1968

Do agree. Have done a bit since but NOT ENOUGH. Just stated that I am going to do more instead of sitting round complaining. Also I have the added bonus this time - If I get arrested, it won't effect any career and also save on food and heating costs.
I have tried to inspire my children and they have absolutely no spirit or fight whatsoever !
Whitewave some of us are still around - just need a good 'dusting down'
Come the Revolution Sister

I think it's all down to "Loud, Hideously Embarrassing Mum" syndrome and the rather comforting thought that however you bring up your kids they will rebel. Collectivism is dead and the unions castrated. The only thing our offspring get upset about these days is recycling into the wrong bag/bin; I believe this is already a major cause of divorce.

Ten years ago I was walking with both my adult sons in a European city when I saw a graphic and unreasonable anti-abortion protest. I opened my mouth to take issue and found that I had somehow been lifted by both elbows and transported straight past the placards. "Mum", said my younger, "watch my lips: NO!"

1968
Free higher education including maintenance
Plenty of jobs, Easy to change jobs. Good salaries for graduates
Relatively easy to get on housing ladder

2011
Large student loan to repay
High unemployment and many graduates in poorly paid jobs with few prospects
Almost impossible to get on housing ladder

I suspect those two lists explain a lot

It's pretty much the same here in Australia, FlicketyB, except the student loan just means they pay more income tax till it's paid off.

As for demonstrating - I was well in fifties when our local area got a racist MP (Pauline Hanson) and I joined an anti racist group. We always turned up with our banners and chants when she was at any sort of public 'do'. We were very effective - she never got elected again.

I have to admit, demonstrating was a lot of fun. I remember the very last time - she was having a rally in Ipswich and we all turned up. She started screaming at us, calling us a bunch of unemployed layabouts. We looked at each other: we were all in decent jobs or full time education; there was a headmaster, a priest, numerous teachers, clerks etc, whereas her supporters had hardly a job between them. We started to laugh, and couldn't stop....it just went on and on. At that point I knew she'd lost. She had. She was going for re-election and failed miserably. Political death by humour!

I spent quite a bit of my youth protesting outside South Africa House, in Grosvenor Square and carrying a ban the bomb banner. Once I became a mum, life was so hectic that the number protests I attended gradually petered out. I did march in London on February 15 2003 against the invasion of Iraq – fat lot of good that did in spite of the huge turnout. However, the number of young people there was astonishing and heartening. Now I want to emigrate and cannot afford to get a criminal record – not that I would ever intend to do anything criminal, but I don't trust the way protests are policed now.

My kids don't even feel that compelled to recycle let alone go to a rally. I am always retrieving cans out of their rubbish to put in their recycling bin and forever turning off their lights. I don't know why my daughters and their spouses are oblivious to what is really going on in the world. My son and DIL are a bit more like me, so there is some support.
I think my eldest daughter is the only one who has been on any rallies and that's because I took her to one when she was a teenager. I think her second rally was when she was at uni and that was probably because everyone else was going to it. I wonder where I went wrong!

Joan I love your story about Pauline Hanson, I live in Australia too and at least my kids can't stand her either!!!

All my daughters (didn't have any sons) are just as bolshie as their mum. . in general, I think part of the apparent apathy in people nowadays is the constant stream of alarmism and dire warnings of doom in the media. There's only so much you can take before you just give up and carry on regardless. Besides, most of it has been discredited. Back in my youth the world was a much more hopeful place, at least in Britian. That made a difference, I think. FlicketyB has put it well in her post above.

My name on here tells a story! I appear to be a traditional 57 year old conservative (note the small c) white, christian lady - but my alter ego, Grannyactivist, is a rampant demonstrator and activist. When I was just sixteen I wrote to the Manchester Evening News in response to a racist letter they had published from a disgruntled reader and my trajectory was set. In my younger years I was more cautious and like absentgrana, was conscious of the need to stay on the right side of the law. Now I am genuinely prepared to be arrested - though not to knowingly commit a criminal act - in pursuit of justice.
Both my husband and I maintain a regular stream of correspondence with David Cameron and our MP over various issues. Our daughter recently spearheaded a major public campaign and was successful in bringing about a change in the law and our sons (both students) are supportive and are getting more involved and politically aware as they grow older.
In fact I suspect many of us are once again going to return (if we ever left) to our 'militant' roots.

Talking about being arrested - we were at an anti-Pauline Hanson rally outside Festival Hall in Brisbane, where she was appearing: we were with lots of other anti-racists, when one of our number was arrested by the cops on some stupid pretext. My husband Terry just strode up to the cops, said he was the man's lawyer, and challenged their right to arrest. The cops backed off. Then Terry told the man to make himself scarce just in case - and explained he wasn't a lawyer at all. Laughs all round.

I was dumbfounded - I'd never seen my husband do anything like that before, but it worked! Mind you, we took off to the pub after that - best not to tempt providence!!

grannyactivist; can't beat 'the power of the pen'. Once something is written down and evidence is kept something has to be done. One of the biggest 'tools' is bad publicity as well.

1968? I was 2 ... what did I miss?????

I joined an organization called Avaaz. 'Avaaz—meaning "voice" in several European, Middle Eastern and Asian languages—launched in 2007 with a simple democratic mission: organize citizens of all nations to close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want.'

I am about to add my voice to a campaign to stop Rupert Murdoch buying up more of the British media. To think that he began with one newspaper in Adelaide, my home city. Makes me feel that I have to do one tiny thing to stop this man. I believe that the media have a lot to answer for with the direction our world is heading. I don't want Rupert Murdoch and his agenda leading the pack.

I wondered where you all were! '1968' alerted me - a good heading.

I was in Women's Liberation (Please, please not 'women's lib'!) from 1970 in Dundee when the first group started there, until the last conference (what year was that ?...) Good years.
Before that I went on the second CND march in 1959, and several after.
I didn't get arrested after I had children, though.
Now what do I do at 70? Not an awful lot, but I also get the AVAAZ emails and sign most of their petitions.

There is some kind of demonstrating granny organisation in the US, but is there anything here?

In 1968 I was still a school-girl. My dad rescued two eighteen year old students from Czechoslovakia whom he found sitting on the doorstep of his college (he was a teacher trainer). They were drenched and fed up having come over on a hiking/camping/exploring holiday with no tent! Apparently you can sleep outside in summer in Czechoslovakia — or maybe they were just unprepared? Anyway, he brought them home and they stayed with our seven-person family for the rest of the summer. They got jobs (things like washing-up in hotels and so forth) and paid for their board. Both of them wanted to stay longer but felt they had to go back because while they were in England, Russia invaded Czechoslovakia. My parents kept in touch with them and they both did well. The young man, Honsa, called his first child Thomas after my youngest brother who was five that summer and who adored Honsa. After Chernobyl Honsa came to England for a conference (he's a physicist) and visited my parents. He was perfectly happy to eat British lamb. The young woman, Helena, discovered chips at the place she was working and asked my mum for the recipe!

1968

I got married (still am)
I changed my job
I was an active member of the Liberal party (still am)

Before my marriage I lived in the Paddington North constituency when the property thug Rachman was at his worst, although the seat was held by one of the other parties we used to get involved with people being evicted or terrorised by him and his henchman. I also learnt a lot about the living conditions of those struggling to sustain and support.their families on the lowest wages, there was no minimum wage then. When my children were small I was involved in a children's charity and since retiring worked for 10 years as a home visitor with a charity for the elderly. Now I work to protect our heritage.

I was never involved with Women's Liberation or CND. I never supported either but as the daughter and grand daughter of feminists. I have always been willing to publicly describe myself as such and on a personal basis have rather enjoyed challenging sexism when faced with it. I spent almost my entire career working in male dominated industries like civil engineering so I had plenty of opportunities. Whenever possible I was always a union member and was very glad of their support on several occasions

My children are both strongly opinonated and my son and his wife have attended demonstrations including the Anti-Iraq war demonstration. My daughter was the Union rep for her department for several years.

In 1968 I was a student but St Andrews was not a hotbed of political activity.
Spent most of my working life in teaching, dabbling in politics along the way. I've been wondering for the last few days what stand we'll take if the threatened public sector strikes come about. If we were vociferously defending our rights back then and achieved much of what we set out to do, then what's our next step? I am one of the fortunate generation who was never out of work, saw equality legislation passed, got on the property ladder without an enormous struggle and am now happily retired with a reasonable (though not big) public sector pension.But I worry about our children's generation. We need to go on backing them, don't we?

I was at teacher training college in Streatham. I marched against the war in Vietnam, gave blood whenever I could, and went on CND marches. I remember being in a group that was charged by police on horseback - very scary. Speakers Corner in Hyde Park was one of my favourite haunts. I'd love to go on marches now but unless there are signed loos along the way, I daren't so I write letters instead for causes in which I'm interested.

In Feb 1968 I started work at a new Social Security office in Portsmouth, called Portsmouth/West End Contributions Office, after doing the official course. We did the work involved in collecting NI contributions for London West End Social Security, where they were understaffed.

What a mess it was - there were old cases that had been festering in 'too hard' baskets for ages, and there was regular work too. A Scottish friend and I got put in the section for sorting out the problems. We were new to the job, but had to battle through - I never used my brain as much as that, ever, not even when I did a tough university course years later.

I was also newly married, and living in Gosport, 400 miles from my home town. My husband, a submariner in Special Boats, often had to go away to sea so it was quite lonely at times.

We pretty much had to ignore any political issues, and demonstrating was absolutely out, as the military got very shirty if you got involved in political bother-causing!! Paranoia ruled back then: they even opened all my letters from my Hungarian penfriend and stuck them back with brown civil service glue. The domestic chitchat must have bored them rigid.

So long ago, but sometimes it seems like yesterday, though my husband is no longer the blond, bronzed, muscular Adonis he was back then.

PS
And I'm no longer the size 12 lass in micro-minis and kinky boots either.

I was a student in Paris in 1968..........!

Ah 1968 was still at school aged 16 - remember being asked out on a date for the first time saw Jane Fonda in Barbarella - clothes mini skirt and a size 8 - he took me to a restaurant afterwards and we had a chicken dinner. Fond memories.

In 1968 I met my future husband who had only immigrated from England the year before with his parents. He was only 19 at the time, I was 16 and he was called up to serve in Vietnam soon after having lived in Australia for less than a year. He was able to have it delayed for a year and by the time he had to go into National Service it was nearly over, so he never went to Vietnam in the end and only served 21 months instead of two years. He was not happy about it but his father thought it was okay to be called up.

My sister died in 1968 from carbon monoxide poisoning it will haunt me forever

In 1968 I was married and expecting my first baby. We had a turquoise Ford Anglia, think Harry Potter films. I had a house and a TV but no washing machine or fridge.