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Original poster

Missed youth?

100 replies

mids2019 · 12/09/2020 10:00

Have our young people been denied their youth?

I was thinking of the number of experiences the youth of today are missing compared to the children earlier generations e.g the 60s and 80s.

No parties
No nightclubs
Missed opportunities to socialise
Missed opportunities to form relationships
Disrupted education
A dystopian University experience

When our current 18 year olds look back at their lives at 30 when buried in their careers and childcare will they look back and think....

We really were screwed weren't we?

OP posts:
Original poster
mids2019 · 12/09/2020 10:01

Oh and job opportunities of course....

OP posts:
cocopops · 12/09/2020 10:05

I agree 100%. The youth of today are being corona shamed and stopped from doing anything that makes live worth living at that age. Not to mention those who are at university being royally screwed. All to save the elderly voters.

And don’t get me started on cancer patients and other non covid ill people who are being denied treatment because only covid deaths seem to matter nowadays.

Waxonwaxoff0 · 12/09/2020 10:27

Agree. Young people and children are the ones who are suffering the most.

avenueq · 12/09/2020 10:29

Totally agree

dirkdooger · 12/09/2020 10:32

If I wAs 15, 18, 21 I would be out socialising & I think it's shit for them. It's not like when this is all over they will get that time back or be welcomed into a utopia where they can get a job, retire at 60, buy an affordable home etc. What have they got to look forward to?

BikeTyson · 12/09/2020 10:32

I really feel for the ones who’ve missed the ‘landmark’ events - leaving school, proms, first holidays with friends etc. People sneer at them but they’ve become important rites of passage. It must be awful for the ones who are starting university this year with limited socialising, little in person teaching and not even able to get part time jobs because bar work etc has all but dried up.

lljkk · 12/09/2020 10:34

The hang-wringing on MN knows no bounds...

I don't agree with current control strategy (I want Swedish model instead) but I don't share OP's doom & gloom, either. And to be brutally honest, DC are more sanguine about the whole mess than I am. They think they can cope; They are busy finding ways to socialise, forming relationships & making plans anyway.

user1471588124 · 12/09/2020 10:35

Yeah I totally agree. I'm in my mid twenties and have very little hope for the future atm. University all online, no hope of a good grad job, massive restrictions to socialising etc. I was happy to do it a first but I've had enough now, especially when we're constantly called selfish for desiring some kind of social life. We given up half a year of our youth already, with massive costs to our future lives. How much can we be expected to do? No one cared about climate change and our future.

Eyewhisker · 12/09/2020 10:36

Totally agree OP. The cost of this on young people is immense.

TheTeenageYears · 12/09/2020 10:38

I completely agree OP. They won't get this time again and it's all with the knowledge that they will be footing the bill for this for the rest of their lives.

Puffalicious · 12/09/2020 10:44

Completely and utterly agree. It's all affecting them disproportionately. I have so many friends with DC 16-25 and so many experiences missed that we all had and form part of our best memories.

My own DS was 16 a few weeks back: no party, no trip abroad we had planned for the end of the month, and during the summer he missed 2 festivals, 2 family holidays and countless, countless good times with friends and his girlfriend. Of course it's not the end of the bloody world, but it's rotten.

worldwideover · 12/09/2020 10:46

I agree.

The strange thing is that as a random 'Act if God' type event, the Covid-19 pandemic affects young people least.

So how have they ended up being the age group in society most royally screwed over? Presumably because a large proportion of under 21s can't vote.

An elderly couple living on a generous triple-locked pension in a now-expensive house that they bought with 105% mortgage for virtually nothing in the 70s are going to be vulnerable to getting covid. But they can use their age and their money to manage this risk very substantially, eg shopping only online, socialising in limited ways in small groups with other covid-conscious people in their nice big houses etc. And the pandemic doesn't detract in any way from their education, the careers they've had, or the pleasure their life has already given them. It affects at most 10%, say, of their existence.

Compare an 18 year old, who is at almost no risk from contracting covid, but is constantly harassed and shamed for acting in accordance with that. Over the next few weeks many of them will be going up to university, on the strength of botched A-levels that haven't actually prepared them properly for the course they're about to do. They won't have the money from summer work that previous generations normally had -- or the life experience provided by travelling. Mostly they'll be sitting in their rooms alone, waiting around for library books to come out of quarantine, watching lectures on their laptops, eating sandwiches rather than cooking in a a shared kitchen. Parties and sexual experimentation, which for previous generations have constituted the fun part of university life, are effectively made illegal. And when they finish these expensive courses, no jobs.

From Hancock 'don't kill your granny' slogan you'd think that we were a nation like Italy with very close extended family groups. In fact even in normal times many 18 year olds only see their grandparents a few times a year, if they're even alive. It's surely much easier to postpone the semi-annual visit than trash their life in every conceivable way so it goes ahead?

rorosemary · 12/09/2020 10:46

It's not their whole youth, it's one year. Where I am the young people socialize outside, go swimming in the river, having brought a radio with them and drinks and seem to have a fun time.

There used to be conscription, wars, stuff like that. It used to be normal to "lose" part of your life for the good of the whole.

rorosemary · 12/09/2020 10:48

I also hate the fact that people act as if only the elderly are vulnerable. Plenty if vulnerable people are in their thirties, so should they just die? What about their lives?

110APiccadilly · 12/09/2020 10:52

I'm less worried about the missing socialising (not saying it's ok though) than the fact we've totally messed up the economy for them. They will be paying for "keeping granny safe" for the rest of their lives.

dirkdooger · 12/09/2020 10:56

It used to be normal to "lose" part of your life for the good of the whole.

normal?

rorosemary · 12/09/2020 11:00

@dirkdooger

It used to be normal to "lose" part of your life for the good of the whole.

normal?

Conscrition was normal for a long time, yes. Still is in many countries.
rorosemary · 12/09/2020 11:02

@110APiccadilly

I'm less worried about the missing socialising (not saying it's ok though) than the fact we've totally messed up the economy for them. They will be paying for "keeping granny safe" for the rest of their lives.
On what basis? The economy problems of the 20s lasted 10 years. That is long, but not a whole life. Also plenty of middle aged will be affected, not just 18 year olds.
dirkdooger · 12/09/2020 11:02

A life expectancy of early 50s was also normal & still is for some countries if we are going to start doing comparisons.

TempsPerdu · 12/09/2020 11:04

There used to be conscription, wars, stuff like that. It used to be normal to "lose" part of your life for the good of the whole

Ha, not in the recent past it wasn’t. My dad is 81 and his ‘National Service for the good of the whole’ was mostly spent on a giraffe safari in Kenya. He had a whale of a time. He also walked out of grammar school with no qualifications to his name into a lucrative City job, as did many of his working class peers.

There seems to be a sizeable chunk of the older population who seem to be willing this generation to have a miserable, wasted youth in the name of developing that Holy Grail, ‘resilience’. I have no idea why - bitterness is the only reason I can come up with.

dirkdooger · 12/09/2020 11:07

There seems to be a sizeable chunk of the older population who seem to be willing this generation to have a miserable, wasted youth in the name of developing that Holy Grail, ‘resilience’. I have no idea why - bitterness is the only reason I can come up with.

I don't get it either. Also the whole attitude of well in the past it was shit for some young people & still is in other countries so suck it up. Surely that applies to all generations?

NewAutumnName · 12/09/2020 11:07

Youth covers several tears so no

Many young used to go off to war and didn't return. Pubs clubs will come again

ouch321 · 12/09/2020 11:08

It's only been six months, not six years they've missed.

NewAutumnName · 12/09/2020 11:09

Years not tears

So much exaggeration education lost youth lost....

Come on some perspective please

Iminaglasscaseofemotion · 12/09/2020 11:10

Ffs its been 6 months, people need to calm down. So dramatic!