This is so fucking shit for young people

[ssd]

Yeah i know its shit for everyone before you pounce on me

But imagine being around 20 just now...no pubs, no nightclubs, no jobs around, no buzz in your town centre, no excuse to dress up in something new, or planning your latest night out, meeting your pals and all the excitement of the night ahead.

Its just so fucking shite.

I got the train home tonight from work, Glasgow city centre is a ghost town. Places that were always busy boarded up, of course everything except like of newsagents and tesco's shut. Its Friday night. It was always jumping when i was young, absolutely jumping. It was dead. On the train was a bunch if young boys, playing music a bit too loud, all singing along....going home from the city centre at 6pm!!!!. I could have cried watching them all, a nice sunny evening and the only place they are heading was back to mum and dads, or a local park maybe, i dont know. They were about 18, casual dressed, haircuts, all wanting a good time with their pals and probably hoping to meet a partner if they were single.

Where is the life for these kids???

This has gone on long enough. I dont care if i never see inside a pub again. I've had a brilliant social life at that age. Now they have fuck all.

Its too much.

@TempsPerdu

What on earth is it to do with whether people have a pension or not

Because generally those with an existing pension aren’t having to compete for a dramatically depleted number of often very poorly paid, insecure jobs in the biggest downturn the world has ever known, against the backdrop of a rapidly changing workplace where working practices have altered often beyond recognition. And often with tens of thousands of pounds of tuition fee debt to pay back before they even begin.

Beautifully put

@colouringindoors

Like many other posters, my parents - my kids grandparents - have the attitude that they've had their life, their fun, and feel very sad for the impact Covid has had on their grandkids, their education, social and emotiomal wellbeing.

Well good for your kids grandparents being so selfless 🙄my 78 year old parents don't want to die just yet however .

There is an assumption on Mumsnet that all young people will go to university and accrue massive debts plenty don't ,a generation ago it was only the minority that went to university.

@x2boys

There is an assumption on Mumsnet that all young people will go to university and accrue massive debts plenty don't ,a generation ago it was only the minority that went to university.

And? That was a generation ago. Times change. Many employers expect a degree even for crappy jobs now. That's not the fault of the young.

@UserTwice

Young people have definitely been the most complained about group (if our local area Facebook is anything to go by). My experience is that compliance is not lower among 16-25 year olds than any other age group, but because they tend to congregate in groups outside rather than visiting each other in their houses (as older non-compliant adults have done) they are simply more visible.

Not to mention that parents with young children are now complaining about teens hanging around parks (sitting in groups, chatting - no undesirable behaviour). Where exactly are they meant to go?

I agree, the majority of the young have been great. They are seen more often to be congregating etc as they are outside. Many households have been visiting each other when they shouldn’t but that isn’t seen.

On the whole most people have been compliant and on the whole most people have been really considerate.

I know media and some groups have complained about the young, but I don’t know any young person who has taken a blind bit of notice of that! They don’t read the same things we do!

Exactly. Why des this need spelling out? People in their eighties didn't have to pay for their children to go to uni - it used to be free. As was dental and eye care. They weren't fleeced with crazy mortgages - they could buy a family home on a single income. They were promised jobs for life and many of them had them: no zero hours contracts, proper pensions, savings that reaped the benefit of the massive explosion of interest in 1980s when it went up to 13%.

I agree with this. However it is a totally separate thing from the pandemic. To bring it in is divisive and pitting young against old - as in - why should the young have to wear a mask and conform to lockdown. This stirs up bad feeling and is false. We ALL have to conform to lockdowns and mask wearing to protect us all. It is not old people’s fault that Covid came along! If we had no lockdowns young people would have lost out massively as teachers off sick, parents dying of Covid, jobs in many industries would still tank (as in Sweden where people stopped going out very much). Invalid point really.

@Rejoiningperson none of those positives are relatable to my 16yr old dd.

Has a great group of friends who she has missed.
Isn't some insta poser so doesn't worry about or have pressures over what she looks like
Has found working from home much harder. Exams may have been cancelled but the government's replacement assessments have given her far worse stress and anxiety.
All of her clubs and hobbies halted for most of the year or only on zoom.
All the fun things she likes to do have been closed or had restrictions for most of the year.

Many people have had it far worse, however it has been an absolutely shit time to be a teenager.

It is inevitable that young will be pitted against old when one strata of society has been shafted and another hasnt. Let's put this another way: would the baby boomer generation agree to stay in for 12 months and likely more to protect against a virus which is not harmful to them; then be told they would have to pay for the cost of these lockdowns out of their pensions or assets; then be told they will likely also have to have a vaccine against this virus even though they personally don't even need the vaccine and it's long term effects are not yet fully understood; and on top of all that be constantly guilt tripped and publicly shamed for breaking a set of arbritary random rules? Oh and if they complain or exercise their democratic right to peaceful protest they will be arrested and possibly receive a huge fine.
Yeh sure the boomers would be cool with all that 🤣🤣 absolutely fine

@TempsPerdu re dramatically depleted number of jobs what's new ? Welcome to life outside London and the home counties.
Lack of opportunities for the average young person, particularly those who don't go to university, has been ever thus up here. Maybe that's what Boris meant about levelling up....

There is an assumption on Mumsnet that all young people will go to university and accrue massive debts plenty don't ,a generation ago it was only the minority that went to university

But the point still stands. Nigh on 50% of young people do attend university now. But things are equally challenging for the half who don’t - if not even more so. This cohort of school leavers is entering the workforce at a time of unprecedented economic turmoil. Not just because of Covid, but also Brexit and the revolutionary impact of tech. As several posters have already mentioned, many apprenticeships have dried up. The scarcity of graduate level jobs means that graduates will instead be snapping up the jobs that school leavers would traditionally have done, displacing those with fewer qualifications. As ever, it will be the least privileged who ultimately lose out the most.

And the constant refrain of life's shit from parents isn't really going to help young people's mental health ultimately. I've tried not to go on about it even though I've worked throughout the pandemic, tried to make the best of it.

@Faerin - I'm sorry you interpreted my post like that- it was certainly not intended that way and I'm amazed that you perceived it as some kind of vengeance!!!

It was more that I wanted offer an experience of having missed out on many rites of passage that we expect teenagers and young adults to go through, and still have what I consider a happy and fulfilling life.

I am not blind to the fact that missing out on many of these things is easy, nor was I suggesting that by virtue of surviving it means that that this is all that matters. It has taken me until middle age to reach some level of acceptance around my limitations and the things that I have missed out on over my life and I am not attempting to minimise this in any way. I have had many ups and downs over the years in finding peace with my body.

I was merely hoping to offer a viewpoint that emphasises how young people can be resilient and overcome negative experiences to thrive and succeed.

FWIW I agree that believe that this period has been very hard on the young. I think that as the older generation our job is to reassure them that they can still reach their potential and enjoy their youth.

@1dayatatime

There was a choice, sacrifice the futures of young people or the life expectancy of the over 80s.

The government with the backing of the majority of the population chose to sacrifice young people's futures.

It was never about saving lives, the world over it's about hospital capacity.

I heartily agree that the young have been badly affected.

Ds and most of his friends have had their graduate training jobs postponed indefinitely or in several cases axed. One company told them that’s it for the training programme as everyone is now wfh so they are rethinking recruitment.

One boy at a big accountancy firm is now online only. He is so depressed. The upside of dull old chartered accountancy training is the camaraderie of your intake and going off to do audits at random places. Sitting in your bedroom in your parents’ house from 9-5 and never meeting a soul - he says he is thoroughly miserable. No doubt future intakes won’t even need to be in the UK...

And as for students. It’s absolute crap. On another thread you’ve got some (not all) HE staff claiming that students like online and that it’s good for mature single parents and disabled students (rubbish, absolute rubbish - that made me cross,cheekily using disabled students in support of wanting to move online).

@Rejoiningperson But I don’t think it is a separate issue from the pandemic. Covid has highlighted many inequalities within our society, and in many cases has caused those inequalities to grow. One of the most significant inequalities going forward will be the unequal distribution of wealth between the various generations, and the imbalance in political power between older and younger demographics.

But anyone questioning the status quo, or trying to ask difficult questions such as who should ultimately pay for social care in an ageing society, how housing can be made more affordable for our young people, what we should do about pensions etc is inevitably condemned as ‘ageist’ (see Theresa May and her ‘Dementia Tax’). And so all government thinking is short term, and these things get kicked into the long grass until the next crisis causes them to rear their head again.

@savethegrannies

It is inevitable that young will be pitted against old when one strata of society has been shafted and another hasnt. Let's put this another way: would the baby boomer generation agree to stay in for 12 months and likely more to protect against a virus which is not harmful to them; then be told they would have to pay for the cost of these lockdowns out of their pensions or assets; then be told they will likely also have to have a vaccine against this virus even though they personally don't even need the vaccine and it's long term effects are not yet fully understood; and on top of all that be constantly guilt tripped and publicly shamed for breaking a set of arbritary random rules? Oh and if they complain or exercise their democratic right to peaceful protest they will be arrested and possibly receive a huge fine. Yeh sure the boomers would be cool with all that 🤣🤣 absolutely fine

They haven't been "shafted", "shattered", "gutted" or "thrown under the bus". They're getting back to normal now; haven't you heard?

[quote treeeeemendous]@Rejoiningperson none of those positives are relatable to my 16yr old dd.

Has a great group of friends who she has missed.
Isn't some insta poser so doesn't worry about or have pressures over what she looks like
Has found working from home much harder. Exams may have been cancelled but the government's replacement assessments have given her far worse stress and anxiety.
All of her clubs and hobbies halted for most of the year or only on zoom.
All the fun things she likes to do have been closed or had restrictions for most of the year.

Many people have had it far worse, however it has been an absolutely shit time to be a teenager. [/quote]
That is exactly my point. None of this might be relatable to you or your teenagers. But you can’t generalise this - or say - it has been an absolutely shit time to be a teenager as there is no evidence either anecdotally or elsewhere that it has. And all the teenagers that I know and their friends have not had this experience - they have had positives and negatives, much like the rest of us.

Again the group who there is plenty of evidence of having in general much worse time in the pandemic is those who are poor or who are vulnerable. If we want to sympathise and put our energy and money into helping those worst hit in the pandemic, let’s help those.

For the young and the old it is awful I agree,,,,,

[quote TempsPerdu]@Rejoiningperson But I don’t think it is a separate issue from the pandemic. Covid has highlighted many inequalities within our society, and in many cases has caused those inequalities to grow. One of the most significant inequalities going forward will be the unequal distribution of wealth between the various generations, and the imbalance in political power between older and younger demographics.

But anyone questioning the status quo, or trying to ask difficult questions such as who should ultimately pay for social care in an ageing society, how housing can be made more affordable for our young people, what we should do about pensions etc is inevitably condemned as ‘ageist’ (see Theresa May and her ‘Dementia Tax’). And so all government thinking is short term, and these things get kicked into the long grass until the next crisis causes them to rear their head again.[/quote]
Inequalities have been exacerbated I totally agree.

Asking difficult questions of pensions vs housing etc is very valid I totally agree.

But young people are not a vulnerable or worse off group suffering from inequalities. They have not suffered disproportionately in the pandemic. There is no good evidence for this. It is just hyperbole.

Those at the ‘bottom end’ of inequalities, the ones with zero contract hours, the poor, the vulnerable, those with long term illness or disabilities, they have suffered disproportionately.

@Rejoiningperson Fair enough; I think we’ll have to agree to differ on the last point. I fully accept that it’s the most vulnerable who have suffered and are suffering most, and that efforts should be focused on that area.

But I do think there is a bigger question to be asked about wealth distribution between generations. Unaffordable housing, for instance, is something that impacts disproportionately on young people as a group, as will climate change and the unsustainability of the current social care and pensions systems. And simple demographics means that, even if young people were to vote en masse for radical change, their voice will always be drowned out by the older, Conservative voting, generations.

@Youhavetoquitwhileyoureahead

"Problem is a lot of young simply ain't politically aware."

I think that many are, but they perhaps have different priorities - climate change, maybe? It will be interesting to see how this episode (let's hope it is a limited episode!) is regarded in 5-10 years time. Though I suspect it will be seen in much the same way as it is now!

It was BLM that got them out on the streets protesting last year, not lockdowns and restrictions.

They are politically aware but they aren't daft. The restrictions are there to protect the health service (and their elderly relatives). Society can't function without hospital capacity.

But I do think there is a bigger question to be asked about wealth distribution between generations. Unaffordable housing, for instance I completely agree.

@User135644 I think that’s a good point. Young people were not very evident in the lockdown protests at all, it was mainly middle aged people. Young people on the whole have just got on with being part of our community pandemic effort, even if it was hard. They were protesting about BLM, women’s rights and the environment. Good for them!

[quote Rejoiningperson]@User135644 I think that’s a good point. Young people were not very evident in the lockdown protests at all, it was mainly middle aged people. Young people on the whole have just got on with being part of our community pandemic effort, even if it was hard. They were protesting about BLM, women’s rights and the environment. Good for them![/quote]
Anti-lockdown movement has generally been spearheaded by the libertarian right which is mostly an older demographic.

“They haven't been "shafted", "shattered", "gutted" or "thrown under the bus". They're getting back to normal now; haven't you heard?”
Hate to break it to you TheClaws but there is thing called an economy. You may have heard of it? Well the thing is, ours is fucked, and the young ones will be paying to bail it out out for a generation (those that can get a job that is).
“Getting back to normal.” Give me strength how clueless can people be, I honestly despair.