Considering the way the country's headed, how do prospects for your kids and grandchildren stack up against your own experiences?

“…the bias and pessimism of old age.”

^ That.

I think some things will be better (equality, globalism, access to education, job diversity, healthcare) and some will be worse (cost of living, wealth inequity) and some will stay the same (political division).

The key is understanding that it’s the young folks’s world now.

Paraphrasing Harvey Firestein from this week’s WTF podcast — “(Older people) need to listen to what young people want, help facilitate that for them, and then shut up and get out of the way.”

We live at the greatest time in history, and our children will even be better off.

@Caravanfan Climate change doesn’t worry you?

I’d say they are in for a hell of a ride…far more difficult and dangerous than what I went through.

I remember the show “married with children”, where a guy working in a shoe shop at the mall could afford a 2-etage house, and feed a family with 2 children on his salary alone.
Not sure how realistic that was at the time, but nowadays, he would be single, working multiple jobs, and have several room mates paying their share of rent in a tiny apartment, who all subsist on instant ramen.

Life is already tougher for my kids and I am not optimistic about their future prospects. My kids are finding it harder to get a house than I did and their pension arrangements are not as generous as mine are. The political situation too seems to be more fraught than I remember with low calibre individuals standing for office with vague promises and sometimes being elected. And then there is global warming and an impending food crisis……..

As Robert Burns said in his poem to a mouse:

“Still thou are blest, compared wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I cannot see,
I guess an’ fear!”

@janbb That’s not what I said.

@Caravanfan I wasn’t being argumentative, I am curious as I see climate change making life infinitely harder for our children and grandchildren. You saying that our children and grands will have it even better than us made me wonder what factors you see as improving life when I am incredibly worried about their existence.

(I actually think we live at a pretty shitty time in history but I would love to be more optimistic.)

They stack up far better than my childhood experiences where we had nothing more than the basics.
Technology will as usual advance and while some Careers will be obsolete new ones will replace it.

Further into the future Japan has plans for a sustainable futureistic city.

See facinating link of what they are working on:

https://www.shimz.co.jp/en/topics/dream/content03/

And that is another reason we chose not to have children,their future is screwed.

@janbb Sure. Climate change is a thing. But we also live in a time where we can send space probes away from Earth to examine the secrets of the universe that have never been explored. We are regularly sending people into space in private spacecraft. We have access to technology that our ancestors never even dreamed of. We have cures and prevention for cancer.

I choose optimism.

As far as I can see, nothing has changed. If you listen to a news report from 75 years ago, 50 years ago, 25 years ago they all sound the same.

That isn’t quite true. I’m old enough to remember those news reports. And if you had told me 50 years ago that in my old age I would live in a country distinguished for people living in the streets while millions of others lay siege to our borders as the refuge from undeniable desperation, I would not have believed it credible. I mean 50 years ago, I know for a fact that a widespread denial of the efficacy of vaccinations was nonexistent. There were of course a few kooks out there regarded with the all but universal contempt they most assuredly deserved. Those days are gone.

My children and grandchildren, whoever they might have been, have benefitted greatly by never having been born.

I’m in the US.

I don’t have my own kids, but for the next few generations I think overall life will be amazing.

It seems like new technologies and awareness of the world could go either way, really bad or really good, and I’m going for the good.

I think the work week will shrink and become more flexible (that’s already happening a little). Very hard physical labor will be less and less necessary. Woman are gaining political positions.

The country is getting more and more diverse, and there is motivation to solve inequalities that persist.

Climate change is mentioned above, I’m hoping the more flexible work week will reduce fuel consumption and emissions that are bad for the environment. I’m hoping capitalism will help create and install alternative energies to reduce emissions and who knows what other creative businesses might come out of trying to do what’s right for the planet. There is so much opportunity! I think the generation that recently graduated and the one coming up are very concerned about green practices and energy.

Ukraine is a reminder of the horrors of war, and hopefully that gets some of of the lunatics in my country who have been saying things like “rise up” and “there will be a civil war” to calm the hell down, or at minimum pushed back into their caves. I always have this feeling of being on the brink of peace in the world. We can only hope.

If the world uses technology to create more equality, freedom, health, nutrition, and safety in the world, the world could be amazing and less volatile.

As a result of the great depression, there were 2 million homeless in the U S. This decreased to around !00,000 by the 1950’s, but increased to 300,000 during the 1980’s depression. It is reported to be over 500,000 now.
In the 1980’s the number immigrants to the U S was over 600,000, today over 1,000,000.
In 1980 the U S population was a quarter of a million. Today 330,000,000.
The worldwide famine rate reached a high in the 1970’s, but has been on a downward decline ever since then.
While global crime rates appear to be falling over the decade, in the U S, there is a rise, particularly in homicide.

Every generation leaves something in a mess for the next generations to resolve.
The upcoming generation has a huge issue with Climate Change handed to them.
This has been ignored already for a couple generations and is now reaching critical mass.

I know when I was a teenager, I could apply for a job and be asked if I could start the next day. Those days are over. That’s one way I can think of that it’s harder now.

@jca2 That’s interesting. I would think in retail, especially during season, like Christmas season, it’s still easy to get a job like that.

I’m not talking about just retail, @JLeslie. I got a clerical job in a hospital where they wanted me to start the next day, I got a job at Reader’s Digest where they wanted me to start the next day.

@jca2 One thing that makes it so much harder in the last 20 years is you can’t just walk into buildings anymore looking for a job. There is security at the lobby of so many buildings that you can’t just walk around. It wasn’t like that back when I was young.

@JLeslie: I imagine if someone walks into a building and says they want to visit the HR department, security would let them. I know at the County that I worked for, that’s what Security would do. They had to go through the metal detector like everyone else, but they were allowed to visit the Department.

Both better and worse.