To think in the past people had more stoicism and resilience and it’s a shame we’ve sort of lost that?

[Carrotted]

Towards the end of the battle of Waterloo, the Marquess of Uxbridge, a British general, had part of his leg blown off by a French cannonball. He was sitting atop his horse next to the Duke of Wellington, to whom he turned and said “By God, sir, I think I’ve lost my leg”, to which the Duke of Wellington replied “By God, sir, so you have”. He then went to the field hospital where the remaining leg was amputated without anaesthetic, while he joked with the surgeons.

Thats one individual and the story is probably elaborated for effect, but AIBU to think people in previous generations tended to be more stoic in the face of adversity. To have a “get on with it” attitude?

There are obvious downsides to that attitude, but it can have lots of benefits to have that approach to life.

AIBU?

I bet this dick was permatanned, had Turkey teeth, and had Gucci sliders on. Loads of fully grown men these days are absolute f#cking wetwipes.

A lot of young people lack resilience because they've been molly-coddled since birth. It's also fashionable for the past decade or more to be seen as a victim which is quite insulting to people who have experienced genuine trauma. A lot of young people seem to wake up in the morning looking to be offended - usually for little or no reason. These tend to be from well-off backgrounds for some reason.

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 you absolute throwback

I think we live very privileged lives. I often think about the attitude to refugees and wonder how we’d deal with if if we had to pack a rucksack and flee for our lives. I also think about the tsunami and how the Thai people risked their lives to save Westerners, just can’t imagine it happening the other way round. I know this is a bit of a tangent but in the big scheme of things we are not cleverer or more developed/sophisticated. We just happen to have been born in a place where we are relatively safe and protected. And yes i know its a big generalisation but i think there’s something in it.

You are absolutely SPOT on. He’s fairly well known in the area as he runs a Facebook competition site. He was also interviewed on the local news I see this evening where he had toned it down a bit but still, so dramatic!

Ah, we have "menkul elf" these days and can always go to hospital when things go wrong

Can I ask - genuine, not snarky - if you've been bombed? Just, because I know some men who have (not it the army, so not trained), and they don't tend to sneer at people who find the possibilty frightening. They would find the posting on Instagram incomprehensible TBF, but then, they'd find posting on Mumsnet incomprehensible too.

I ask because I have no idea how I'd respond in that situation, and until I do, I don't want to disdain how someone else has responded in it. I'm not at all convinced I'd behave in a way I'm proud of. And I say that having endured plenty of violence myself, in ways I'm mostly ok with.

But your post implied you're confident you'd think positively. So I wondered if you'd had an experience comparable to being near a bomb going off? Would you feel like a wuss if you'd developed PTSD as a result?

And - surely - you don't think being a "wuss" deserves the death penalty? Just, that last sent came across as if it had a bit of relish in it, but surely whatever we all think about the relative resilience of different generations, we can all agree on having a bit of compassion for a terrified 20 year old at the front line in WWI?

I don't understand why you think boomers whinge. We've all worked hard and saved. We didn't have everything handed to us

But he wasn’t being bombed. If he’d bothered to find out the situation he found himself in and read the media from the area he would know that the sounds where where the local airbase was sending the interceptor missiles. He was describing the situation as bombs falling around him. Total dramatics. No wonder his kids were terrified, their father was like a child himself.

I remember coming home to the UK from a stint working in eastern europe. I saw people surviving, tiny flats, cramped buses, life going on in deep snow, etc. Then, in the UK, people moaning because their newspaper was creased. We seem to invent things that may go wrong over here. In much of the world they don't have to.

Ok but he thought he was (or maybe was just fishing for Instagram engagement, in which case yeah, it's pathetic behaviour). But assuming he thought he was being bombed (and TBF, I don't have enough experience of bombs Vs interceptor missiles to know the difference in how they sound). Do you have a comparable experience?

I just see a lot of posts on the thread where people are so confident of their own resilience, and so many references to WWI/ WWII, but not many people who actually say, "having survived a bombing, I have demonstrated resilience (by...? Getting on with it?? Thinking positively?) and this is something my entire generation has in common, but "younger generations" lack."

The only people I know who have been bombed don't talk about their resilience or positive thinking, or despise gen z for mental illness. In fact, I'd say they're profoundly traumatised, and profoundly grateful their kids and grandkids won't have the same experiences, and able to see the huge difficulties their kids/ grandkids do have to contend with.

Resilience taking the form of compassion, maybe?

I used to work as a teacher and on the whole I found young people to be very resilient and forward thinking.

I think social media is the big problem and news outlets. For example if a minor inconvenience happens, in real life i haven't heard anyone complain but if even one person does online, the headlines will be "so and so SLAMMED on social media for xyz"

Yep there are a lot of snowflakes around nowadays

No poor people got sick of been trodden on

I suffered a really severe leg fracture and felt no pain whatsoever until someone tried to move it an hour and a half later (broke leg in the street, was not a priority for an ambulance in part because I was in no pain and no one really believed I had broken it until they saw it).

Shock really messes with your ability to feel the full effect of an injury. It's not the same as resilience.

I don't think people should pretend that stuff doesn't hurt when it does. I do think we should let people have space to heal from injuries. I don't think that either of these things are the same as not being resilient.

If you don't see people in the UK surviving in tiny flats and standing on cramped buses, you're not going to the right places. There's plenty of serious poverty and deprivation here and plenty of wealth and privilege in Eastern Europe.

Nah I’d much rather be from my generation where people deal with things in therapy, try not to pass dysfunction down to their kids, and the men are actually able to have conversations about their emotions. A lot of what older people call resilience is actually repression, and the idea that everyone was heroically getting on with shit is a rose-tinted lie. To use the Second World War as an example: lots of veterans got ptsd and drank at home and were violent to their families. The idea that the blitz didn’t cause mass ptsd is also rose-tinted bollocks.

People didn’t have the language, but that doesn’t mean that they weren’t traumatised, unhappy, or suffering. That is the human condition.

I do admire resilience as a trait in people. People who roll up sleeves and get on with things even when it's hard versus the people wailing in the corner .
I do think people in general are less resilient than they used to me. Not sure why though.

Poor people are rarely snowflakes in my experience.
They have the thickest skin around because no choice.

Pampered middle-class young people on the other hand take offence at the sun rising and setting.
It's a fashion fad for most of them to cosplay being victims.

@lemonandlimes2

I think we should look at Boomers again
Do you mean the Boomers who started life paying 35 pence in the pound income tax with much lower thresholds.
They also didn't go into hysterics and need therapy because of a broken finger nail.And live off take aways that we're delivered to their door.

Or didn't have money and benefits thrown at them for living,, feckless, immature and irresponsible lifestyles..Living for years.off the state. Which Labour and Blair championed them for votes..

I could go on for. ever..

Au revoir.

I think when the worst happens people will defo get on with it. If they aren’t forced to then not so much. So YABU

Millennial snowflakes, more like it.

Absolutely agree. You build resilience by going through hard times unfortunately. Billions of people worldwide are fantastically resilient for that very reason.
I remember with humility and admiration the pregnant woman in Mozambique in 2000 who had to climb up a tree with her 4 other children due to flooding and then went into labour and gave birth.
While our challenges are nowhere near as extreme, it's up to all parents to model resilience for their children.

True. Or soldiers coming back from combat and beating up their kids every week because they have untreated PTSD.