Young adults.

[XingMing]

DH and I were old parents; our parents were WW2 babies and children, so we grew up with a make do and mend life: don't buy anything, fix what you've got. We also went to boarding schools fairly young, and have survived it. It seems to us, talking earlier today, that our DS and his GF are much much younger for their age (20), and less competent than we were at the same age. Is this a good or bad thing?

Also, which are the "previous generations". Surely it is a well known fact that generations often lived together on farms or in mining villages or working class areas at least up to WW2, if not later? That would have meant young adults were to some degree dependent on the rules and advice of their parents until they had saved up to marry, which could be in their late 20s. If they were the son set to take over the farm, they would hang around and be dependent on dad until he died. Independence in the 1970s sense isn't really something that our greatgreatgrandfathers' generation would have understood, unless they were middle class.

I’m in my thirties now, grew up financially independent age 16. Had a part time job, went to uni, moved out. Married, kids, blah blah. I don’t think generalising helps. It’s not easy being young now.

Hard to let your children outside alone to explore how independence feels without looks of horror from other parents. Judgement if something happens to them.

The cost of living is crazy, uni fees high, buying property. It’s no wonder it’s out of reach for many young adults and thus they end up at home with their parents. Hard to resist then the lure of a parent tending to things on your behalf.

now that about 50% of school leavers do go to university, my child worries that not following the herd will mean the world labels them as failures

That is a very different issue to being young for one's age.

Degree apprenticeships are a very very good alternative and if my son decided to do one I would support him 100%. Likewise if he does decide to go to uni.

(I can't change a plug. Do you need to be able to? Everything comes with a plug these days)

(I also had a lift to the two uni open days I went to)

many men in their late twentieth who still think they’re too young to have children

I thought I was too young to have children in my late 20s. Then had one when I was 30 :)

Don’t get the men thinking their too young to be fathers thing, but that logic it applies to OP and her partner also?

I think there is an issue within the education system from excessive political interference and policy meaning teachers have to spoonfeed pupils to the test and there is no spare room to fail and learn from. Right from y2SATs to expensive degrees.

There is another issue with over-protective, mollycoddling parenting. Some of that is through choice, some through time-poor lifestyles, some through a belief that childhood is some golden era free of responsibility. I'm trying with my DCs, in the face of ASD and dyspraxia that complicate matters, but I am trying to train the DCs do do appropriate household chores as being part of a family and self-care. It is easier not to try, and just do it myself, but long term it will be worth it.

House prices in my area have trippled in 20 years. Wages certainly haven't! It is harder for young people to become independent adults and that does happen later.

Some is personality. I know a young couple who had an unexpected pregnancy. She's done a brilliant job of getting to grips with motherhood and picking back up on her apprenticeship for the benefit of their long term future. He's falling into a nasty habit of falling back on his mummy rather than actually parenting. Partly his mum's fault for not pushing him to get on with it and stepping in every time.

Thank you to all who have taken the time to write such a great range of responses. Unreserved apologies for any offence given.

Like most, I view the world through the lens of the life I have lived, and to a lesser degree through that of others, and have been influenced by what I have read and heard. Including this thread.

Boarding school did not seem like a privilege when we endured it in the 60s but it forced you to rub along with peers you didn't like yet shared a room with, and that has been useful, and perhaps a privilege in retrospect. As we were both sent away to school because our fathers were serving overseas (mothers were nurses), it was what happened... ours were not elite public schools. (More Dickens than Mallory Towers frankly.) Staff were a mixed bag, but pastoral care wasn't the priority it is in schools now, so people learned young to guard their emotional privacy and ended up (possibly superficially) fairly robust and independent by the time they left, at 15 or 16, or 18 to work, train or study further.

I also appreciate that housing costs and earnings haven't kept pace, especially in cities where prices have tripled and worse, making it hard for young people to move out and live independently -- but the 1950s wasn't a golden age. We lived in a rented caravan until my sister was born. No small violins, just how it was.

There are plenty of young people living in rented caravans today. Also plenty of young people on the streets or acting as careers to their disabled siblings or to parents with MH issues because services have been cut.

Young people growing up in areas rife with knife crime may need to learn robustness that is at least the equal of what you had to acquire in your boarding school. I would say we live in a fairly safe neighbourhood, but even so my ds has had the experience of being knocked down and his head kicked for walking down someone's patch. He knows exactly what to say and not to say to drug dealers. He knows that a wrong word could cost his life.

Pastoral care isn't always what it is drummed up to be in modern schools either. Can I tell you about my disabled daughter who was made to crawl into the lavatory on her hands and knees in junior because the head wanted to keep the loo nice and clean for visitors? And who was threatened with social care because of frequent hospital appointments?

One of ds' teachers went to prison for paedophilia, one was sacked. This had been going on for years before the school agreed to do something. Dd was instrumental in reporting another teacher at a different school for inappropriate sexual behaviour. In all three cases, there was no doubt about the teachers' behaviour.

"about 50% of school leavers do go to university"

Not Remotely True.
About 38% apply, actual matriculation rate is about 27%, maybe 95% of those (so 25% of total or so) actually complete a degree within 4 yrs of start.

Plus we live in bubbles. Among colleagues, I'd say most our offspring applied and will get a degree, but where I live, ovewhelmingly very few of the young people apply for Uni.

Cory, anyone would deplore the misery and criminal behaviour that surrounds you, and it clearly exacts a price on young and old. But is my asking whether young people are as competent to make decisions as their parents and grandparents were is grounds for a lambasting?

And this thread has answered: in many ways they are more competent, and in others, not. Thank you for your input.