To think that Children of the Blitz should be required viewing in these ridiculous times?

[GloiredeDijon]

I watched Children of the Blitz on bbc iplayer and I really think that the swathes of younger people who apparently lack the slightest bit of resilience and who spend their days in a lather of self diagnosis and neurosis need to watch it too.

I am old enough to have had parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles who lived through the war but am aware that we are fast losing this fabulously stoic generation and many of our younger people have alarmingly little knowledge of the history of their country.

Even having heard my mum’s stories about being bombed out, being evacuated, doodlebugs and rationing this wonderful programme was an eye opener.

I genuinely think young people need to hear, in a very human way, about the things their elders lived through and went on to lead productive and happy lives contributing to society rather than expecting the world to run around their perceived needs.

I’m certainly not saying that war is the only problem which warrants feeling anxious, nor that genuinely diagnosed mental health problems don’t need treatment but this programme is a very positive illustration of the ability of humans to overcome and not just survive but thrive.

All the participants in this documentary were fabulous human beings and should be our role models instead some idiot on instagram self diagnosing and crying into the camera for attention.

Honestly. How much experience of young adults do you have? Or is your experience all from social media???

Most young adults aren't idiots, same as most people during the war weren't idiots. My kids are bloody brilliant, in their 20s. My dad was in the war in his 20s. He'd be so proud of them.

Raise your kids to be decent adults and get off social media

You have articulated exactly what I thought after watching it.
I know young people are not all the same, but the lack of resilience and sense of entitlement can too often be frightening.

I can’t be the only one who too often wants to tell people just to get a fucking grip!!

Re wartime, I do often think of my mother, always a worrier anyway, newly married, on her own in London during the Blitz - constantly expecting a telegram to say that DF (Royal Navy, Battle of the Atlantic) was gone, and would have ‘no grave but the sea’.

He did survive, but was incredibly lucky.

I didn’t see it (outside the UK with no access to iplayer), but surely it’s possible to see this remembered Blitz spirit as the terrified psychological crisis management of children who had no choice but to carry on through horrors and received no encouragement to talk about their feelings from equally traumatised adults?

This article from a few years ago has some interesting stuff on a team of government-sponsored psychiatrists and psychologists sent to interview survivors of heavy bombing in Hull, who found that survivors showed a range of symptoms like shaking, bed wetting, faecal incontinence, uncontrollable crying, and that men in particular drank and smoked heavily.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/19/myth-blitz-spirit-model-coronavirus

Oh please, the world is a completely different place now and thank goodness. Pressures are different but they still exist but its absolutely possible to raise resilient children - i have 3. I think a better strategy is to focus on the challenges that exist today - employment, cost of living, housing, education standards (and relevance) rather than harping back to the 'good old days' which weren't so great for many people and lots of people were living with undocumented ptsd, and many women, including those in my own family, had no choice but to stay in violent and/or controlling marriages. They got on with it but many were unhappy.

Its the parents that project their issues onto the children that is a bigger issue

Perhaps warmongers like Tony Bliar and Trump could do with watching them too.

What a sad take op.

it's well known that war time creates a community feeling that people often miss when it is over - there is research showing that collective action can be very helpful for people in these times.

Young people now have lost many things children had in those days - free play, autonomy, the ability to choose to live their lives by about 14 in a job if they hate school.

It's not the fault of our generation we have trapped them in a sterile and dull education system and banned them from playing on their own streets or filled their play spaces with cars and no ball games.

ASk any adult who remembers growing up in the 40s - they will tell you they had a better childhood - despite the poverty than the trapped and anxious one we are giving kids now. Not at all the fauult of children

And if you think there was no neurodiversity in the 30s and 40s you are just ignorant.

OP, you are the pampered generation. I don't think it's for people like you to make judgments. You've no idea how hard it is for young people.

One of the things that always impressed me about my lovely granny, who lived through the war and had a tough upbringing before that, was that she was always quite clear about how important it was to make sure our children get better than we got. That was a strong guiding principle for many of that generation. It's got lost along the way, because then we had a generation who had everything done for them, everything financed, and so many of them truly believe in pulling up the ladder.

I find it really sad.

Do our children have it better now ? Materially yes but that is not always a good thing, in fact many have too much. Our children don't have freedom and that is really sad. Our children aren't allowed to "just be" their days are planned by their parents, play dates, clubs and activities. They don't get to wake up on a Saturday morning and make their own plans for the day, no wonder they struggle when they are young adults.
We have done our youngsters no favours.

How many people committed suicide or were institutionalised because of it?

I watched this programme and would recommend it to anyone. The subjects were phenomenal and the programme was outstanding.

My fil lived through the Blitz, he thought his grandchildren were having a far worse and more difficult experience growing up because they do. He worried greatly about them.

Today's young people are hugely resilient, growing up in times most adults struggle with.

Then they suppressed all their feelings and in their relief that the war was over they created the most entitled generation ever in the boomers who are hoarding the country's wealth, voting to leave a secure trading bloc, railing against immigration which makes our country economically strong and making this generation of young people unable to do completely ordinary things like buy a house or look forward to the future.

If you don't like this post because it characterises a whole generation of people unfairly, look to your own post.

Today's young people are funny, inventive, resilient and expressive. Saying how you feel is not weakness it's strength when things are fucking awful as they are currently. Their refusal to fall into line as canon fodder will save us all if we're lucky.

I agree. Extraordinary, very moving stories . I am not often moved to tears but the man who spoke about the death of his disabled sister and their relationship had me in floods. But I was cheering and laughing with joy at the tap dancer still giving it out in her kitchen. RIP you wonderful woman.

I'd like to watch the programme and agree that people of that generation were brave and resilient, though they were encouraged to bury their feelings and not confront the pain of those years.

But:
My 15 year old - incredibly strong and stoic
My DM (in her eighties now) - the least stoic person on the planet.

You can't generalise and with it, wipe out the positive attributes of an entire generation.

The boomer generation are far less resilient than today’s younger people

Those children often went on to be the emotional stilted/neglectful/abusive "tough love" parents of Gen X. Gen X are known for their disconnected and avoidant attachment style (extreme independence, difficulty expressing emotions, great problem solvers), who have in turn struggled to adapt to parenting Millennials and Gen Z/A and who are only now learning about the consequences of intergenerational trauma.
Maybe ask Gen Z/A how it's working out for them - plus they have to deal with a 24/7 social media world.

I think the Silent Generation are highly respected by nearly everyone in the UK. The generational issues are to do with the Boomers who came after the war.

Well, I was talking about my grandmother's generation (the Blitz generation) who wanted things 'better' for their children.

Unfortunately, the result of that - at a societal level - has been to produce a generation who are entitled and imagine they're not. Of course there are individual people in that generation who worked bloody hard and had a rough time, but as a generation, the children of people who lived through the Blitz have had unprecedented advantages.

(FWIW, my DD does have freedom, and I'm super aware of how lucky she is. But I had to make quite specific choices in order to make that work!)

YANBU.

I have always felt that necessity, business, duty are all very good for mental health. Hence why very few people who go on benefits long term for MH come off them - sitting at home doomscrolling and watching TV all day, and focussing on themselves, makes it all 100 times worse and renders people unemployable.

It’s amazing what people can do through necessity, and never ending safety nets are standing in peoples’ way.

All the anxious NEETS I know have very enabling parents who haven’t ever been ‘tough love’ towards them.

I agree. Parenting used to mean providing a certain level of care - bathing them, providing meals, clean clothes - and duties like walking them to school, helping with homework.

Now you’re a full time psychotherapist, careers advisor, friend, companion and diary secretary. Absolute madness and the kids are not better off for it

People have always committed suicide and been institutionalised. Better 5% of the population is very unhappy, and 95% are content, than all being miserable together.

I think you’re somewhat missing the point. This isn’t about teaching people to put up with things they shouldn’t put up with. It’s about teaching resilience and that discomfort can be survived and thrived through. It’s also about teaching people to be more thankful and have a better perspective that we are very lucky today compared to how people had it in the past; that today’s ’big deals’ are relative small fry to what has gone on in the past. If people could get through the blitz, they can get through social anxiety, for example; it doesn’t have to define their lives.

raises hand Gen X here and relating to this so hard.

I think the only thing that saved me from being a terrible parent myself is that I was almost 40 before I became a mum. In the intervening years I got to know how many other families operated and that you could do things very differently.

I still feel like a terrible mother and my kids are dealing with a lot due to unavoidable (I mean literally) circumstances. They are so incredibly resilient. From the outside our family probably looks like it’s failing at life but I reckon many others in my teens’ situation wouldn’t even be able to get out of bed.