To think young people have been totally forgotten ??

[Mossang3l]

I was watching something earlier and it was the very elderly talking about how the community has come together to take care of them. Christmas dinners, companionship, gifts, phone calls, check ins etc. Wonderful. I’m very happy they are being looked after.

But it’s really struck a chord with me. There is NOTHING like this to look after the young even though they are sacrificing so much for everyone else.

They don’t have careers or adult social connections, they’re probably single, they’re missing their educations and exams, they’re probably the highest percentage to have lost their jobs, they can’t see their friends, their future prospects have been reduced massively (through the economy, educational inequalities, brexit etc).

They’re all lonely and isolated and scared and all that adults seem to do is bitch about students and the young. They’re moaned about and criminalised just for being young (well they were is September anyway but it’s stuck I fear). Far too many of them are committing suicide and yet still nothing happens.

My daughter (20) lost her job and can’t get a new one, hasn’t been into uni once and is so lonely. She signed up to volunteer with every organisation she could find and hasn’t heard back from a single one.

Surely we need to be doing more to help the young ? I fear they are being totally forgotten and may be having the worst time of all.

I agree with you but don't know how it will change, they seem to be the one's missing out most on things.

@KylieKangaroo

I agree with you but don't know how it will change, they seem to be the one's missing out most on things.

It’s so tough isn’t it. I wonder if school age kids should be vaccinated now to stop the quick spread that is happening ? Who knows, hopefully it’s all over in the not too distant future or some of them really will be sacrificing what’s left of their youths :(

I agree. My child is 14 and has received f11ck all education in school since March. Her year are meant to have the hpv jab. Meant to have 1st jab Jan 5th 2021. Looking unlikely. She needs both by September as she turns 15 then. She had surgery a week before lockdown 1. No aftercare or physio. Isolated from mates. Older ones, where are the pub, shop jobs for them? Disappearing rapidly. All the while all I hear is bitching. I told the inlaws when they started on at the youngsters.
Wish I knew the answer. Throw a dog a bone though😔

Yes, it's really awful. Even on here, was completely shocked at a thread about 2 children really struggling to the point of screaming, smashing things and they were being told to pull themselves together. Seems like all of the 'its ok not to be ok' doesn't extend to teenagers or young people. I particularly hate adults insisting that young people will be totally fine, will catch up and aren't missing out on too much when said adults never had to spend a year away from friends, unable to create relationships and losing months and months of education. I don't think they'd be so blase if it was them missing out on schooling.

I have two kids in their very early twenties. They are the loveliest, most grounded and positive individuals who tend to make jokes about all the money they are saving by not being able to do anything/go anywhere. But I think back to when me and my friends were their age, when the world was our oyster, and my heart breaks a little for them.
I so hope that this is over soon.

Agree 100% with the OP. Children, teens and young twenties have had their life chances curtailed.

I was interested to read in yesterday’s Times that Neil Ferguson (Professor Lockdown) admits that he was influenced by the virus response in China. He says that it was assumed in the U.K. that the public wouldn’t accept destruction of personal freedom. Then Italy locked down and SAGE decided the British public would go along with the same treatment.

And broadly people have accepted it. The young will suffer the effects for longest and I find this appalling.

@JazzyGeoff

I have two kids in their very early twenties. They are the loveliest, most grounded and positive individuals who tend to make jokes about all the money they are saving by not being able to do anything/go anywhere. But I think back to when me and my friends were their age, when the world was our oyster, and my heart breaks a little for them. I so hope that this is over soon.

My kids are the same, 9 months of trying to be positive about the situation. Was heartbreaking to look over at my 22 year old son after the most recent lockdown announcement in floods of tears because he just couldn’t hold it in anymore.

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with ‘the world used to be our oyster’. I don’t think young people feel anything other than dread about the future

But surely it's because the elderly who have been receiving this support are the ones with no-one. They are the ones who have spent months alone. It must be hard for young people, just like it's hard for everyone. But they generally have friends and families and are able to keep in touch with them.

Same @JazzyGeoff. Two of mine are at uni, and while enjoying themselves and making the best of it, it is not the experience that it could and should have been.

I am purposefully not thinking about their employment prospects when the enormous toll of lockdown becomes clear.

I think it's very tough on young people, but I don't think they have been forgotten about. There's media coverage almost every day about the debate over schools remaining open or closing; there's been lots about exams, lots about the plight of university students.

It isn't that they've been forgotten, but that there's no easy solution to the particular problems young people are facing.

@OrchardBlossom

But surely it's because the elderly who have been receiving this support are the ones with no-one. They are the ones who have spent months alone. It must be hard for young people, just like it's hard for everyone. But they generally have friends and families and are able to keep in touch with them.

There are MANY young singles who are completely alone too

Our community have done a lot for the young... activity trails on the pavements, free libraries, parent knowledge swaps for school, flower and tree identification information by specialists, local outdoor exercises, street choirs, bell ringing for santa....

It's because we all did it though, and didn't just leave it up to other people to arrange.

@Salapandas

Our community have done a lot for the young... activity trails on the pavements, free libraries, parent knowledge swaps for school, flower and tree identification information by specialists, local outdoor exercises, street choirs, bell ringing for santa....

It's because we all did it though, and didn't just leave it up to other people to arrange.

That sounds absolutely fabulous, well done to you all I’m sure you’ve hugely helped many with that 🥰

I’m assuming that’s for children though ? I mean older young people, 16- 25ish, there’s nothing for them.

Ah yeah, I mean the older teenagers did get invovled in helping.

I don't want to say how old I am an (as I have another thread running at the moment) but yes - like 20 plus there's been nothing if you are alone really, particularly if you are on low income and cant afford all the expensive online stuff.

I agree OP. Both my young twenties DC have had to put their life plans on hold. It's heartbreaking. I really hope once the vulnerable and over 80s have been vaccinated we get lift restrictions and let them live again.
I also think primary schools must go back - I am an infant teacher - because school is so much more than learning to read and write. I will happily take the risk.

Rather than vaccinating people in their 80s and 90s and older first they should be vaccinating school teachers etc. to get our kids back into school and back to a little normality. Older people should isolate until the vaccine can be rolled out. Except the majority of them won’t - I’ve heard time and time again from that age group that they want to live their lives and ‘when their time is up it’s up’. My primary school aged son cried when I told him schools were shutting again. I was really worried about him in the last lockdown and he’s only just getting back to normal and it’s happening again.

You are 100% right

I agree OP. Friend's DD has just started uni and has been stuck in with her flatmates. She's not had chance to get to know people on her course or in any of her clubs.

Fortunately she likes her flatmates but one of her friends at a different uni doesn't and is really struggling.

Totally agree. I think people forget that if you're under 20 you're quite likely to live with parents which means no bubbling in the way older partners or friends who live apart with or without children can. I met DH when we were 18 and 19, and 9 months of social distancing would have been very hard.

It's true, everyone likes to blame young people but not to think about their problems. It must be awful for so many sharing overcrowded spaces, or having to move in with parents they may not get along with, and being variously stuck in one or the other during all of this, plus likely to have lost jobs, not been able to get one, or had to start jobs from home and working for months never having met in person a single colleague. My heart really does go out to them.

It is a terrible time to be young- I don't really know whether really young children, say 0-4, miss too much, or rather will remember missing, but age 5 to about 20 have really had it messed up for them.

Until things ease up (let's hope) I can't see anything much that is going to help them.

The world did survive the Spanish Flu and prosper afterwards, that is maybe one thing to give a little hope.

Surely people are coming together to help the elderly who have no family. Most young people have family. So yes care leavers, young people with no family need extra support but most of the people talked about on these threads have family.
What exactly can people do? They don't need phone calls from Debbie down the road, they don't need gifts or meals. That's what their family is for. They have a better understanding of tech so are now likely to be able to communicate with people that way than the average 80 yo.

Unless what you actually mean is live should get back to normal and the vulnerable can just shield until they die because young people matter now. Even though some of those vulnerable people are young or have young children themselves

Lots of examples here of nice things being done to cheer up children and teens. But that’s not addressing the real issue of them being ‘forgotten about’ in terms of policy. Yes people are looking after them, but we have dismantled the world which needed to be kept stable in order for them to have a future.

It’s like cancelling pensions and then saying the oldest members of society aren’t forgotten about because younger people help them out a bit. That wouldn’t atone for taking away their most basic and necessary means of support.

We have curtailed education, services and mortgaged our children’s futures. Arranging some nice activities doesn’t address the damage.

Yes, we (the world not just the UK) chose through lockdowns to sacrifice theyoung for the old and sick. It was the wrong decision.

"377 people aged under 60 with no underlying health conditions have died of Covid-19 in England's hospitals since the start of the pandemic."

377 v the destructions of so many lives and the huge financial cost to the nation never mind biggest breach of our human rights in our history.

I agree. I feel like I have wasted a year of my 20s and that my life is on hold