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.

@amicissimma

I think the problem for young people is that while social contact is vital for human beings, as we go through our teens we are developing our social skills. For that we need to be among our peers. Watch any group of young teens out and about - there is a great deal of jostling, play fighting, taking stuff and pretending they won't give it back, leaning on each other, and so on. It's as if they need physical contact in order to learn how to do social interaction.

For older people the isolation is still very hard, but we have developed our social skills and often social contacts to the extent that we can 'keep them ticking over' for months over various media.

For the oldest people you can see they are back to needing the physical presence of familiar people. Many have seen the huge decline in elderly relatives who they cannot meet with regularly in person. Many, not anchored by familiar people, drift off away from reality.

So I would say that roughly 12-24 and over 80 are the groups most profoundly damaged by the restrictions. But the over 80s have something to gain: possibly having a few more years of life, for better or worse, if they avoid Covid, provided something else doesn't kill them. The vast majority of youngsters have little to gain from avoiding Covid, it's just one more potential infection that they may pick up and which might make some quite ill but most will hardly be unwell at all.

I agree - look at chimps playing together and then look at the damage to a chimp if it is kept in isolation.

Prize for Most Bollocks in an internet Post, goes to AliceBlueGown

@furonthecoat - 'people like you..' shows exactly where you are coming from. It is clear that you didn't have a good experiences. I do know where 'I am coming from' - I teach university students, I have a son who deferred his place (having realistically considered what was on offer) and a daughter finishing her third year (because she had to, had a commitment to a course, house etc). It is likely that she will need to rethink the next few years. I knew my post would get a reaction that is why I posted. Just remember you are posting from a position of privilege and if all you can do is moan on the internet then as you said yourself 'put up and shut up.

@AliceBlueGown

'people like you' refers to people who are belittling young people's struggles. I'm not saying we have it worse, just we have it bad too. And yet on one thread that seems to acknowledge that you still have to come along and further shit on us.

If you really do teach uni students how are you not aware of the fiasco of lies around blended learning. Even in august we were promised blended learning and then when timetables were released in early September everything was online and when we asked why no reasonable explanation will listen.

How on earth do you know I'm in a position of privilege? I accept I am more privileged than some but also a damn site less than plenty of others which is clearly shown on this thread by the total lack of awareness of problem all young people are facing.

I will not put up and shut up. How bloody dare you. You condescending prick. Everyone's problems deserve attention. Not all of us have the option to defer, and we absolutely do deserve help and recognition. Not at the expense of others, but as well as. You really are proving this threads point, that we are being forgotten, and you're absolutely ok with it

Delaying the completion of your degree etc by a year is hardly worse than having spent a decade building up a business to watch it all crumble to dust, as has happened to so many people. Won’t be many 21yo remortgaging their houses etc.

Which is what has just happened to a friend of mine who was 45. After spending years as cabin crew she set up her own travel company two years ago. She had borrowed some money, had people investing and remortgaged her house. It was just starting to turn a profit when covid struck.

In the last 9 months she lost everything (and yes we all supported her but it was too much to recoup). Her house was repossessed last month and she spent the last month of her life living in a mutual friends air bnb.
As she was single and childless she wasn't eligible even for emergency accommodation where she lived.
Her partner lives in Germany and she hadn't been able to see him since last March.
Her parents had died years ago and apart from her friends she was alone in the world.

You might notice the past tense. That's because she killed herself on Christmas Day because she knew, at 45 and only ever knowing the travel industry, she couldn't even get a job at Asda (yes she tried). She had had to wait weeks for UC and slipped through the net with govt support. She died owing £500K.

My 18 year old and 14 year old still have their futures. My friend, her partner, doesn't.

Young people need more of a representation and voice in all of this. The under 18s don’t have a vote. The under 25s don’t have much capital to have real influence.

I would like to see the government have specific groups set up advocating for these age groups more and they also need a voice in the press. Even if it is just to be heard properly and legitimately.

Am so sorry to hear that @SecretSpAD

@Friendswithwhenifits

Totally agree. Friends/relationships are EVERYTHING at this age. They've just been told to stay alone oh well. Awful.

It seems when posters say "young people" they just mean students. Not young people with babies or young children to home school whilst juggling working or being WFH or losing their jobs and not being able to keep food on the table. Not young people living on their own working a minimum age job. Not nurses or teachers or care workers who are front line. Because those 20 something's have the same issues as people 10 or 20 years older than them.

So yes, students have been screwed re exams, paying lodgings then being told they shouldn't come / can't leave etc. But what are they actually doing about it? Thousands of angry students and their parents could be a force to be reckoned with. I mean Jeez if a half illiterate change.org petition on increased mat leave can get discussed in parliament, why aren't you making more noise? Apologies if there's been a petition etc and I've missed it.

But no, I still don't think students / new grads as a collective have it any worse than any other demographic. We've all been screwed over by our shit government and a shitter virus

I'm so sorry @SecretSpAD.

@SecretSpAD I'm so sorry for your loss. What a truly awful situation

Totally agree with this ! Great post OP !

@SecretSpAD

Delaying the completion of your degree etc by a year is hardly worse than having spent a decade building up a business to watch it all crumble to dust, as has happened to so many people. Won’t be many 21yo remortgaging their houses etc.

Which is what has just happened to a friend of mine who was 45. After spending years as cabin crew she set up her own travel company two years ago. She had borrowed some money, had people investing and remortgaged her house. It was just starting to turn a profit when covid struck.

In the last 9 months she lost everything (and yes we all supported her but it was too much to recoup). Her house was repossessed last month and she spent the last month of her life living in a mutual friends air bnb.
As she was single and childless she wasn't eligible even for emergency accommodation where she lived.
Her partner lives in Germany and she hadn't been able to see him since last March.
Her parents had died years ago and apart from her friends she was alone in the world.

You might notice the past tense. That's because she killed herself on Christmas Day because she knew, at 45 and only ever knowing the travel industry, she couldn't even get a job at Asda (yes she tried). She had had to wait weeks for UC and slipped through the net with govt support. She died owing £500K.

My 18 year old and 14 year old still have their futures. My friend, her partner, doesn't.

jesus christ , let me just say how sorry i am to hear about your friends suicide . not really words to say how awful she must have felt bless her and of course no doubt its had and will continue to have an impact on you .

Honestly... It's been shit for every one in their own way.

So true

I've just turned 25 and feel a whole year has been wasted. I worked so hard last year to save up to travel, to afford to run a car, to find a better job, to go to festivals, pubs, everything I could think of, all for nothing. I haven't been on holiday for three years.

I have seen one friend in 9 months. I've been working at home since March, alone, missing god knows how many work progression opportunities in the meantime.

I can't see my grandma and massively let her down by not seeing her at Christmas. She has about a year left to live. I couldn't see any of my family at Christmas as they're tier 4. My entire family are miserable.

My mum, dad and sister were furloughed. My sister and her boyfriend, both factory workers in their 20s, lost their jobs. My best friend, a hotel cleaner, lost her job. Another friend, a photographer, has had no work since March. Her boyfriend lost his pub job.

To add to that, the pandemic has strained my relationship with the boyfriend considerably - we barely have sex, are both bored, both lonely, and he thinks it is now cruel to have children in this pandemic ridden world so that will probably split us up in the next year or so as I want kids.

I have applied to lots of volunteering opportunities COVID-related and none reply. I have had an older couple accuse me directly - to my face - of spreading the pandemic because apparently I go to illegal raves like the rest of my generation. This occurred in Asda, whilst I was looking at cat food.

I spent the 15-22 crippled by anorexia. I had 1.5 fantastic years once I 'recovered' from age 22, and now this year. I had already wasted a lot of my youth because of my own mental health (my responsibility I know) and now another year is wasted, my job prospects are poor, my personal relationships are fragile.....and I don't have much hope.

Apologies for the rant! I know many have it worse than me. :(

@SecretSpAD I am sorry, your poor friend, that is utterly tragic :(

That’s why I got do annoyed when I saw the “your grandparents were asked to go to war, you’re being asked to sit in a sofa” memes in the early days of this. It wasn’t as simple as that. It was losing your job, not being able to pay your rent or mortgage, having to home-school children of various ages around the kitchen table with no training or materials, having no physical contact with loved ones, having your education completely disrupted, and much more.

Something that summed it up for me was “so much is being sacrificed by so many for so few”. We have reached the stage where the cure is worse than the disease. Countries shut down whole economies for a virus with a less than 1% death rate but along comes a 95% effective vaccine and everything will be OK again.

@alltheworldsastage4 of course all that's crap and you're fully entitled to feel like it's been a bloody awful year. It has and your experience isn't less valid because of your age, it's just that it isn't more valid either. I think that's what most people disagreeing with the op are saying. You'd be just as annoyed if you were 30 and if you were 35 the issue over children would be considerably more critical.

I hope you get to see your Grandma soon, is she getting the vaccine?

But why haven't you seen any friends in the last 9 months?

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

40% of the UK population have underlying health conditions. Most of us are not 'sick' if we have the right treatment, be it medication, diet or whatever. Most of us have a normal or near-normal life expectancy if conditions are right. But we are still relatively vulnerable to Covid.

Even among teenagers, the proportion with underlying health conditions is 15%. Not insignificant.

And it's not only actual death that is the danger - that's just the extreme. Many people are seriously ill for a long time. Many have long Covid. Some (we still don't know how many) may never fully recover.

There is room for genuine debate about how we should balance the Covid risks vs the economy, etc.But the idea that anyone with any sort of chronic health issue is already at death's door, or should be seen as worthless and expendable, really infuriates me!!!!

biggest breach of our human rights in our history

Oh, I don't know, I'd say that people in the past who were hanged or transported for stealing to feed their hungry families might have disagreed with you!

So sorry to hear about your friend @SecretSpAD As a 25 year old I definitely feel the stakes are a lot lower for young people - we have time to rebuild career/credit score and less likely to have financial dependents. I don’t feel sympathy for people my age who are whinging that they aren’t allowed to travel and go on tinder dates when people like your friend are losing everything they’ve worked decades for. There’s nothing you can do in your 20s that can’t be put off by a couple of years.

@PattyPan

biggest breach of our human rights in our history
Oh, I don't know, I'd say that people in the past who were hanged or transported for stealing to feed their hungry families might have disagreed with you!

A yellow star creeps into my mind as well. ... or gulag... just from this continent.
or vietnam. or any period in history where whole populations/nations have been eradicated. It was their human right to live. Yet they got massacred.

This is a virus. It is not about human rights predominantly, it is about society level public health. Making it into a human rights issue is just stupid.

This is a virus. It is not about human rights predominantly, it is about society level public health. Making it into a human rights issue is just stupid.

Exactly. If anything can be said to be attacking our human rights, it's this bloody virus!

SPaD, I am so sorry to hear of your friend.