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.

There is NOTHING like this to look after the young even though they are sacrificing so much for everyone else.

YABU.

Teachers have sacrificed their safety & health to keep schools open, in working conditions which would be totally illegal in any other workplace, because they are so COVID-unsafe.

The 2nd English lockdown was entirely so that we could keep schools and universities open. The rest of us were restricted in all our activities, specifically so schools could stay open.

In my university all staff have been working countless hours of unpaid overtime to ensure that we can keep students on track, and we adapted to online teaching & learning within 48 hours of sending our students home (5 days before the national lockdown).

I agree op, my eldest has had six weeks of isolation but not been near anyone who has been positive ( whole year group out year 11) yet I see older people time and time again in cafes as I pass ( as it their right) but it infuriates me that my child is being sacrificed for someone going for a cup of tea, perhaps wrongly but this will have an impact on their entire lives, pensions, livelihood, housing, health etc will be paid for by them yet they’re the criticised ones.

@Eyewhisker

No. Your 20s and teens are key development stage and you don’t get that time back. A year stuck at home in your 30s and 40s is very very different to that stick in your teens /20s when you are biologically programmed to explore and meet people/a mate.

Studies have also found that those who graduate during a recession never catch up and still have lower earnings years later.

Missing graduation, freshers year at home, these are experiences you never get back.

But we're accruing like this is the only year that they can start university or socialise , meet a mate. If they're late teens then they have their 20s ahead of them. If they're mid twenties they've had some of those experiences and will have more. If they're late 20s they've had years to have those experiences. Of course it won't be what it would without the pandemic, but the save can be said for those living through the way years and the numerous recessions since. This isn't the only year/two years of their lives when they can LIVE rather than exist like all those past 29.

I do feel deeply sorry for those having their education screwed around by the government's inability to Govern

It's pretty rubbish for everyone but I actually think that people in there late teens- early 20's (generally) need less community support than elderly people.

Most have plenty of friends from school/college/ University/work and (crucially) are already set up for communicating virtually... plus it's rare to live completely alone at that age.

When I compare my cousins with their online games, video calls, constant messaging, and ability to reach a wide range of people for socially distanced walks etc to my gran who lives alone and struggles to use the Internet I know who needs the most urgent support.

I knew it wouldn't be long before someone trotted out that 377 people bollocks. That's 377 people (if true) with nothing from asthma to autism to cerebral palsy to diabetes to obesity and everything else in between. In other words, most of the population. People who aren't on their last legs and should go on to live long, happy and useful lives. And as for 60 being old...

Everyone is missing out including my secondary and primary age children. But it seems that everyone else's priority only works if they throw someone else under the bus.

I agree with you op.im 25, pregnant with dc2. Ds1 is 2, has been pulled from nursery to stay at home with us, in a 2 bed flat, no garden during lockdown. Someone snubbed me in Sainsburys for taking him shopping with me too. I had mental breakdown trying to work from home and care for a toddler at the same time. My mental health hut rock bottom. There was no support. I reached out to the mental health services in my area who were so over run I was told "it's normal to feel suicidal, see how you feel when covid is done"
Yet I carried on, followed all the rules. Then in September people of my generation were blamed for spreading the virus, despite us being the people expected to go out and work in the restraunts offering eat out to help out etc.
We've been forgotten throughout this. I've never felt so alone as I did in April. Yet I carried on following rules etc to protect the elderly and vulnerable.
What's even more frustrating is the 80 year old woman who lives downstairs from me was going out having her hair done at her hairdressers house throughout lockdown one.
I really hope the long lasting support post covid is stronger for those of us who will break from the mental health impact from this.
Furthermore, my 30 year old colleague committed suicide following lockdown.
It's been awful

*Rockbird" not most of the population., I have none of those things - obesity, asthma., Vast vast numbers of us have no pre existing medical conditions.

Perhaps those of us with none of those things should get certificates allowing us a free life and those with those things then take more care (and we abolish all the legal restrictions)

@Flyonawalk

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.

indeed.

it is absolutely tragic

@DishedUp

I think 18-25 year olds have been massively fucked over. All I see is about children or about elderly. And I see a lot of realistically faux concern for children, but no thought to young adults.

So many in this age bracket have basically just given up all their young adult life. None of the things that you normally do at this age and have a limited window to do..

Most of them will be single, living alone or in flatshares. This is an age where you are reliant on friends for socialisation. Many are really isolated and unhappy, and its a very vunerable age. A lot of people its their first time away from their parents for an extended period, and their first christmas without seeing their parents. I think a lot of people on MN show very little empathy to this age group

My brother is early 20s and most of his friends have lost their jobs and are now just sitting in flatshares, it makes me so sad but equally they arent complaining. They just arent seeing their families or bfs/gfs for months. And then will be blamed for the rise in cases when they dont have any money to go to the pub let alone the opportunity!

And its not like when this pandemic is over they will get their lives back. Realistically their job prospects have been massively curtailed. Our economy is in tatters, theres so much anxiety about their futures.

Totally agree. Those starting out in life have stepped into a massive void, where excitement, growth, stimulation, change, achievement, joy, should be possible. What they are getting instead is blame and a fuxktonne of anxiety about their futures.

I'd 100% give them the vaccine over the elderly. Probably get shouted at for saying that, but it is this generation who are say 18 to 28, who will be paying all their lives for this pandemic. My heart goes out to them

The sad thing is we get no say even if we all agree. I agree with pp it’s tragic

Sat next to darling dd who has missed a year of uni, will be spending her birthday in lock down tier 4 after a miserable curtailed year.
She has had a tough last five years with her health so she is used to not living a full life, still, I see the mental toll. No placement year happening, no hope for her future. She is trying to be positive but it is horrible to see. My little one had a mental collapse during lock down one, I am terrified of the schools closing again.

I work in a front line role, in 15 years I have never made so many safeguarding referrals for young people and babies. I see the covid queens on here talking about resilience and the war and it makes me want to scream. We are sticking to the rules, nearly all our family have had covid, two members hosptalised, I know it is serious, but there is no consideration for young people at all. The teens and early 20's generation are being chucked under the bus. And don't get me started on pre-verbal kids living in deprivation. By the end of this so many little children will have indirectly died or being harmed for life in our quest to hide from covid.

💯, OP. Though I'd say they're not forgotten - it is just ignored.

Nobody begrudged a few weeks or months of hardship, in the name of collective effort. But we have been at this for almost a year with no clear endgame, and the young are regularly subjected to scorn and resentment from people who are NOT making as big a sacrifice. Of course if you're already retired and/or in a more statistically vulnerable category, you're more likely to be in favour of restrictions - your current lifestyle isn't hugely impacted and your safety is more guaranteed. It's unbelievably selfish to expect a 20-something to happily sign up to that approach, when their COVID risk is sod all, yet the repercussions for everything else are going to be huge.

As so many others have said, yes, we're all having a hard time in different ways - but at nearly a year into it, the young are making the most disproportionate sacrifice by far.

It will be the youngsters that will be paying for this in the future. Taxes and national insurance will increase; lack of education opportunities as govt will not be able to afford it; lack of jobs. Etc etc add Brexit so limited education opportunities abroad and the next election will be interesting.

I have an 18 year old who fxcked up his A levels this year as he is a last minute exam successor. He sits in with me on a Saturday night. My A level years were the best of my life, passing driving tests, 18thbirthdays, night clubs, first holidays abroad. He has spent nearly 9 months in with his mum - luckily he does have a part time job.

Yup. Children are “resilient” apparently

It's utter SHIT, the way the young are being treated by that grinning buffoon Saint Boris, who keeps feeding us rubbish like "a stitch in time"; easy for him to say that. They will graduate into a massive recession, millions of them will be unemployed, and those who had months of their education snatched away will be at a severe disadvantage. They will be paying for Saint Boris's lockdown for decades.

And yes I agree with those that day we should be giving the bacons to the 18 -30 year olds. I don’t understand the logic to give it to the over 80s. I’m really sorry but I think we should have told that age group they were to isolate for a little more time whilst we vacinate the younger people who will be paying the taxes for this disaster.

Absolutely, and I said this in august and got crucified on here. From my personal experience, my parents are in their mid to late 70s, they live in the south west, they have been on holiday this year to Cornwall with friends, they have been going out for meals with friends, there world is quite tiny but they haven’t missed out on much except seeing us. We are in south east, now tier 4, dh has been working from home since March, grateful he has a job but has been a struggle working from home, I was furloughed but am now back to work, youngest ds was gcse year, no exams, no prom, no last day of school celebrations, oldest ds has 18, has continued to work, but no holidays with friends, no seeing friends, stuck in the house all day, at 16 and 18 they should be spending time with friends more than family, travelling, having adventures, life affirming stuff. I honestly think the young have been sacrificed for the old, I’ll prepare to be crucified again. Even my parents have said I wish we could get vaccinated before them as they feel they can protect themselves a bit more than us, when we need to go out and work and go to school etc.

I'm in my late 20's and we suffered really bad with the last recession.

If, you came from a lower class background, going to uni then wasn't possible even with higher amount of grants because it never was enough to cover everything and you couldn't ask money from parents cause they didn't have neither....

We haven't been able to start saving for a mortgage until this year because not everyone can live at home with parents too. Wages haven't caught up with the cost of living since then too.

I get that it's shit for younger people but if they're in their teenage years and about 22, you've still got chances to do a lot more things.

I do feel for them and absolutely everyone I know, including myself, are acutely aware of the destructive economic and mental toll on people more so than than the immediate public health effects of the virus.

I personally feel the youngest in education have it worst. They dont fully grasp whats happening and develop through their childhood environment. Schooling is much more than academic provision.

Uni students are young adults who have left their parent's care. Most adults face a similar set of issues around job loss/insecurity and isolation etc. People have graduated through all sorts of recessions and depressions through history. But they have time and no responsibility on their side, and could treat it like a gap year. Things will change with the pandemic. Some industries will thrive more, others may never recover; some behaviours may change forever giving rise to new jobs.

@maureenfrombarnsley exactly. Perfectly put.

Oops I meant to have quoted SleepingStandingUp but it didn't work about late 20's

The inequality gap will become wider as a result of all of this. Those teenagers and young adults from poor backgrounds will never recover. Libraries and other resources that we made use of (I never had the money for textbooks etc) have all been closed. The competition for jobs has also increased.

Perhaps those of us with none of those things should get certificates allowing us a free life and those with those things then take more care (and we abolish all the legal restrictions)

What an abhorrent idea.

I’m 65. I’m sick to the teeth of people my age (and younger) complaining about young people.

I think back to the years of being 17/18/19. Going out, meeting boys, having relationships, having sex, experimenting with drink and drugs (it was the 70s..). Going to gigs and festivals (still do that) parties, all nighters.
You learn all your first lessons about life and love in those years. You learn about friendships and who you can trust and who you can’t.
You only get one go at those years and youngsters have already lost one of them.

I tell everyone that if I was that age now I’m sorry but it’d be fuck the rules. They deserve their youth, I hate that it’s being stolen from them.

I agree. Completely and utterly shat on for something that won't make them ill the majority of the time. They've basically been sacrificed.