AIBU - to be worried about the future for my grand children

They are bit in many ways it’s a better world also
People tend to look at the past with Rose tinted glasses
2 world wars, slums, disease, etc etc
They’ll be fine!

My parents had a 3 month old at the outbreak of the WW2 and had three more before the war ended and another one later in the 40s. How’s that for optimism.
I had my babies in the teeth of the Cold War and it did worry me but I still let it happen.
Now I find myself worrying about the grandchildren living in polluted air, extreme weather, a sea of plastic, knives in school and megalomaniac heads of state.
Hopefully they will find a path through it all.

Life has always been difficult
You are just worrying because they mean so much to you
Try and focus on all the wonderful things life can bring

What is the matter with you Gagajo...to say”Britain an awful place for the young to live in” .My grandson and granddaughter ..12 and 8 are well fed ...well educated( mostly in kindliness to others)....play sports....guitar and piano lessons. They have never wanted for food...clothes...warmth...love...emotional stability. The boy is 5’6” tall and a picture of health...the little girl is less robust, she has asthma.She is treated with appropriate drugs( all free) to help her live as good and healthy a life as possible. She had regular checks to adjust her medication as she grows.... I grew up with two kids who died of badly controlled asthma...so I do worry about her and my daughter who also suffers this horrible illness! But to say Britain is an awful place to live is disgraceful... we live in a country that HAS problems ...I don’t disagree. But turn on your tv and see real poverty in India and Africa where some kids are lucky if they get the bare necessities of life....let alone life saving treatments . You should de-camp to these countries , if you think so little of Britain! Leave it to those of us who are thankful to have had the luck and good fortune to be born and live in this country. Makes me wonder why so many folks are clamouring and indeed risking their lives just to get here .

Sorry a stray exclamation mark made it into a sentence instead of a comma

Don’t you all think that it’s time to stop all this doom and gloom and try to do something to slow down the problem? At least try to make life worth living for our families.

My DDs and GCs are actively trying to get the message across that we have to change our ways, DD1 spent most of yesterday beach cleaning.

Personally, I’ve stopped buying anything in single use plastics! Milk comes in glass bottles, I take my own brown paper bags for loose fruit and veg and I have old Tupperware containers that I take to the local farm shop for meat and fish, they are more than happy to place goods in them.
I’m trying to do my bit, but it’s frustrating to see people of my age with their plastic wrapped goods being put onto the conveyor belt at the checkouts.

We need to keep nagging our MPs to put forward greener legislation.

All this wringing of hands, how many of us are trying to change our ways?

I have an elderly couple who I see quite often who just say that it not worth worrying about, as they fill their bins with plastic, it makes me so cross!

No matter what Age there are always what seem to be terrible threats to life. Cuban crisis was horrible, daily threat of the west being obliterated. Smallpox, polio even TB would get us all. The London smog from coal fires, how many did that kill! Goodness, no matter where you look there has been and will be doom and gloom. Mankind has a marvellous capacity to overcome most as will your GCs generation.

I nearly wasn’t born as my parents worried about the future of the world just after the war and Hiroshima- luckily I was. Always be optimistic and trust that your children and their children will help the world move to a better place. Also it seems that disaster and negativity are good for the press and media.

Dear wishiwasyounger. The world is crazy and it must have felt like this with our grandparents and parents as they prepared for war. Life is an uncertainty that's what makes it interesting. Our children will grow up right with the love and support we give them. They just need to know they are loved and have some one to turn too when situations occur. We cant change the world we live in as one situation improves another will come along. Xxxx

A science professor told me that we have to accept the fact that we're living on a dying planet. Apparently, we passed the point of no return back in the 1970s. All we can do now is slow down the inevitable.

The situation is very different to all the temporary troubles mentioned above. Man is self-destructive, entitled, ignorant and lives in a cloud-cuckoo land of denial, false beliefs and perpetual optimism.

Welbeck, my husband and I had the MMR vaccine last year as part of our travel vaccinations because a country we were about to visit had a measles outbreak. Just ask at your surgery, you can have it.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

I don't think it's unreasonable to be worried about our dgc's future. The threat of gloal warming is of a different order than historic challenges, which may have threatened societies, civilisations, but not the entire planet. However, being aware isn't enough. We must do all we can, those of us with enough time and resources, to protest against the short sightedness and self interest of our populist governments. Then at least we can play with and enjoy our dgc's while we can, and help to build their resilience for living in an uncertain future.

I was born in 1951 and have faint recollections of the Hungarian uprising and Suez in '56. The 1970s saw troubles in N. Ireland, the middle east, the Vietnam war. I can also remember the French fighting in Africa before giving up their colonies, Apartheid , Powell and Paisley stirring up hatred, the Falklands crisis and the advent of AIDS.

Somehow, we just got on with living through it all, didn't we?

Your grandchildren will too, through whatever they have to tackle.

It's understandable you are concerned for them, but if you look at my list I am sure you can fill in all the good things that happened, which I have left out.

Agreed

Yehbutnobut, we have children when we're young and in love. The world is a beautiful place and we enjoy it with precious little new beings.

It's only when we're older that we begin to see (and experience) the gruesome pain and reality of life. We realise that we can't protect them for very long. I now believe that it was selfish and stupid to have children at all. Why perpetuate it?

You're being a doom monger Yeh. Haven't you read this thread? There is much to be thankful for and you cannot predict the future. I hope you don't express those thoughts to your children and grandchildren.

I feel the same as you OP. to the extent that I wish I’d never had children and thus grandchildren if this is the world they will surely inherit.

Oh and to add... human beings are good at inventing new things.

The Victorians feared we'd be up to our necks in horseshit and then along came the car.

Some positive things about the future.

Self driving transport should reduce the amount of road accidents greatly for both pedestrians and car occupants.

People will always be people and many of them do very kind things without thought of reward. So even if your worries are the rise of the far right or loss of welfare state .... there will always be people who do brave and/or kind things.

As for illnesses, there have always been these cropping up. Look at this way, we are all the best of our ancestors genetic pools because we are alive...and your grandchildren and theirs will be surviving and springing forth new generations wherever there is a possible chance. (Though I do tend to think my ancestors would have thought me dense in the extreme because I do not know how to do many of the 'everyday' things they did !!)

When I had my daughter, nearly 46 years ago, I remember thinking how lucky I was to be having a baby when I did, with all the advantages available in the early 1970’s.
That feels like history now, with all the wonders of modern medicine and technology.
My mother must have thought the same, having her babies in the early 1950’s, compared to her own mum.
Be thankful for what we have.

My grandparents were born in extreme poverty, long before the welfare state, parentless they faced very hard futures, but they survived.

Their children were born just before WW1 - and, for them, we won that war at the sacrifice of 4 lives, leaving children without fathers, mothers without sons. But we survived

My parents left school as the depression started and matured into WW2. That is when they started a family. And they survived

We married and had children at the height of the Cold War. And we are hear to talk about it

Our grandchildren have been born into Global warming. And we will survive.

Life has been like that since time began, in every generation, some threat has led the doom sayers and worriers to say 'The End Is Nigh'. But it is yet to happen.

The mistake with Global Warming is that the doom merchants have taken over. No matter how much we do, it is never enough and it makes people, including me, feel helpless and hopeless. In fact much has happened that is positive.

In the UK we have reduces our emissions by 40% since 1990 and the speed of reduction is accelerating. We have end dates for the use of gas in new houses. I am sure that will be followed by a date for all replacement boilers to go electric or move to electric systems. We have an end date for the production of petrol and diesel cars. As soon as the technology is fully detailed, alternative engines, probably running on hydrogen will be used in lorries.

Domestic appliances are more efficient. People generally are more aware of the problem and are making changes in their lives.

Being helpless and hopeless makes the problem worse, because what is the point in doing anything, we are doomed.

The best way forward is to be practical and realistic. Find out all the positive things that are happening, almost without us noticing and talk about them as a way of encouraging everyone from government down to push forward do more and do what you can to live more sustainably.

When we were first married (early 1970s) I worked with an elderly book keeper (just past retirement age) who was full of doom and gloom! When a colleague very excitedly announced her pregnancy he kept saying what a dreadful world to bring a child in to and how the world was going to hell in a handcart. My colleague was devastated. Her mother told her that there were just as many doom merchants around when she became pregnant just after WW2 had ended and unfortunately there always will be people who wallow in misery.

My maternal grandmother outlived 6 of her 10 children and my Dad’s only sibling died in her early thirties. All except one of these died from diseases that are now treatable. The one exception made a choice to carry on smoking and drinking rather than live a longer life. His life, his choice.

We do our best to reduce our carbon footprint and have confidence that our children and grandchildren will live happy and fulfilling lives. Hopefully you can try and make sure you don’t pass on your angst on to your children and grandchildren and the gloomy thoughts and feelings will fade away and become more manageable before too long.

I’ve just realised that I am nearly three years older than the elderly bookkeeper!

welbeck

The usual recommendation, at least in my area, is that people born prior to a certain date are usually assumed to have had measles, mumps, and rubella in childhood and therefore would not be given the vaccine. If you're very worried you may be able to ask your provider for a titre, which is a blood test that looks at your antibody levels. If your titres are low, they can vaccinate you.

We all have to accept that our dear, lovely children and grandchildren will be here when we've gone and there is nothing we can do to help them in the future. But I'm sure our ancestors thought the same. In the Victorian era you were lucky if your child reached adulthood, especially if poor. You only have to look at the death registrations to see how many babies and children died, it was shocking. We are lucky that now most of us have a full life, and for that we must be thankful.