/touches them inappropriately/expects unreasonable favours from them. We should be encouraging them to fight through the anxiety that naturally arises in order to stand up to bullies and bad behaviour, to loudly and publicly complain to those around, or an authority figure if available. (Not that they should have to, of course, but the world is far from as it should be.)

Each time we push ourselves out of our comfort zone, we get stronger and braver and find it easier next time. And, as parents, we need to let our children move outside their comfort zones, eg cope with the school's reaction when they've forgotten something important, rather than have Mummy run to their rescue, or spend a little time alone, albeit in a familiar place. And gradually build on that as they get older.

*effects

I think a lot of what is lacking in "resilience" is really support from the community and society which is increasingly absent. We have been encouraged since Thatcher to value individualism, selfishness and looking after number one rather than solidarity and support for each other. With that has come a huge amount of judging other people's lives whilst totally lacking empathy and understanding.

My great grandmother was a widow early in her life after her abusive, alcoholic, depressive husband commmitted suicide and left her as a single parent to four kids. Nonetheless when her friend couldn't cope with her son and sent him on a bus across London to her, she took him in and adopted him rather than leave him to an orphanage. It's unimaginable that that would happen these days (not least because of SS involvement), but because people see no obligation to look after one another. I've seen people collapse getting off the tube and people step over them and keep on walking!

I often wonder what this country would do if we had rationing again. I think it would be unfeasible, given when you suggest people cut down on their meat or dairy consumption for the environment, it's met with howls of protest. People were more resilient in times past, especially during the war, because they looked out for each other and after each other to a much greater degree. These days it feels as is everyone is on their own.

It's funny because I did a thing on social media where your followers describe you in one word, and around 90% of mine said resilient. I think because so much shit has happened and I just keep getting up and getting on with it
Doesn't mean I'm not immune to stuff - I'm on antidepressants and probably will be for life, but I guess I have an attitude of "what the fuck can go wrong next?"
Mostly minor things like losing my job, having my car crashed into etc etc but there's a lot bigger stuff that I've been through
Being told I was around 48hrs from paralysis and they needed to operate now was a big one. But what can you do? Stressing over it doesn't make a difference, it had to be done and I'm on my own so there was nobody to cry to anyway!

I totally agree @amicissimma

The amount of people who won't let a 8/9 year old walk to the local shop on their own is horrifying.

There was a programme recently called Planet Child which took a group of 5 year olds and set them off on their own to go across London, armed only with a map.

Every single one of them was fine. They enjoyed every minute. Every single one of them was capable of doing it.

Parents do a disservice to their children by keeping them under wraps, I know the intention is good, its just the outcome is terrible for the children. Age appropriate challenge should be part of the parenting script, it always has been historically but something has gone drastically wrong in recent times.

If you saw a 7 year old on their own walking down the street - what would your reaction be? It should be nothing, but I'd hazard a guess the majority of MN'ers would be horrified

I've been abused and bullied my whole life by various people, beginning with my parents, I never seem to get away from it. There are psychos and narcissists everywhere; they seem to do quite well in life and in the workplace. I don't have relationships anymore, but the bullying continues at work. Is the problem just me and my inability to cope with abuse and bullying? I don't think so. I think I deserve a few off days when the shitness of it all really gets to me.

The amount of people who won't let a 8/9 year old walk to the local shop on their own is horrifying

Agreed. There's a thread running on here at the minute about leaving a 9yo in the playground in the morning, for 10 mins unsupervised...some of the replies are just mind-boggling.

Someone(who coincidentally has also posted on this thread) said allowing children to play outside = feral children. What on earth has gone wrong that some people see this as abnormal?

I really hate this idea that boomers had it easy. My kids have much better lives than my generation had.

My kids have material things, experiences and opportunities I could only have dreamed of. No one says to them, "Well you know, that's not for the likes of us." They don't have to deal with anywhere near the level of unchallenged racism, sexism or disability discrimination we faced either.

And yes the south east and some other pockets are too expensive for many people to buy, but where I live in the north, and in lots of other places, it's perfectly possibly for people on average wages to buy a house and have a good quality of life.

I've seen weird posts on here if an op says something like "17 year old dc is (insert adult situation) what should I do?" There's a flurry of "still a child, lock them in their room" hysteria but by the same token op posts "18 year old dc stranded in Warsaw through no fault of their own, any advice?" is met with "they're an ADULT op!!! Why are you interfering??? Let them figure it out themselves you over bearing control freak!!"
No wonder kids are confused.

And interestingly, the tone on this thread is quite different to the cleaning your student offspring's house one currently running.

But that's all good. It's interesting to hear different points of view.

I partly blame identity politics and the professionally offended.

@NoelFridgeAntics barely as in am on the border with gen x.

@TinklyLittleLaugh I actually think the op is being unreasonable there tbf (in the original post anyways don’t know if it’s moved on).

I must say that I didn’t start this thread with particularly young people in mind. It came as a result of a conversation with dh about his work colleague (in late 30s)

My 14yo (upthread, went to city by himself today) couldn't take the route we'd prediscussed because the train was diverted. He called me, but I had gone out with dd and left my phone at home. When I picked up the call i texted him but no reply. He'd clearly still managed to get to his destination on time. He called on the way back but not in a 'what shall I do?' way, just in a 'this is what's happening and would route A or route B be better?' way. That's resilience in action (over a very minor thing, obviously) and the result of the gradual prior introduction of increasing independence. Not patting myself on the back about my parenting - it wasn't really hard. I'm lucky in that the culture where I live is broadly supportive to parents in this endeavour, unlike the UK. (Here I'm regarded as the over-protective Brit - in the UK I'd prob be reported to social services)

@YesQueen - see to me- you do sound very resilient!

@Lockheart technically they are supposed to. But in reality some don't. They are classed as Neet. They aren't entitled to any benefits and in theory their parent should lose child benefit. But they aren't breaking any law so nothing happens and I don't know if any parent who has actually lost their child benefit due to their child who has decided not to continue in education or training. What happens is the parent gives them money to do nothing.

I'm in a situation at work where the other staff, and management need to be stoic otherwise people suffer. Because management lack the grit and moral fibre to deal with the thing that's happening, vulnerable people are suffering and it's just not good enough.

I think in Wales you can leave school at 16.