To ask - Which living generation do you think has had it the hardest?

[catsinpinkhats]

• Silent Generation: Born 1925-1945.
• Baby Boomers: Born 1946-1964.
• Generation X: Born 1965-1980.
• Millennials: Born 1981-1996.
• Generation Z: Born 1997-2012.
• Generation Alpha: Born 2013-2025.

I think each generation has had varying degrees of things that are hard, socially, financially, politically etc.

My grandparents were of the silent generation and there's no doubt their childhood and young adulthood was hard during and after the war. Plus many men still did national service.

I am a millennial and most of my generation is old enough to remember life pre-internet but also young enough to embrace it. Things are hard for my generation and younger due to house prices etc, but society is more open generally with more possibilities.

We all think our generation has it harder, but what do you think if being objective?

I don’t think anything can be harder than being born and living through a war.

Silent Generation without a doubt.

I think this is a very goady question that will absolutely cause a silly bunfight as it was intended to.

Yes that's true, I should have asked which one has had it the easiest?

First one on your list. Deeply shit. My DF was born in 1934 and spent a year in a hospital for infectious diseases aged 9 when he had TB. His parents were essential workers so didn’t fight but my DGM was the most thrifty person you could ever meet, she was so used to having very very little.

The silent generation, but when they all pass, millennials and probably any generation that comes after too.

Silent generation - because of the war
then millennials - especially older millennials - no Compiter literacy taught, but all jobs expecting computers - housing crisis. Lived in rentals unable to buy yada yada

I think anyone born poor has it the hardest, regardless of when.

Standby for the inevitable ageism towards baby boomers.

I just scrape into the Boomer generation (1963).

Whilst I think young adults are having a hard time with house prices etc, I don't think it compares with what my parents suffered as the Silent Generation. The war, evacuation, rationing, loss of life, none of the gadgets we have today, no equal rights for women, lack of diversity etc.

Silent followed by Generation Z

I don’t get the financial literacy/older millennial part above. I can’t remember a time when computer literacy wasn’t expected and I’m Gen X

I would say after the silent generation, baby boomers had it very hard. Sexual abuse was rife and covered up at every turn, many boomers were left on doorsteps, in care homes or convents. Racism and sexism was shocking too.

I think the Silent Generation win the misery top-trumps.

It's hard to say in those broad strokes - the experience of someone born in 1925 will be very different from someone born in 1945, for example.

Silent followed very closely by millennial, especially ones from the 80s.

I’m a boomer and agree I’ve had the best of it.

You get the years you are given and I’m eternally thankful for the ones I’ve got.

I think silent generation, then Gen Z/ Alpha. Going through 2 world wars and rationing/ bombing/ evacuation/ depression/ holocaust is horrific and I don’t think anything else is as bad. But the effects of covid, particularly on the young and teens, and mass smart phones/ internet I think are likely to be pretty bad, plus I sadly expect the young now are likely to see real climate change effects start to affect ordinary life. Certainly I do not think that the young today have it easier than me, I’m glad I grew up before the internet (80s/ 90s).

Another one voting for the Silent Generation (particularly the earlier end of that), followed by late Gen X / early Millennial - I think some people are actually now calling that a separate micro-generation.

I think the people who have had it easiest are probably late Boomers / early Gen X, so the ones who became adults in the late 70s and 80s.

But also this

My mother was from the silent generation. She saw her mother and little sister die of TB while she was a teenager. Then WWII broke out when she was 18.

Her fiance was killed in the war, so she married my dad. She was required to resign when she married.

Then she had seven children before the pill was generally available, two still born. She didn't have a washing machine until 1984. She never had a driving licence. She wasn't financially independent until my df died.

My life as a (very late) boomer single mother is infinitely better.

Why does other generations get 18 - 20 years, but X only get 15?

Millennials not liking the idea of being Xers?

I'm gen X

Comparing any probes I've been had, be it health, homelessness concerns, poverty, hunger, finding shoes that fit my huge feet, being misgendered, blah blah blah...

Absolutely NOTHING compared to living through a world war, NOTHING.

My dad was born in 1933, he lived through it, he had it good and yet it still did untold damage to his mental and physical health. He wouldn't even talk about the 40s and served in the military but wouldn't speak of that period either. He would talk about life in the 60s, but no earlier, he'd walk out of the room first.

I'm a boomer, and I think we had it easy - full grants for Uni, affordable housing, jobs were easy to get - not to mention the amazing music of the 70s and 80s. We were after the pill, and before the AIDS crisis, and many of us inherited substantial sums from our parents. I feel very lucky to have been born when I was (1959).

Silent generation. My parents and DHs parents were all evacuated as children during the war. Then when they returned home they endured years of rationing. During their childhood there was no NHS. In spite of how bad we think things are now I don't think it compares to that.