Thinking that children today take things for granted

[user1497997754]

Just that really. When I was young 1970's to 1980 we lived in a 2 bed terrace and I had a sister the fact we only had 2 bedrooms meant that me and my sister had to share a bedroom even when we were both working at 16. My daughter is really shocked and finds the life I led when her age was so different. No central heating, no garden....just small yard, no phone, we only had 1 bath a week, no washing machine, no holidays abroad, no car, no fridge freezer, no dishwasher. I must admit I look back and it was stark really but we were grateful....

And I bet your parents looked back on their parents and the deprivations they endured and thought that was shocking too! Of course younger generations take things for granted - it’s part of learning that life isn’t always as you have known it to be yourself. How could a child really be expected to truly know what it was like living without modern technology etc? They can be taught, and they can feel empathy, but it’s inescapably something outside of their experience.

So true! I remember moving into a house with a shower and central heating in the mid 80's, it was amazing!

Every generation before us will have had it hard in some way or another, your DD will say the same to her children I would imagine.

Children take everything for granted, it's all they've ever known. (that includes the bad stuff as well as the good)

I am happy with that. I want my child to take everything he has for granted. His home, freedom, food on the table, carefree summers, security.

I don't think kids who take things for granted during their childhoods are the same as spoilt or entitled little shits and I am working hard to make sure mine is grateful and respectful adult who understands how fortunate he is and never takes anything for granted but isn't childhood sort of supposed to be about taking things for granted to some degree?

It’s the same in every generation.

You will have taken things for granted that your parents never had. Sharing a room with your sister? Pah! Try sharing with your 6 sisters.

Surely that’s part of parenting giving your children opportunities and things you never had? I know that’s how I feel. As a parent surely it’s teaching children that these opportunists are afforded to them and if they prosper and work hard they can have the same and more as adults and for their children?

I was born in 1980 and i took things for granted that my parents didn't have in the 1950's I think its same with every generation

Yanbu but we are also parenting our children today in a world that didnt exist for our parents.
I also remember sharing with my siblings. But my ds has his own room and a separate playroom just for him.
We also can afford so much more to give my ds amazing opportunities that my parents couldnt.
I never travelled until I was 22 but my ds 3yo has already been abroad 8 times on amazing holidays.
In some ways I feel my parents had it so much easier- we were very self sufficient. We learnt how to cook and do proper chores from an early age, homework , extra curricular activities and projects were left entirely up to us to sort out. Now theres so much involvement required from parents.
My ds wants to be entertained all the time- probably due to the amount of stimulation around him. My dm always says at his age we would be amused and occupied by basic toys for hours.
I guess it somewhat comes down to wanting to give our children much more than we had, whether materially or just our time and opportunities. My ds does not realise how fortunate he is compared to how i grew up.

Absolutely, when I was a kid there were no special yogurts or children foods. You ate what your parents ate. A treat was a corner yogurt which we had once a week. I think our expectations and standards of living have increased and children have much greater choice.

It is the reason we left home at 16/18 and flew off into the big wide world. 4 of us sharing a 2 bunk-bedded room... Christ it was grim, so we left. I read on here of kids still home at 24, 25,... getting parents to keep their room for them even when they go off to uni...

Make it cushy, they will stay.

I imagine in 50 years time my DC will be reminiscing that if you wanted to go somewhere in the car then you had to physically drive it yourself, that plastic was used in virtually everything, that they had to sit exams to prove what they had learned at school, and television was an actual TV set rather than a 3D projection or whatever the hell they have by that point. They might even use the phrase "kids today, you don't know you're born!"

Comparing what you had (or didn't have) with tour DD's lives now isn't indicative of the difference in generations. We have rich and poor now as we did then.

Most of the things you list I had in the late 70's early 80's.

No central heating, no garden....just small yard, no phone, we only had 1 bath a week, no washing machine, no holidays abroad, no car, no fridge freezer, no dishwasher.

Didn't have a dishwasher until mid 80's but we did have a shower which i definitely uses more than once a week.

Well yes. That's the way of the world.

I think there were things we took for granted that don't exist today either. Things like free university education, being able to travel more widely and to take drinks etc on a plane, affordable housing, freedom to play out, products that lasted etc
(all debatable and sure there are many more examples but something to think about)

I don’t think anyone should feel they are taking basic human rights for granted. Heating, hot water, food, shelter etc are all basic human rights. We shouldn’t feel grateful to have them, everyone deserves them.

Yes food was a big one we just ate what we were given there was no choice, no special diets, no meals out.....but we were never hungry to be fair. We also used to get our clothes from jumble sales and hand me downs. Life did seem alot easier somehow and all my friends were in a similar situation and the mum's mainly stayed at home so there was always someone around. I was a single parent working mum and it has been hard.

Yes food was a big one we just ate what we were given there was no choice, no special diets, no meals out.....but we were never hungry to be fair. We also used to get our clothes from jumble sales and hand me downs.

Everyone didn't live like that then though. And some people live like it now.

I don't understand this at all.
Surely the way your children live is of your own making.

TBH, I think it's not just children taking things for granted. The internet, apps and other technology has made a lot of people of different generations expect everything to just work instantly and automatically and they just can't understand that some things aren't possible, may take a long time or have to be done by actual people with feelings, who would like to be treated as such and thanked for their help.

I remember reading a sweet story online some time ago about somebody's elderly relative making her first foray into using the internet and, instead of typing, say, "cinema times Preston" into Google, she would type something like "Could you please help me find the film showing times at the Odeon in Preston, because I'd like to go there with my friend Doris on Tuesday if she's not too tired" and then, having found the results, would go back into the Google box and type "Thank you very much for your help"! I think it's tipped too far the other way now - instead of treating an algorithm like a human, some people automatically treat people like algorithms.

When I tell my son that I didn't have a computer until I was 16 - and certainly no internet, and that I was 18 before there was a 5th TV channel available, he's wide-eyed with surprise as these are just such normal everyday things for him now. I don't think he's doing anything wrong, though - I don't blame a young child for being a young child.

My grandmother was born before TV was actually invented, but that doesn't mean that I didn't take it (albeit with only three channels) for granted as a young child.

I can't begin to imagine what national service and conscription or being ordered to take on whatever jobs were deemed necessary for the war effort must have been like. I just take it for granted that, within reason, I have a fairly wide scope of options from which to choose for myself what I want to do for a living.

Am I guilty for taking it for granted that, if I decided to put some railings up around the front of my garden, they would not be cut down by the authorities and used to make bombers?!

Are today's young female employees wrong to take it for granted that having a baby doesn't automatically signal the end of their working career (outside the home) - or that they should receive the same pay for the same job as a man?

I don't understand this at all.
Surely the way your children live is of your own making.

I'd say that's a large part of it, but also societal norms plays a very big role.

In fact, I think the two are intertwined, in that parents see opportunities for their children that were never open to them, so they're eager to provide them for their kids - which means that the kids come to take them for granted.

Life changes OP, you might think she takes having an indoor bathroom for granted, you probably took for granted a childhood without online harassment and global peer pressure leading to widespread mental health issues. They only know what they know, so if your daughter is lacking knowledge, experience of other lifestyles and perspective taking skills, teach her.

Also I was born in the early eighties into a working class family in the East end of London, we had a bath every night, central heating, a washing machine , a bedroom each after I turned 4 and a fridge freezer.....

Didn't YOU take the things you had for granted as a child? Like living in a house, having enough food, etc.

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

Threads like this always make my think of this Socrates quote