Anyone else with young kids feel they've missed the best times. Would do anything for it to be a different time.

[glumum]

I have two young kids (both under 4) and I am just struggling. It feels like the good times well and truly are behind us as a race. There is so much looming instability, climate change, mass migration, inflation, unaffordable houses, heatwaves, flooding. Even fucking aliens I'm reading up on tonight. I feel like the good old days have well and truly passed and all of us are in for it. I feel myself and my kids won't get to spend the rest of our lives just living normal lives and that's one thing for me but the thought of that for my kids is horrible. Will they get the lives we took for granted as such normal lives? School, holidays, relationships, gigs, marriage, kids, family life, becoming grandparents, careers, choices. I'd do anything, absolutely anything to be able to guarantee that for my children and I can't. Not only I can't but it seems increasingly unlikely. I struggle massively with the idea. I look at them and feel so much guilt and fear for them. Does anyone else have these feelings? It's all consuming.

Is it possible that you are experiencing depression? This sounds like more than just a natural level of concern that kicks in as a parent. Maybe chat to the gp?

Your kids don't know life has ever been any different, and as their parent you shield them from the bad. I remember DD now 12 at 8 asking what pandemics and lockdown were like when I was a kid. Protect their childhood, keep them as innocent as you can and encourage resilience. Your life is harder than your parents and grandparents in some ways but easier in others. The cycle will continue thus

It feels like the good times well and truly are behind us as a race.
I suspect new Mums felt much like this in the 1910's, 1930's and in the years when the Cold War was prevalent. And many, many times throughout history.
So no, I stop myself delving too deep into these emotions.

The most important thing that children need is love and daily connection and playfulness with their parents, a home and decent food to eat, and being read to every night. I think (hope) you can give them all of that - if you can they will grow up happy x

My father was born in 1940 and my mother in 1942. I can’t imagine that my grandparents would have thought that the second world war was an ideal time to be born but they just got on with it as millions of other parents throughout the world and from the beginning of time have done. Even in the most difficult circumstances it is possible to get joy from one's children. It really does sound as if you are unwell/depressed and it would be a good idea to visit your doctor.

This is not a normal way to be thinking with DC tbh OP

Usually you're stuck in the immediate moment so to be thinking these gloom and doom thoughts does sound like depression as PP

Yes I've felt similarly too. My DC are a little older than yours and I've got 3. I've tried to keep them sheltered from the world to an extent. When covid hit they were all young and I just told them there was a bug going round that we really didn't want to catch so we were staying home (we shopped at local village shop+ butchers etc so we avoided the panic of supermarkets etc and I just didn't let them know it was serious) and just did stuff like played with them a lot and watched movies with them and built dens etc. My eldest looks back on this time fondly now. We don't watch the news so they don't hear terrible headlines on TV. I do feel the same as you in that there is uncertainty ahead but one of the things I loved about my childhood was that everything seemed so safe and contained and I think that's what I'm trying to provide for my DC. It's hard but I think it can still be done. Of course it will get harder to do when they are secondary school age and more aware that the world is a big place with a lot happening in it

There’s negative news bias.. make sure you read the positive news too to balance all the crap we are supposed to desensitise to..there are positive news sites.. google them.. it balances the negative crap for me

I've stopped watching the news.

I still read it, I've a good grasp of what is going on in the world but there is something very unhealthy about visually sensationalist 24 hr rolling news.

Bad things have always happened but in 'the old days' you weren't being forced fed it 24 hours a day via visual news and social media into your lap whether you wanted it or not. You had to actively seek it out. You consciously choose to put/leave the evening news on rather than how we are now where the headlines are flashed in your face when you open your social media.

When my first ds was born Iraq invaded Kuwait. I was so protective of my new baby that l couldn't watch the news. Dh was obsessed with it all and as soon as l heard the music for the news my heart started to thump and l moved to another room. Dh would say things like: this is the start of it now: another world war etc. I was terrified about what kind of world my baby was coming into. Our mother instincts are strong. My ds grew up safely and has had a lovely life so far.
Try and take a day at a time. Enjoy each day with your little ones. During the past years not everyone had a wonderful life and it will be the same in the future but worrying won't change anything except rob today's joy.