To think we are a generation of moaners.

[Candodad]

With all the questioning and ignoring of rules AIBU to think is this generation existed during the war they’d be arguing against the blackout and other measures because they didn’t see the point.

People always moan they just pretend they didn't afterwards

Human nature doesn't change, whatever situation you're in. Individuals may have dramatic events happen to or around them which change them fundamentally, but humanity as a whole?

It's a myth that things were brilliant during WWII and everyone was all happy and singing all the time. Many aspects were bloody awful, pardon my French. (Source - Tales From The Parents, now sadly no longer with us. They'd have been well into their 90s if they were still here.)

Just realised I'm probably not your generation too 😂 I'm a 'Zennial'

The only people I personally know who are breaking lockdown are DH's parents. They were alive during the war!

These days we have a lot more ways of getting our moans heard. My late Gran marched. I've marched. She never pissed people off on Facebook, texted a radio station, started a blog, had her opinions heard by unrelated people in different towns, or used the internet to start a petition. I've not done all of these, but the option is there if I want it!
In previous generations I wouldn't have known what people in Derbyshire AND Cornwall were up to. So, more media to moan, more to moan about and more people to listen. People haven't changed, the world has.

I don't think human nature has changed much.

YES!!!! But i thought this before cv19. Oh my god do i get tired of it. I say hello and someone complains about the weather, the traffic, the boss, etc., i honestly think sometimes people mistake being critical (moaning, complaining) for being intelligent.

I don't know why people who were born 50+ years after the war ended seem to have a rose tinted Goodnight Mister Tom style look at how people were during the war. You have no idea if they moaned or not! They just didn't have social media back then for the world to see them moaning

Inthink young people are a largely uncomplaining lot, look at how much they've had to stomach over the last few years, huge tuition fees, unaffordable housing, stagnant wages etc and they seem to be just getting on with it

I totally agree. I think the "snowflake" generation gets a bad reputation - they are more the kind to be nice to customer service assistants etc whilst boomers and older are the ones who scream at the lady is ASDA because they won't accept an expired coupon. But yeah, it's the young who are the moaners 🙄

Mumsnet has three or four generations on it. People from their late teens to 80s and 90s. To which one are you referring? People are people.

Lots of people were right twats during the Wars - plenty arrested, masses of crime, huge black market

Damn right. This idea that we all 'pulled together for King and Country', and 'played our part' was great Ministry of Information propaganda and probably played better with the middle and upper middle classes but in real life... you fed your family and friends. And if that meant nicking stuff that wasn't nailed down to do it, then you nicked stuff.

A WW2 version of MN sounds amazing BTW!

The more people have, the more they moan.

There are people who moan and people who just get on with things in every generation.

That about sums it up.

You know the whole blitz spirit thing was propaganda?

I have read half and cut to the end. My mum was born in 1933 (as was my dad). She grew up in very, very rural north Devon in what we'd very much call 'rural poverty'.

She told endless stories, corroborated by her older sister, and even father (b. 1909?) about how ridiculous, unscrupulous, power-crazed (blackout wardens...) corrupt and underhand some were during WW2.

And yes, how selfless and kind others were.

Just like now.

A bit of an example. Two young boys from Elephant and Castle arrived with their school. 4 and 6 😳 They were farmed our to a local farming family, 2 unmarried middle aged brothers and their spinster sister. Obviously completely unsuited to deal with 2 displaced infants.?after 24 hours, the welfare officer removed them and asked my mum' mother to temporarily house them while more suitable accommodation was found. Mum lived with her older sis and parents in a 2 bedroom rented cottage, c.16-17C. Obvs no electric or running water. (Well outside!).

She agreed, thus these two little boys joined the household. For 3 years. But mum recalled how these boys' parents had what was referred to as 'a good war'. Father was a spiv, mother happy to be relieved of her parenting responsibilities. Visited once in three years!

Mum also recalled how they'd be sitting around the Rayburn, with the blackout blinds down, one oil lamp burning, and there'd be a hammering on the door, and it'd be the SEN middle aged son from a local farm, given the post of Blackout Warden, loving the power trip.

Nothing new on Earth.

My shopkeeper DGM did a roaring trade in black market butter and sugar during the war and said this was pretty standard. Most people were initially very opposed to the conflict at all as there was a lot of anti war sentiment from those brought up by survivors of WWI. It really wasn't a case of everyone pulling together and actually in the end it was won by the Russians.