to just feel utter despair sometimes about the state of things for our kids?

[toolioo]

Incoming rant but I am feeling fed up that we are constantly inundated with media debates about social media, Roblox, harmful content, the manosphere, vaping, gaming addiction,, record levelsof obesity etc, and if you really dig into it, the list is so overwhelmingly long. While it's absolutely right that we engage with these issues, does anyone else just sit back and think how the fuck did we get here? We had the ultimate opportunity to harness our own creations and elevate humanity, but we've compromised it so bloody badly that it feels like a point of no return. How bleak is the future looking? I feel like we are being laughed at by the people in power (and I'm referring to the people profiting off of our experimentation, not our absolutely useless govt). It genuinely makes me question the ethics of bringing another child into this world right now. How on earth did we get here

My daughter was telling me off for using Chatpgt...because it uses so much energy. I hadn't even considered that...but these 'magic' things come at a price.

The extreme weather is a very big problem. In the UK the economy is crumbling at a level we have never seen before. Kids being stabbed and raped in the streets by immigrants has never been seen before. It’s pretty toxic right now.

social media, Roblox, harmful content, the manosphere, gaming addiction

I totally agree with you on this stuff OP. I feel the current generation of teens (sadly, both my DC) are a cohort that has been experimented on by greedy, amoral tech companies. They have been exposed to the entire internet, with all its awfulness, porn, torture, murder, addictive apps and games, with no controls whatsoever. No one should be exposed to all that, and yet our children have been allowed unrestricted access. The government of this country and others could have put a stop to it - could have said to the tech companies 'Either you clean up what is on your site/search engine or you will be blocked and no one will be able to get access'. If China can do that, other countries can too, but they didn't, and I'm furious and disgusted that they didn't.

But I also agree with the first poster that there have ALWAYS been awful things waiting to harm our DC. I'm a kid of the 70s/80s and we had plenty of awful things back then too.

"They have been exposed to the whole internet...our children have been allowed unrestricted access. The government could have put a stop to it..."
Modern life in a nutshell.

Let's get behind our new Prime Minister then!

Ever generation catastrophises about the future for its children. In my day it was first nuclear war and then the economy in the early 90.

I don’t think we’re in a good place now, no. The UK is in pretty bad shape economically and socially and in terms of its global status and the jobs crisis is a concern.

But I don’t think its any worse than it was in the 1970s.

I agree with this.
Each generation has their struggles, and parenting is essential in helping them navigate these.

This might sound like soppy advice, OP, but I think it's important. I don't know how old your children are but if they're still young:

Introduce them to music, especially classical and world music (they'll pick up pop etc for themselves). If you can't afford lessons or to go to concerts, music can be accessed for free.

Introduce them to nature and the countryside. Again, apart from modest travel costs, this can be a largely free activity, especially if you pack a picnic.

Get them reading from an early age - model getting enjoyment from reading and talking about what you're reading.

Honestly, as an ex-teacher, these are the 3 best things you can do for your children to give them interests and resources for life and to counter-balance the commercial crap coming at them from all directions. Sure, they'll go off these things in their teens but if you've given them an entree in childhood, they'll always find a way back and these things will enrich their lives without ever costing much.

Parents have the power to enrich and elevate their children's lives if they want to, but you need to start early.

All the 2026 rubbish they will easily access themselves - you need to balance it with quality stuff.

But there is much we can do. Planting trees to retain cooling moisture, produce oxygen, absorb carbon dioxide and provide shade, rather than demanding our neighbours cut down their trees because their roots are disrupting a fence line or hosting birds that drop guano on cars, would be a start.🙄

Governments and big organisations are responsible for social media and the internet. Yes of course you have to parent but it's total crap to place no responsibility on large powerful organisations and individuals.

I applaud your aims, but - what do you mean by 'we'? It would take most of the world to do those things to have any effect on climate change. We are a tiny insignificant (geographically) island off the edge of Europe.

We are building like mad on good farm land instead of on old, already used sites. People keep telling us we need to build more and more houses. For whom?? Where are these tens of thousands of people who need 4+ bed executive homes coming from???

I'm pessimistic. That doesn't stop me doing all I personally can to be environmentally considerate but in the big picture, it's not a great prospect if the big powers don't act now. But with Trump and Putin and Xi, I don't see that as a priority. Also - most of us would rather have consumer goods, lots of foreign holidays, big cars and just turn up the heating in winter, wouldn't we?

A huge yes to all that. We need to take back power and control. As you say, global corporations only make billions because we buy stuff from them. We shouldn't need a law to ban children accessing social media - parents should control screen use. A big yes to "stop pointing the finger at others". A good start would be more "localism", i.e. shopping locally, using smaller independents instead of supermarkets and huge internet retailers. Yes, not everything will be available, but something is better than nothing and will help reduce the number of small shops closing down. Likewise with local pubs - we all whinge when they close down, but we don't use them enough to keep them open.

Exactly this. You said it all perfectly.

Totally agree with you, OP.

Listening to the news is totally depressing.

A couple of things this week: the National Crime Agency investigating networks of men on the internet swapping information on drugging their partners so multiple men can rape them.

Parents being told not to post pictures of their children online as they’re being used to generate AI videos/images of child abuse.

Yes, I wonder just how the fuck we got here. I also wonder at some of the people saying there’s nothing new and there have always been issues!!

I’m afraid we’ve entered the dark ages with one generation of children and men having been ruined so far and plenty more to come with the introduction of AI.

Absolutely 💯 just been crying on the phone to my sister about this. Greed, racism, fascism, misogyny, capitalism etc all on the rise where understanding, integrity, empathy, compassion and just basic humanity seems to be waning. Looks and possessions are revered, kindness and intelligence scorned. An actual rapist and kiddy fiddler in charge of the most powerful country in the world. I’m in despair at having brought my kids into this 😢

Every generation says things like this. I’m 42, and I remember my grandmother saying, “If I had my time again, I would never have had children,” and talking about how the world is a horrible place this was even before technology really took over.

I suppose as we get older, we look at all the changes and, rather than embracing them, we can become a bit fearful of the unknown.
I think the best thing we can do is just get on with it. We can’t change the world, but we can look after the people we love, be kind to others, and make the best of things.

I don't know how old your children are OP but as a family could you not do things that will make you feel better about the world? Volunteer for a charity that does something about the environment - or join up as a youth leader at the local youth centre. Write to your MP, write to the local paper, start a community group in your area, join a political party, walk dogs for the local dog shelter....something. Anything.

Millions of people all give up their time to do good stuff like this every week. There is so much good in the world.
Being online or just watching endless gloomy news shows you nothing of the brilliant stuff that's happening on your doorstep.

We always feel better when we're doing something positive and if we all did something next week the world would be a better more optimistic place.

I also have friends in the teaching industry and their experience is the same as yours.

our neighbours daughter returned to teaching this year and she very nearly walked away from the career again. She is located fairly locally and it’s not deemed a poor quality school area either.

in answer to the initial question though, I too believe it’s up to parents to navigate their children past negative influences and also believe our children can and do have the world at their fingertips if desired.

Information and education is readily available at the touch of a button however it’s up to parents to actually parent and not expect school to be the only educational experience a young person has.

when DD went to uni several of her very capable friends were discouraged by parents into going as well. One wasn’t allowed to undertake the cooking course she desired and was forced to enter into a degree she had no hope of completing past month 6.

it concerned me a few weeks back to find 4 young gentlemen between the ages of 13 - 17 in our small road do not know how to cook, use the lawn mower or tidy up. Basic life skills. 2 are bordering on being at unhealthy weights, yet Mum says they are growing into young men. (Certainly not useful ones).

so to my mind it’s mostly up to parents to set a positive example and explore positive options for the next generation.

I have a sixteen-year-old son, and I always think that if I were childless, I would never bring a child into the world now. I fear for my son's future. We have brought him up old-style, with very limited phone use, he is a good reader, a critical thinker, kind and well-mannered, social and popular at school and outside, and has never given us any headaches so far. Yet I fear for his future in a world where most people are hooked to mobile phones, uninterested in face-to-face interactions, and relying on AI to do their thinking. I've always been an optimist, but the world ahead of us is very, very scary -even more than world wars and poverty, at least to me.

There's always been shitty stuff happening in the world.
Difference is that SM has made us all much more aware of it. Back in the day, someone could be killed in a car crash in a town, and everyone knew about it there, but 10 miles down the road, everyone was totally unaware.

The scaremongering on here is off the scale and bad for health. Life is good for many. Lots of people have a car each, go on holiday. So many people have luxuries that were unheard of years ago even from the wealthiest. We like to knock technology but I think it's bloody brilliant I can do online shopping if I wish / listen to music on demand / have thousands of ilms at the press of a button etc. So many good things we have even if some of us haven't much money. Money aside, there also positive change from years ago, I found visiting my daughter's school a healing experience when I see how wonderful education can be compared to the 80s.. so many improvements. It's nice to see a generation of young people looking after themselves more. Just tiny examples of positive change I see. Nothing is ever perfect or ideal, we just have to make the most of it, but I feel grateful every day to have been born here in the.UK.

That is so true. We’re exposed to the bad stuff now, whilst in the past, we were limited to the daily newspaper, and the news on the tv or radio.

When I was a kid there were riots everywhere, rubbish piled in the streets, loads of people out of work, massive mortgage interest, and almost no one normal owned shares or had investments. Holidays were camping, or maybe a holiday camp if you were very lucky. I had so few things as a kid I can remember them all today. At school we were fed absolute shite and regularly given corporal punishment. This was the late 70s into the 80s. As other's have said the 90s had their own tough challenges too; I was helping raising my niece then and there were new concerns to replace the challenges my sibling and I had. No doubt the same was true for later generations.

I like to look on the bright side because I really think life for most has got better, globally and nationally. My kid goes to a relatively low economic status school where English is second language to most kids. The level of care, quality of food, range of activities etc. is brilliant. Also, she is in a real melting pot (I'm the child of an immigrant so I have strong feelings about it which I know not all on Mumsnet share). The kids are taught to share, clothes are handed down, and there's loads of charitable activities to support the school and the lower income families. The kids are taught about all sorts of things, not just math, english and religion like I was. Honestly, OP, I think it's just right that we always fear for our kids, but are things especially bad for this crop? No.

My mom grew up terrified to play out because of the Moors Murders. When I was a kid there was football violence every week and race riots and more. Yes we let kids roam around back then but it wasn't safer. Society has just shifted it's norms now.

England is massively safer now than in the 1970s, especially on things like roads and workplace danger. Crime is lower than in the 1970s, especially violent crime and homicide. Neither today nor in the 1970s does the evidence support immigrants causing high crime. I'm a 2nd gen immigrant so you can s-off with that bs.

It’s also wealthier overall now, with far more national wealth than back then. That wealth hasn’t been shared evenly, so a lot people still don’t feel richer but even normal families have computers, mobiles, streaming, cars etc. that middle class families had to scrimp for in the 80s and no lower income familes could have. Now they do.

There is still too much food poverty and so please support food charities! But in the 70s many kids were reguarly undernourished. Today it's more about insecurity and so it's vital we feed kids in schools. In some ways the problem has flipped: from kids dying, to kids being fat. I'd rather have them alive and fat though agree we need to tackle that issue next ; )

While we are at it, hundreds of millions, and likely over a billion have risen out of poverty globally since the 70s. Those who remain in poverty don't do so because of global issues but local ones: fragile and conflict-affected states, mostly in Africa. That's the big area of failing. War is still as bad, by some measures worse, as it was in the 70s and 80s. We need to maintain a global role to help generate peace, which is something the West is now failing at. Populations just don't care enough. They do care about climate change, even though the majority of people's live has got better despite it. The areas where climate has a huge negative shock impact are the sames ones where there is still conflict and poverty and we'd do much better for those people by focusing on ending conflict and creating wealth than on climate. *That is not me saying we shouldn't reduce our impact on the climate, just that the priorities of many people are off kilter.

You're just caught up in a pessimism trap. Look objectively and you see that we have made a better England; then you need to move on and do your bit for making it better still.

(All the statements above I fact checked using Google - so you can check me too. Most of the facts came from official GOV stats. No AI was used in the creation of this response ; )

She's right. Wake up.