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 agree. I think the boomer generation covers too wide a span. My DH was born in 1946 and had nothing like my experience born in 1959.

Surely you can understand that a world war (in other words affecting multiple countries), where people had to go to fight is quite different from those who join the armed forces of their particular country, knowing that going to war could well happen. People, especially men, of the silent generation didn't have a choice. No-one actually forced you to take on your career.

Also. it's not just those away at war who suffered during the world wars, life wasn't exactly rosy for those at home. Were your family at risk of being bombed while you were away for instance?

The poverty in inner cities was dreadful for the Boomer generation. I remember the hovels/ back to backs of Manchester, Oldham, Salford, Sheffield, Macclesfield etc. Slum clearances through 50-60s. Housing terribly short after the bombing of WW2. Rationing of food etc until the late 50s.

Class sizes horrendous. 56 in my class in Didsbury the most favoured suburb of Manchester. Some schools in Salford could barely get teachers at all. My cousin, working as an uncertificated teacher in 1957 before going to Uni was in charge of 90 ( the legal ruling was half a class for an uncertificated teacher!)
Most children 80%?+ left school at 15. Comprehensive education was decades off for most.

Women teachers were on 3/4 of men's pay. Some male teachers broke away from the NUT who were campaigning for equal pay to found the National Association of School Masters NAS, to campaign against equal pay( no women allowed of course! ) ie sexism was rife. Girls were discriminated against in so many ways - a restricted syllabus, often fewer places in Grammar schools despite girls generally doing better than boys in 11+, quotas for medicine eg, not a tenth of men's places for women at Oxbridge.

Rape legal in marriage, birth control unreliable, forced adoption of babies born outside marriage. Women couldn't get loans, mortgages ( Teachers' Building Society was founded to remedy this).

Banks were still sacking women who got married. Racism horrendous v Blacks, Irish etc.

The NHS only came in in 1948 so many people had very poor health. Asian flu in 50s.

The difference was that after the Labour Atlee victory in 1945 people had hope that things would get better. Legal Aid, NHS, Council Housing, Sickness/ unemployment benefits, retirement benefits etc. all came in then.

We have the extraordinary 'ordinary' people of the Silent Generation who campaigned for these things in the army, navy, RAF, factories, mines all through the WW2 to thank.

@ElizaMulvil Yes, think of the poverty depicted in “Call the Midwife,” that was inner city poverty in the late 1950’s/early 1960’s. ☹️

I don't think any generation as a whole had it harder but it comes down to circumstances.

My parents were/are silent generation, they were rural and born to farming families so sheltered from WWII and no families at war, not comparable to living somewhere with air raids, losing loved ones etc.

A PP mentioned being GenX in NI, not comparable to me being GenX in rural Scotland.

I do think younger people have additional challenges with SM but then will have less challenges in other aspects in life than older people had.

Well if I had not, I’d likely be dead as a gang was out to kill me. So it was an escape from certain death to possible death.

Life wasn’t rosy for the Falklands British held hostage either…

Plus, think of the civil war of the Troubles in NI for those of my generation- which only marginally affected me but would have had a profound effect on all Gen X in NI. All at risk of bombs, shootings…

On the others, the U.K. was bombed 7/7 ring a bell? My going prevented more bombs like that.

Rape was legal in marriage, in England and Wales, until 1991. It is shocking.

Load of old crap. I'm very end of gen x but far more in common with someone born 1986 that 1965.

Really stupid and divisive way to look at things.

I would say the silent generation had the most challenges. Poverty in childhood, WW2 and more.
People born in the 1980s are having a difficult time.
The boomer generation were fortunate in many ways but didn't escape all challenges. Women were expected to tollerate abuse and there was little child care provision. Maternity leave didn't start until 1979 and women found it difficult to be considered for mortgages etc.
With generations born after the 1980s it's too early to say yet. Many of them aren't off to an easy start.
Just considering what I wrote above, in all generations some people are born into much more advantage than others and hardship is more connected to Social class than generation. For a little while, after the War there was a bit more Social mobility and opportunity. We're putting a stop to that!

Silent , without a doubt.

@Neurodiversitydoctor Could be - I can't remember the title - so long ago. I must have read it in the 70s. But maybe they re-published after Chernobyl happened and traumatised the next generation!

Were your family at risk of being bombed while you were away for instance?
This is kind of a dumb question because my entire life I’ve been at risk of being bombed. From birth to 1989- Cold War- so many close calls of nuclear bombs dropping. You just accepted it could all end in a flash of light. Even after the USSR fell apart, hundreds of nuclear warheads went missing and were in the hands of terrorists who threatened to use them..so the danger amped up and then oh wow, here comes Iraq invading Kuwait and Iraq with its “WMD” (we didn’t know it was lies) then ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.

The world wasn’t a safe or stable place.

I do, like others on this thread, find the divisions of the generations a bit artificial. My PILs are technically Boomers but MIL’s life was far more Silent Generation. She was brought up as one of 5 surviving children (all the boys died, most at birth, suggesting some sort of undiagnosed sex-linked genetic condition) against a backdrop of horrendous DV and neglect, with an alcoholic gambler for a father and a disengaged and (understandably) constantly unfaithful mother. She and FIL never earned much, but did benefit hugely from property ownership.

Sexism was rife when I was a teenager but you just lived with it.

I tried to join the RAF at 16 in the 70s - the recruiting officer refused to accept my application because he said I was too pretty and would be married and pregnant within a couple of years and it would be a waste of good training.

At the factory I was working at at the time, a boy the same age asked me how much I was earning, I told him, and he went and complained to the owner and I got my wage reduced by about a third. My fault apparently for telling someone how much I earned!

Just normal shit.

Generation Alpha, easily.

So strange how many people say millennials I am ( 1991 ) and would have expected we would have been seen as the least disadvantaged.

I also vote silent generation, but I'm amazed that people are voting for late Gen X/Early Millenial after that! I am that generation and think I've had it easy and was born in a great era! Parents weren't rich either.

Much better imo than current generation with covid / house prices / Brexit restrictions / social media / environment issues / outrageous uni fees.

The Silent Generation, of coursse.

But American and Australian Boomers were drafted into the Vietnam war. Many died, and many were left with severe PTSD.

Pretty well every sexual transgression brought up by the Me, Too movement was part of many Boomer women's daily lives. Too frequent to mention, and hardly something anyone went to the cops about.

Boomer women fought for all sorts of rights and priviliges that following generations take for granted, and are now in the process of throwing away.

Too say Millenials have it hard is laughable.

@Daphnis156
”People of any age let down by the NHS and local authorities.
People who cannot afford food or heat”

You mean people let down by the Tory government?

Let’s not blame our public servants, it’s not their fault the country’s a shambles.

I don’t get the millennials computer thing either.
we started doing IT in primary and done it as GCSE in secondary.
I actually think we were in the mist of the technology bloom and sort of grew with it.
from me starting secondary school to leaving secondary - we had gone from no camera phones / internet etc to full on internet phones and big bulky computers with dial up to flat screens and Wi-Fi.
we were at the start of “ social networking to “ we went from bebo - my space / msn to Facebook by the time I left.

I'm an older millennial and think I've had it relatively OK compared to my parents and my gen Z children. I was a teen before social media really took off, by 21 had two children and a mortgage (2005), very generous child and working tax credits, never had a problem getting work without a degree etc.

My 20 and 18 year olds have had a pandemic and social media to contend with and are struggling to find work. A mortgage is a distant thought etc.

The silent generation. War, rationing, no contraception, large families, cold houses without proper bathroom facilities. Living on the very basics. No welfare state. I’m generation X. We’ve had it pretty good.

Well, my parents went through WWII. In Europe.

But Palestine/Israel is pretty awful now....... (pretty being an understatement...)

It obviously varies with geography but, for most of Britain at least, it has to be the silent generation. I’d say it’s been diminishing returns since the Baby Boomers.

Silent generation.

But I feel deeply for younger generations dealing with housing prices, tuition fees, wage stagnation. It's very tough.

Certainly boomers and my generation (X) had things easier.