Am I out of step with other pensioners?

Bbbface

I’m a parent of two young school aged children

My friends and I (all in late thirties and early forties) have all agreed that we would be mortified if we were thirty years older and understood what children were missing out on in order to protect us

Is that really what you think? My view is that we are all in this together and I don’t want to see any more children losing a parent to COVID or to long COVID. I am protecting you as well as myself.

Bbbface

I’m a parent of two young school aged children

My friends and I (all in late thirties and early forties) have all agreed that we would be mortified if we were thirty years older and understood what children were missing out on in order to protect us

I understand that children have missed a lot over the last year.

Those children may not want to lose much loved grandparents and many parents rely on their parents for childcare.

I appreciate Repat's concern but I think she has got completely the wrong end of the stick.

Younger people are not being locked down to protect us, they, like everyone else, are being locked up to protect everyone else, regardless, of age, gender, ethnic origin, COVID is not age selective.

Where the problem lies with COVID is that the oldest in Society are most likely to have the disease severely and to die from it, so we are having to conform to much more stringent conditions than the rest of society to try to protect the hospitals and all that work in them from being overwhelmed with seriously ill older people.

Repat's belief that her children and grandchildren are being locked up to protect her is quite simply wrong. she is not out of step with her generation, there is nothing to be out of step with.

Everyone in the world is under threat from this disease and I am prepared to stay locked up as long as is necessary to protect my children and grandchildren.

If we decided to forgo protection for the vulnerable we would have to accept that hospital treatment would not be possible for everyone and that most people who became ill would have to have home nursing without specialist equipment and expertise. The NHS could not have admitted and treated everyone. As it is, even with lockdown measures, medical staff are exhausted, nearly 1000 caught Covid and died, 56,000 have been affected long term.

Many more would have died. Probably many more than a million with specialist treatment unavailable.The disease would have been unchecked and it would not have been possible for the majority to avoid infection. Preventative measures, like masks, only reduce the chances of infection not prevent.

Because we lockeddown and prevented rampant infection we may have lost sight of what it would have been like with no lockdown. Especially if you live in an area that has had low infection rates. A sort of ‘It hasn’t been so bad. We needn’t have shut the schools, shops, whatever’. And not realising it hasn’t been so bad for you because of the lockdown measures.

Many more people not NHS staff. Sorry for not being clear.

we would be mortified if we were thirty years older and understood what children were missing out on in order to protect us

Well - that is a strange thing to say!

Why should I be mortified that we are all pulling together to keep the NHS going? Why do you assume that those of us who have reached pension age are asking children to "miss out" to protect us? We are all doing it to protect each other.

And - ask yourself this - are children really missing out that badly? You and your friends are of a generation that has become used to having control over your lives and having freedom - many of us here are post-war babies - we know what our parents went through, so this blip in the smooth running of our lives does not seem such a big deal. We are happy to do what we can to help others and prevent more deaths and illness.

Children have missed out on school for a bit - but they are all in the same boat, so they will not be disadvantaged. And maybe school at home (with all the challenges that brings) is not such a bad thing for a while. My DGC have learned all sort of things whilst at home - and learned in ways that have demanded that they think in new ways. They have learned a valuable lesson - that life sometimes throws you a curve ball and you pick yourself up, face it head on and adapt.

There will be children from disadvantaged backgrounds who will have missed out, but I (as a school governor) know how hard school staff have worked (and are working) to plug that gap.

I have worked very hard all my life in a demanding caring profession, have brought up 3 children, have cared for my GC regularly, have nursed and fought for my OH who became ill in his 50s and died last February. Is it not reasonable that, after giving so much, I should have a bit of time to just enjoy life for a while? I am happy to take all the necessary precautions to help everyone around me to stay safe and well.

My GC have learned good things about how we should share our good fortune, and do what we can to empathise with and take care of all those around us - they have grown and matured and developed in so many ways during this lockdown. I am thankful that my DDs have taught them this by example and am proud of them.

What are your children learning from your attitude Bbbface? Are they learning to be decent caring people? Are they learning how to face up to life's challenges with good humour and strength of character?

Most of GNers are of retirement age, or at least over 60 I expect. Most of us have worked since leaving school or uni up until we retire(d). Most of us have brought up children, possibly grandchildren and/or cared for aging relatives or spouses. Some of us will have lost a partner, through death or divorce and are now on their own.

The one thing that unites us, I think, is the hope that we get to have some pleasurable me or we time at the end of our working lives. If this pandemic had happened 30 or 40 years ago, when we were in our prime, would we have felt the same as Bbbface? I hope not.

Each generation has done and will in future make sacrifices of one sort or another. Our parents doubtless made sacrifices so that some of us could go to uni (not that many in the 60s) or get an apprenticeship or training contract. Or paid for a wedding, or saved up to buy Christmas presents.

I'm not saying that our working lives weren't good or bad, some or all of the time. I'm still working and enjoying it. I work from home and can chose when I want to work and still enjoy the contact with other people. But I still have things that I want to do and see and, quite frankly, I don't see why I should give up on those wishes just yet.

I agree that young people are having a hard time just now but there have been other times since I was born and we coped.

There's lots of ands and ors in this but I'm trying to encompass as many people as possible.

Lots of justification for the losses children and young people have endured. Of course it had to be, we couldn’t let the virus rip through the community any more than it did, and it was indeed terrible, but let’s not fool ourselves that children have in some way benefitted, because they haven’t. Some have suffered terribly as a result of lockdown. Would you like to be locked in a small, high rise flat with a depressed mother and a violent father? Be truthful, children have lost and suffered as much as, and often more than us pensioners, who could understand the reason and who had few privations other than a loss of family/social life, and with support bubbles and childcare bubbles even that isn’t a definite. As for young people, deprived of education, jobs, social life, and life learning, I don’t know how anyone can say they have benefitted from lockdown. It may not be palatable, but young people and children have lost enormously through lockdown, and yes, it was to protect older people.

I thought it was to stop the NHS being overwhelmed ? If the numbers of pensioners being admitted had shot up any more it would mean chaos
Teachers were working hard to keep the children busy
My Grandchildren loved having more time with parents
It was the older people who really lost out in care homes , no visits no outings , they deteriorated at an unprecedented rate

maddyone what you say about children, applies to older people as well. Would you like to be in a cre home suffering from dementia and confused and unhappy because your family have deserted you and left you all alone. (that is how someone like that will see it). Would you like to be the daughter or son of such a person, desperate to visit but only allowed to see at a a distance. Watching that person deteriorating and unable to do anything.

Think of those who died alone, with no one with them and their agonised partners and dear ones, knowing they were dying and unable to say good by. I heard of a grandmother, dying of cancer with a grandchild, now 9 months old that they may never get a chance to hug and kiss before death claims her.

I do not want to diminish the effects of COVID on children and young people, but COVID does not discriminate between age or health or effects. It affects absolutely every on.

Hard cases make bad examples, I know that, but even contemplating comparisons of who has suffered worse from COVID is pointless. Some children have suffered, others in the country or with big gardens and their own bedroom have actually done better than if they had been at school. Similarly older people. If you have a comfortable house and good health, the last year may have been boring but we haven't suffered.

COVID affects all of us one way or another

How anyone can say lockdown was to protect everyone I really don’t know. Look at the statistics of the Covid deaths. 80-90% of deaths were people who were over 80 years old. Then in decreasing numbers the ages of the victims get lower. That’s why the government are aiming to vaccinate all over 50s, starting with the oldest first. Of course it was to protect us, the oldest (I’m 67 by the way.) Anyone who says otherwise is sticking their head in the sand. It may not be very comforting to know that young people and children have paid for lockdown with loss, but it’s undeniable.

Incidentally it should be noted that I did say it had to be done, but let’s not pretend that what has been achieved is not at great cost to children and young people. They have paid for this in many different ways.

I had Covid myself and was hospitalised for twelve days. I was seriously ill and it took me a long time to get back to relative normality. I still have some symptoms and Covid scarring on my lungs. I do not underestimate the threat of Covid, but I will not pretend that we were all protecting one another. We weren’t. The young were protecting us.

I have read in a number of places that the age of those being seriously affected and dying from covid are 20 years younger than in earlier waves. For instance in Germany, as reported here www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/17/europe-at-the-start-of-a-third-wave-of-covid-experts-warn?

This intent to whip up generational warfare helps no one. We are all in this together for sure. And NO ONE has considered the existing effect on medical staff of so many people dying and the implications for them if some kind of rationing of care by age were introduced. A pandemic is called such because it affects everyone, including the half a million or so of people of all ages, including children, who are suffering long covid.

My other children have been sibling carers all their lives and I was one too unfortunately but children do adapt better than adults to their circumstances if they are in stable households, I acknowledge there are children that aren't in stable households and hopefully they will be identified and that is why schools have to be open. Hopefully for most children though this is a short term thing, something their peers have been through too so they will all have each other. I am not saying it isn't damaging, as it will be, it will be for all age groups I imagine.

.....some kind of rationing of care by age.......

Has someone suggested this?

We cannot pretend that children and young people have not suffered many losses. And some of those losses will have very long term and life changing repercussions. In particular, for young people, job opportunities. Selfishly pretending that children even did well in order to make us feel more comfortable will not do. The children of key workers did not see more of their parents (as someone suggested) the children of medics endured the stress that their parents brought home, children without recourse to a computer, or sharing a computer with several other children in the family did not do well, mothers suffering post natal depression did not do well as they struggled on alone, young people who lost their jobs did not do well, young people deprived of their tutors at university did not do well, and so it goes on and on and on. So many losses.
Older people such as us stayed at home and missed our friends and families. Otherwise life went on as usual for us.

maddyone what you think should have happened instead?

Really stupid comment

It was a genuine question grannylyn65, not a comment? The Government took the World Health Organisation advice, and I wondered if maddyone felt that wasn’t the right course, and what she felt should have happened instead, I don’t know the answer myself.

do any of us know? I think maddyone is right in all honesty, it has been bloody crap hasn't it?

maddyone comparing death rates is to completely misunderstand the disease. Anyone can get it. Serious and fatal cases are predominantly older people, but also younger people who are obese and have Types 2 diabetes and the majority of cases have been among younger people because there are more of them.

Older people such as us stayed at home and missed our friends and families. Otherwise life went on as usual for us. So all those in care homes do not count, or those that live at home dependant on carers and carers cannot visit because so many are off sick with COVID. Then there are the those many older people living alone and struggling to cope with the depression and other mental illnesses caused or exacerbated by isolation. Then there are all the extra people who have died from untreated cancers, or live in continuous pain not knowing when their hip replacement operation will take plce. It should have been in 2020 but now, 2022,23?

COVID, on average, has been pretty awful for everybody. In ecery age group, some are fortunate and come through well, others have suffered badly.

In situations like this comparisons are invidious.

I think she’s right too, it has been awful. Children and young people and their families have suffered terribly, as have frontline workers who have kept services going through an awful time for the whole country. I think myself that’s it’s too simplistic to say older people could have stayed at home and avoided it though, as many have responsibilities which made that impossible, and even those who didn’t were reliant on other people putting their own lives at risk to support them. No answers, just more questions about what we could have done better.

Casdon

maddyone what you think should have happened instead?

I understand perfectly that what happened, lockdown, had to happen Casdon, so no I do not think there was a different way. However, what I dislike intensely is the gross lack of either comprehension or empathy for the what our children and young people have suffered and lost. And the total denial from older people in my own age group and above, who think that what children and young people suffered and lost is fair enough, and fail to even acknowledge their extremely privileged position.

I know Casdon, I just don't know what to say or judge or do. As a family we have made a lot of sacrifices ourselves in order to keep our adult daughter safe but I see other have made massive sacrifices too, it has all just been too horrible to contemplate. I think I try on a personal level to put a positive spin on things as they stand, as I know the human spirit is incredible. That's not to dismiss or minimise the reality of what was happening before or what is happening now or what will happen afterwards. It is honestly just awful. I went for my vaccine today and I am extremely grateful but I thought to myself if we'd have contemplated this, what is happening, people in masks, people keeping away from one another and not seeing people, not being normal, the worry, the worry for others, we just wouldn't be able to comprehend the enormity of it.

I think, all things considered, it would have been impossible to have a calm ordered response to a new virus only months old that was suddenly spreading world wide.

One or two smaller isolated countries, with relatively small populations and few or no huge conurbations, managed well. But i do not think there was one large populous country that did not make a dogs breakfast of it at first.

On balance, looking over the whole pandemic from start to finish (whenever that will be), I think we will be found to be among those countries, who despite periods of chaos and mistakes managed the whole thing reasonably well.

The management of the vaccine process, from original financial and other support for the vaccine researchers to the rolling out of the vaccination program has been a triumph.