Elders, do you think that the present youngest generation is luckier than yours?

Question

If so, in what ways?

(Oh... And what country are you from?...)

Answer 1

USA - well as a dad of two I'd have to say that you are luckier
in some respects ( technology, new discoveries, life made easier gadgets, etc...) but not as lucky in others ( jobs, work demands, home prices, car prices, prices in general, social demands ). I think it will be harder for you to make your own way but you'll all get there sure enough. There is a lot more competition today from the global concept where you will be competing with other countries for jobs and opportunities. Also corporate America is harder and overly demanding making it tougher on any person in that world. I think that there is an air of self complacency and ********* today that did not exist 20-25 years ago and that will require a 'wake up call' to those who fall into that category. All the best to you all!

Answer 2

Excellent question. I'm a Canadian brought up during the days represented in Happy Days. My mother was Mrs. Cunningham apron and all and my father actually belonged to the Moose Club! I spent my Friday nights at a school dance and drugs did not infiltrate my world.

I do not believe kids are luckier today. As a matter of fact I think they are very unlucky. There isn't the same sense of family and community. They have lost that closeness to what appears to be "evolution". They spend their days and nights in front of the computer and/or the t.v. instead of interacting with their peers in the local park and getting to know their neighbours. The reason they do that of course is because it is no longer safe to go out with your peers to a local park. Even attending school now has become dangerous. Children are not coming home to Mom because Mom is out trying to earn a living so they will have a roof over their head. Dad, if there is one, doesn't make enough money to provide roof and food so Mom has to take up the slack. With evolution comes change for sure but I don't think the change is for the good. I feel sorry for the children of this generation. They are missing out on the important things in life in my opinion.

Answer 3

I don't think the younger generation is luckier. If anything it is the opposite. The financial security of the current youth is in serious danger with social security being ignored on the political front. Greed is getting stronger in our country as people like Donald Trump are sainted, and nobody seems to learn from past mistakes anymore.

So no, the generation of today may have some fun with video games and entertainment, but for the most part they are not luckier.

I'm in the United States.

Answer 4

They might think they are luckier with all the material things, but we had much more attention from our parents and grandparents and I think that taught us more how to appreciate life and family values.
As a youngster I would have liked some of the modern things like pc's and mobile phones, or even the selection of food available now, but at the end of the day, I'd rather have felt loved and I was never starved of food or love!
Never even saw a tv until I was 11 years old and that belonged to the neighbours lol x

Answer 5

I like that you called us elders. Good term. Our younger generation is lucky in some ways but they're going to miss out on a lot of what we had in our youth. My grandchildren will never be allowed to stay out after dark and hunt fireflies. They cant ride their bikes all over town and explore. We used to be gone from dawn to dusk, playing in the park, swimming in the community plunge or even going to the movies-alone. We had to use our imaginations when we listened to the big old radio. I can picture The Shadow to this day. Gee-you asked if they were luckier. I just listed ways they arent. Give me some time, I'll think of something.

Answer 6

I live in the US and am an oldephart. What's called a "depression baby".

I would not want to be a young person today, for a number of reasons.

I see a lot of shallow happiness and meaninglessness in young folks today, mainly due to their having grown up without any purpose to their existence (my opinion) whereas a lot of us elder folks had meaningful work even as children.

The fact that most households now must have two wage earners to get by has had a disastrous effect with children being raised by television. And last but by no means least, having experienced the sexual revolution, prior to the advent of AIDS and etc. was an experience that I remember with much joy.

The biggest negative in my youth was that we all knew (the guys) that we were being raised up for the government to send off to some foreign war where we would die. The "cold war" was sort of scary but the USSR collapsed from within (U.S. had nothing to do with it), but politicians will always trump up a threat as an excuse for their plundering.

Answer 7

I feel sorry for our youngest generation.

I live in Canada. On the outskirts of it's largest city, Toronto. When I was growing up the area to the north of us was all farm land or ranches. Including one place that bred beautiful Arabian horses.

From the time I first understood that there was a world out there to explore (I think around 4 years of age), I have been getting out into it at every opportunity. By the time I was 9 years old I knew every bit of terrain in a 10 mile radius out from my house, including about 5 miles of shoreline along Lake Ontario.

My childhood in my environment was truly ideal. I used to dig for arrowheads in the ravine edging my back yard, and the ones I managed to find were probably museum quality. (Long since sold off by a nasty brother.) And my love of horses, and all wild animal and plant life if truth be known, dates from those long rambles through the countryside just LOOKING.

Today's youth can barely step outside their own doors, before they are accosted by paedophiles or street gangs. They grow up being told by mass media that they should be using drugs and alcohol from a young age. And that the only thing that matters is getting exactly what they want, no matter how they do that.

There is very little innocence left to today's youth. Our world has changed so much, that we have robbed our own children and grandchildren of the idealic childhoods that a lot of us had.

Shame on us.

Answer 8

Materialistically they are better off, but they lack stamina and basic scills. What goes up must come down. When this overinflated economic balloon bursts they are going to be totally lost. And make no mistake it will burst. We made it through the great depression because people knew how to sow, can food, Chop wood and build a fire. Basic survival skills that are so necessary during a depression. The younger generation has nothing to fall back on. What use are video games and I-pods when ones belly is empty?

Answer 9

No. I absolutely do not think the youngest generation has it lucky in any sense. The world is increasingly crowded. Competition for jobs and resources has never been so stressed. Going outside to play or just take a walk is no longer possible for many because of the dangers of where they live.
USA

Answer 10

At present it seems that yes. But we don't know the future.

For comparison let us go back one hundred years. My father was 6 years old child that time. There was a long period of peace behind and expectations of progress, prosperity and peace in the 20th century. But something quite different from what people expected happened, two terrible wars and communist terror. My father died before the fall of communist regime. Should he live a little more, he would be happy.

Islamofascism is the threat humankind is facing now.

I live in the central Europe.