Fandango Provocatively asks:
Do you think, given everything that is going on in the world, that children born these days will have a worse or better life than their parents? Why do you feel that way?
This post is full of generalisations, but basically I think that my mother’s generation had it best. Her dates are 1944 – 2012, so probably the same ballpark as many of you.
I’m not so bothered about aggressors. Putin, now, seems like a total fuckwit, but there have always been people like him around. Even as far back as Vikings. So I can set politics to one side.
But mum had modern technology, media, telephones, transport, the internet and so on. So she got to enjoy all that to help her through life. Not quite to the same extent that I do, but almost.
Before then, who’d want it? Having so little, unless you were one of the privileged few… Worrying about where the next meal is coming from… Expected to fight, no questions asked, for king and country… or kept at home, with your one role in life being to bear children… Most importantly, kept ignorant.
At least my mum’s generation learned to say 🖕 to all that.
The big thing, too is that only at the back end of her life were the planet’s resources considered to be finite. We could argue that one. Ecology has been around since the Sixties, but it was only really the Nineties when evidence seemed to become indisputable, and probably another decade before it became common knowledge.
Younger than that – my generation and, by the way, every generation to come – there will always be the knowledge that we have limited resources to go around. There will always be a concept of confining ourselves to “our fair share”. And, when people want more than their fair share, we have already seen wars fought over oil. It’s only a matter of time before wars are fought over other resources such as food and water.
As I say, this post is a generalisation. Some people are like me, others don’t give a stuff about the climate. But now and for evermore, I don’t think there is any excuse for ignorance.
Yes, my mum’s generation hit the sweet spot. Almost all the advances, but without any of the guilt.
Mister Bump 
Interesting point of view Pete.
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I keep hoping each generation becomes wiser and will take care of the things that take care of them, however,
human nature being what it is I believe they will adapt to whatever circumstances are present. Regarding ignorance,
some people prefer to live in that state, they think it makes them blameless. Bottom line I feel human nature does
not change that much other than a few break-outs. To all future generations, I wish them the best.
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Being ignorant is now a choice. It wasn’t always so. Whether people are or not, is up to them.
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That generation got a lot of battles to win, too, for example, for women’s rights and birth control, or against the Vietnam war; many student movements were formed (and brutally contained in many cases, in the 1960s). However, I agree that they generally got to do mostly good stuff, as you say, pursue their ideals, and see the fruit of their efforts (technological advances, the end of the Cold War, the first Earth Day in 1970, etc.), whereas younger generations are dealing with less resources, divisive mentality, and the Doomsday Clock ticking at 100 seconds …
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Agreed
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I think that last sentence puts it all in a nutshell. Every now and then Mr Worms and I get cranky about the generation your mother (and our parents) were in. Of course it’s not their fault. And some of them are very nice. But it does feel like we got to the party when the table of food, drinks and pressies had already been seriously raided and with no obvious means of replenishment.
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Yes, in a nutshell. They consumed without awareness . I certainly don’t think people can do that these days .
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I agree with you that your mom’s generation was amongst the best historical period to live in, I think (leaving aside the sixties), they had definitely less worries than the new generations. I guess that the era we’re living in, especially for the younger ones, is not very reassuring: the pandemic, wars, perspectives for our planet in the future years, work, wars…
I really hope that something will change and that we all understand that we have to take care of our planet in order to give opportunities to the coming generations.
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Yep. B ut that’s somewhere I’m not so optimistic. If you look at the people who run the world, all of them put profit first. Still. Here, Johnson has used Russia as an excuse to ramp up extraction in the North Sea.
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I hear you, Pete. I’m personally glad I never had children, I am not so optimistic that the future will be very pleasant, there are too many things going downhill.
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Sorry, Tiff, but we’ll be okay. We’ll allow brown people to die but we’ll briobe their leaders to sell us their resources. Rich first-world people will be the last to go. Cynical – you betcha. Just look at vaccine rollout.
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