Generation Gap Boomer v Millennial !!!

JaneJudge

Someone gave me that Miriam Stoppard book, I remember it had a delightful section in it about how to deal with 'backward babies'

Thank goodness we have evolved from such labelling.
I wonder what she thinks of that now.
Some things have moved on in such a good way. I expect she would be on Loose Women or something now with someone like Christine McGuiness who now gives a lot of online support and inspiration as a mum of autistic children. I think Christine would whack her round the head with the book.

And NotSpaghetti some people are conscientious and try doing what's right for society as well as in their own home and some people just see that as an alien concept or don't see it at all. I think I would rather think about my actions than breeze through thinking only of my self or my own.

One random example I never wrapped up xmas presents for my lot because of the waste but my dd always wraps everything beautifully because she says it adds to the excitement so my trying to be eco has maybe caused her not to be.

And yes NotSpaghetti thanks to the Greenham Common Women the 80s was a foreboding era to grow up in.

Someone gave me that Miriam Stoppard book, I remember it had a delightful section in it about how to deal with 'backward babies'

I didn't really have children so they would agree with me, which is just as well

I had never held a baby when my daughter was born in 1989. I was 17 I had the Miriam Stoppard baby book in one hand it was my bible. She got me through breast feeding and Terry nappy changing following her diagrams! She didn't believe you could spoil a baby with love. I just held my dd constantly because she wouldn't sleep had colic and wind!
I don't know what I would have done without Miriam's book or should I say Dr Stoppard would she be an Instagram influencer now?

I suppose Pebble Mill in the 70s and 80s then This Morning with Richard and Judy - they really kept my sanity with Deniece Robinson and Chris Steele when I was a clueless teen mum - were like parents today following influencers!

I think someone has mentioned the Internet. That's exactly what I think.

All the things I lived through almost passed me by. You'd see talk in papers or on the TV news but all the problems of strikes in the 70s. Aids. Possible Nuclear War attacks. War in Vietnam. Bay of Pigs. Well, they didn't have the same impact as things do today. I wonder had this pandemic occurred in the 70s what would we have done? Not sure we'd have taken the route we did.

But the Internet with social media and smart phones with cameras would have finished me off. FB and others where you have to prove you're living your best life. Posing endlessly for photos, worrying about all sorts of stuff that just never bothered us. The bullying online. In USA there have been some appalling cases where girls have taken their lives due to some photos being taken of them when they were drunk. Awful cases.

Very sad documentary on Netflix I believe about 2 girls, Audrie and Daisy. They'd been victims of an assault whilst drunk and during the court case were victims of horrendous cyber bullying. They eventually killed themselves. Just tragic.

I'm glad I grew. up without having all the stress.

Exactly Growstuff - the generation above were much more eager to believe people in authority and to conform. I also did a lot of lip-biting!

We didn't have an inside loo untill the 60's.

I think there is a difference in that so many of today's mothers read parenting books.
I know I didn't do this - I think I made everything up.

I feel as you do Whatdayisit.
I don't recognise our family in Lizzy60's post.

I don't believe our children have more worries than us. I had children with Trident hanging over us and was genuinely super anxious about the state of the world. So much so that the panic I felt for my children still weighs very heavy in me when I think about it today. I will forever feel grateful to those women who camped out at Greenham on behalf of mothers everywhere.

I joined Friends of the Earth in the early 70s, recycled since then. We marched against apartheid and boycotted Barclays and Nestle..
We had an organic garden and tried to live an "open to others" and encouraging life. We played cooperative board games with our children as we felt cooperation is a good thing. We still played "Risk" and "Diplomacy" though of course (as that's the world isn't it?) and talked politics and religion at the dinner table - just as you describe Whatdayisit.

I don't really understand the gap people are talking about.
My 30-something daughter may do though. She says her generation/decade is "looked down on" by the 20-sonethings.

Me and my sons and Dil`s are pretty much on the same page in most things ,oh except football.

The OP was about generational attitudes. There's a 37 year gap between my eldest child and me, whereas my I had a 23 year gap with my mother.

My mother had totally different values from me and we had little in common. I found it quite difficult to hold any kind of conversation with her because I ended up biting my tongue so hard.

I find it quite easy to chat to my daughter for hours. We don't always agree but we discuss respectfully and we have fundamentally similar values.

I don't agree with the OP at all and I don't even recognise the younger years some people on here describe. I spent my first five years in a 3 bedroom house with a huge garden and 2 inside toilets. My dad had a company car and a secure job. I went to a state schools, had free dental and healthcare. We didn't have a TV, but few people did and we did have a fridge. My mum didn't have to work. Nevertheless, the food she produced was revolting - gristly stews and over-salted and over-boiled veg. On the whole, life wasn't bad. People can't be stereotyped by the year they were born.

Our four children have totally different views from each other about almost everything, particularly political views. Also in religion, or lack of. They don’t argue, no point. They are not that far apart in age so it’s not that. They were all brought up pretty much the same though they went to 4 different high schools, maybe that was it ?

I think it depends how you are brought up. We were always aware and raised the children to be aware and to discuss global politics and global science - friends of the Earth World Wide Fund for Nature IFAW etc. But I know people who don't know the capital of England, who was PM in WW2 anything about The Cold War. They know what's going on on Facebook and now Tik Tok they have their nails done and buy cheap processed food for their kids. And they get along in life quite nicely with no conscience. So I don't feel it's so much this Gen or this one are doing more I think it's how you are brought up.
Ex mil born in 1946 always through plastic bags in the bin (mid 90s) where my mum born 1947 would use a string bag still.

I agree with Katie

I wonder if posters have simply forgotten their own worries in the past about housing ( we started off in very sub standard ‘rooms’) and had job worries at times too.
It was only an ‘impression’ with the job for life thing, unless you were something like a postman.
As for all the ‘information’ coming at them, it comes at all of us, and in any case they have got used to it and like it, considering all the time they spend gazing at their phones.

growstuff

lemongrove

I keep hearing that dragonfly and find myself wondering what exactly do they have to worry about ( more than anyone now old did at the time.)
I remember having quite a few things to worry about.
Our generation ( am talking of 70+) didn’t have all the goods and possessions either, or the many holidays and outings and expensive pizza delivery etc.

But your parents didn't have what you have now. Each generation has changed when compared with previous groups of the same age.

Am wondering why you think you know what my parents had?
??
Whilst pleased that our children have far more than we ever did at the same age, am still unconvinced by all the ‘worries’ that they are supposed to have ( more than we had.)
Not everyone has sleepless nights about eco matters ( as Calendargirl and others demonstrate well.)

dragonfly46

I think our AC have more to worry about than we ever did.

dragonfly46 and growstuff I think so too. Mainly in the area of their own jobs and housing and jobs for their children.
We had the impression that if you worked hard enough, you’d have a job for life, well paid or not. Now that simply isn’t true for many people.
Also, we always knew there were folk better off than we were but it wasn’t rubbed in by the media spouting about things like Gary Lineker’s salary or yachts that cost more to hire for a month than we earn in a year.

Alegrias1

growstuff

I can't believe some of the stereotypes on here. I'm wondering whether I belong to some completely different generation.

When I was young we lived in a paper bag in't middle of the road, and were grateful for it. ?

Hah! We lived in a pothole.

growstuff

I can't believe some of the stereotypes on here. I'm wondering whether I belong to some completely different generation.

When I was young we lived in a paper bag in't middle of the road, and were grateful for it. ?

I can't believe some of the stereotypes on here. I'm wondering whether I belong to some completely different generation.

My grandchildren are in their twenties and thirties and while they may have more in the way of material possessions than we did I think they live with more stress.
They are more concerned with global events and don't have job security in the way we did. They are bombarded with information as Chestnut said and have to make sense of it all. I'm glad I'm not making my way in the world in these times.

I agree , MOnica , too much idealism , we're so lucky to live in UK when we look how other countries fail to function in a civilised way ! My folks were WW2 generation , expected nothing from the state until pension days , threw little away , worked hard all their lives & stayed together , 68 years wed until death in 2011 !

I think every generation faces different challenges.

My parents were born into one World War, spent their youth fighting another and then lived the next 40 years in the shadow of the bomb and ended it in growing awareness of Global Warming. I started life in WW2 and grew up through the Cold War, my children were born in cold war times and now my grandchildren are born into global warming.

I think the biggest problem now is that children are brought up with unrealistic expectations. We have gone from being hyper critical of children and feeling a need to nail their feet to the ground to feeling we must never criticise them, never upset them, praise them to the skys and tell them to work only in jobs they really love.

There were signs of this when the A level results came out. So many children talked of good results as the natural result of their hard work. But that is an illusion. hard work helps but does notguarantee good results. and certainly should not be expected just because they worked hard. All of us will have memories of working our socks off on some subjects but still failing or barely passing an exam because we were just not very good at the subject. Me and French O level were one such case.

What I fear for my DGC is their lack of experience of failure - and this is common in their generation. During my childhood I experienced a lot of diffculties and problems and I learned to deal with both success and failure. It made me resilient and able to face the difficulties that inevitably come with adult life.

It worries me that my DGC will be going into adult life without that experience.

I agree very much with Katie

We didn’t expect much. I started work at 16, to me ‘the future’, (about 5 years away seemed ages),meant marriage, having a family, then being a mum and housewife for the rest of my life.
It didn’t end up like that, well the marriage and family did, but then went back to my old job until I was 60.

My own children don’t think like us in many ways. Spend far more on holidays, meals out, pleasure. Preach to us about how our generation have ruined things in many ways, but don’t think about how things they do impact on the world. Waste far more than us, dread to think how many unused clothes DIL has in her wardrobe, and think nothing of binning stuff instead of recycling or charity donating them.

Love them all dearly, do not always agree with how they live, but it’s their lives.