Missed youth?

[mids2019]

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?

Everyone has just had to try and accept the rules and get on with life as best as they can . I brought my dc up to always be aware there are people worse off than them. My dd has just gone back to uni , has caught coronavirus within 5 days of being there , all teaching online now , no parties , she is obviously isolating but has accepted for now this is life. Teenagers in other parts of the world go through much much worse .

@PennyDreadfuI ha, when I was a mat leave (few yrs ago) my mat friends & I would go for breakfast on a Saturday. We would be there ridiculously early like 8am & mourn our lie ins. We used to stare at the youngsters in their lycra & think wtf why are you not still in bed, nursing a hangover & then going to a greasy spoon at noon!

The generation that had the better times in my own family were born the 1950s. My mum and dad were teens during the war and that impacted them negatively for a long time. Dad was conscripted into the forces for five years at 18.

My two brothers were born early 50s. They had a decent education and went straight into work and had jobs with good pensions. They bought cheap houses in the early 1970s and worked their way up the ladder to the lovely detached homes they own now. One still works but they have a nice life and he likes working!
They did work hard , but things were a bit easier as jobs were secure and they could get on and make a nice life for themselves and their families. My sils didn't go back to work until the children were much older. a lot of that money they have now came from bricks and mortar. Same with those that bought their council properties for a song in the 80s and then moved out to better more affluent areas!
I'm not bitter at all , but I do roll my eyes at the ones that say ' oh, we went without' . They probably did , but it was still easier back then to move on with your life and jobs were more accessible and you could get on well with out having a degree as well.
Plus you need phones and gadgets now as it's almost impossible to live without the internet or a phone these days. You need one in order to work. It's all extra expense.
I know this isn't everyone's experience of course, but a lot of my siblings friends are same age and at the same stage in life of being fairly well off and happy. I know my two probably won't be like this at their age now. It's unlikely anyway.

I don't think it will be any more than some people of any generation look back on their youth and wish for better circumstances. I know some young people now who are having a really hard time, and others who are thriving well just like in my parents' generation there were those utterly fucked over for life by ending up in Vietnam and/or with addiction in their youth and some who excelled in the rising technology jobs.

I think the idealized youth things is a pretty minority experience that it seems silly to act like not having it means someone has lost their youth. It also seems odd to compare the youth people have now to what we had 20-30-40+ years ago. As a pp said, there is strong evidence that the current generation of young people drink and generally party far less.

I grew up with parents who drank a lot, smoked weed, and one who did quite a few pills and had done so since they were young - it was how they met. I don't do any of those things & I got told repeatedly by my mother how much I was missing out, but that was only her perspective on what she would want to do if she were my age. I didn't go into a nightclub until I was 30, I can count the parties I went to as a kid on one hand and most were ones I hosted as the kid whose parent was rarely around, my education was disrupted and I ended up a mature immigrant students with kids which I was told more than once was other students idea of a nightmare.

I didn't 'lose my youth', I just had a different experience, some by choice and others by the hand life gave me. Some of the latter sucked, but the only thing I think adults could have done about it at the time would have been to support me to do more of what was available rather than going on about what wasn't available or how I wasn't doing what they were doing at that age.

Well, it's not, is it. If you think this will all be over by March next year you're being incredibly optimistic.

What is your source? Because once the medical proffessionals and vulnerable have been vaccinated I really don't see why the students couldn't go back to full time uni. There has been enough written about rolling out the oxford vaccine in the beginning of 2021. Vaccinating the whole population will take longer, but surely restrictions can lift once the at-risk population gas had tge vaccine.

No they will be fine. Stop feeding this misery. This is the only life they get. Those of them who have any resilience at all will make the most of it like everyone before them. Every single person in the world has shit experiences that are unavoidable.

@rorosemary

Well, it's not, is it. If you think this will all be over by March next year you're being incredibly optimistic.

What is your source? Because once the medical proffessionals and vulnerable have been vaccinated I really don't see why the students couldn't go back to full time uni. There has been enough written about rolling out the oxford vaccine in the beginning of 2021. Vaccinating the whole population will take longer, but surely restrictions can lift once the at-risk population gas had tge vaccine.

Even if vaccination began by the end of this year, things still won't be back to normal by March.

And students are back at full time uni (or will be soon). Over 20k students live in my city during term time, which will doubtless inflate infections. To imagine that will be all over within five months is definitely optimistic, to say the least.

I agree people are being too dramatic, I can understand the concern for toddlers missing interaction but there are ways to get this.

Teenagers are old enough to understand death rates and infection rates. They're losing a few months to a year for the sake of having their health and their lives and their families health and lives.

I will happily give up as much time as I have to until it's safe.

As mentioned, my first thought is people who've given up years and even lives to fight in wars. This is on no way the same level.

Completely agree and I don't blame them for going out tbh I would have done

@PennyDreadfuI

Even if vaccination began by the end of this year, things still won't be back to normal by March.

And students are back at full time uni (or will be soon). Over 20k students live in my city during term time, which will doubtless inflate infections. To imagine that will be all over within five months is definitely optimistic, to say the least.*

So when do you think that the young can go to a drunken party then? I really do think that in the course of next year restrictions will lift one by one, starting from when the first group has had them. Do you really think that all restrictions will stay indefinately till the whole world has been vaccinated?

@rorosemary you didn't answer my question?

So you think there will be no financial implications for the young?

*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?*

It's not like they've been asked to go and fight in trenches.

Too many haven't took it seriously. Parties have gone on, raves, huge gatherings, foreign holidays and pubs have still been open. It might not have been the summer they wanted, but it certainly hasn't stopped a lot of young people socialising.

[quote goggyy]@rorosemary you didn't answer my question?

So you think there will be no financial implications for the young?

[/quote]
Maybe you should read my post at 11:02 then

Wow a variety of opinion here....

I do find referencing youth in extreme circumstances something of a debatable argument

The second world war for instance was an existential threat to the country and impositions on peoples lives were inevitable.

We are in 2020 now and we are facing a particularly virulent communicable disease not Nazi Germany.

We therefore can have debate about the degree to which society is effected by this disease and to what extent this is fair.

I also think it is too easy to bring past experience into the argument life was so different in so many aspects. We don't criticise people demanding gender equality of pay by saying well feel yourself lucky as in 1910 women couldn't even vote....

Also I feel there is a particularly patronising attitude to youth and their voice. Looking at some of the eloquent responses from young people you can see that quotes like 'Dont kill granny' are far too simplistic.

People can accept acting for the common good but ot when disproprtionatly effected...

teenagers and young adults are being massively disproportionally affected by covid. And even if the 'pandemic' is over soon, they are likely to suffer negative impacts for a very long time. Many companies and some entire industries are never going to recover. It's absolutely tragic.

@rorosemary you wrote the below?

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.

So what financial implications do you think will only temporarily affect the younger generations?

As a young person myself please don’t feel sorry for my generation, from my personal view. My grandad died a few weeks back because of Covid, yes he was 82 and many people on here probably think that’s just something what happens and so what. But he went into hospital with sepsis, which can affect anybody at any age and then contracted it when he was getting better. He was very fit before and thought we had at least another good few years. People talk about cancer treatment being halted but I think that’s more a local decision and can’t be blamed solely on the coronavirus as the trust in my area are still going on as normal but other parts of the country they seem to be halted completely. Plus if we don’t get coronavirus under control just think how many people with cancer, including children, may develop Covid and die from that instead when they could have got over the cancer in many cases. As a young person it’s not even been a year in my life yet and hopefully if I have 6 or more decades to live I can still have a great life. The people who are dying now are mostly at the end of their life stages, surely any kind person would want to sacrifice their social lives so these old people can have as nice of last years as possible given the circumstances.

My point is that their lives aren't lost and ruined by having to do what is said for 1 year.

It's not their whole youth, it's one year.

Because your other posts seem to suggest after a yr everything will be fine?

Disagree. Youth lasts for 2 decades at least! Coronavirus won't be around that long. Missing out on going to nightclubs or parties is hardly a hardship. Yes education has had some short-term disruption but it's not going to ruin a young person's life.

[quote goggyy]@rorosemary you wrote the below?

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.

So what financial implications do you think will only temporarily affect the younger generations? [/quote]
I think that there will be a worldwide economic depression after this. This will be hard for a while, maybe ten years, with a lot of job loss. I think it will coincide with house prices getting much lower so when the young ones get older and have jobs again they might be in a better position to buy than now.

A bit like the boomers really. Grew up when the economy was lower and were working adults while the economy and house prices were rising.

ok....

Is it not an extreme, debateably a positive one, to frame youth around Glastonbury, foreign holidays, and similar things that seem like they really wouldn't be defining for the population as a whole of any generation?

Isn't comparing what current youth are going through to what people who are now in their late 30s-40s-50s+ did in their youth bringing past experience in when life is so different now?

Every group has their own shite and share some shite with everyone. Every generation has had many people who had their education and ability to make relationships disrupted. While many young people are dealing with shite times as there have always been, there are still many young people now are doing fine with online schooling and building new relationships in different ways.

We can help our teens focus on what they can't have like us or how they're not like us, or we can help them explore the options they have. Few get a picture perfect experience.

@goggyy

My point is that their lives aren't lost and ruined by having to do what is said for 1 year.

It's not their whole youth, it's one year.

Because your other posts seem to suggest after a yr everything will be fine?

I said that after a year restrictions will start to lift. People are posting as if not having a drunken uni shag ruins someones whole life. They will go to parties again.

I do think that the economy will be worse for a while, which affects all of us but also doesn't ruin peoples whole lives.

Can you comprehend that? It's temporary.

People are posting as if not having a drunken uni shag ruins someones whole life.

who posted that?

*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?*

This is what the OP says. The lockdowns and restrictions will be much more temporary, and the economic downturn will last longer but other generations, and not just those of 1910, didn't look back feeling like they were so screwed after 12 years.