Is this the best time to be alive?

[JCL666]

I agree in part but you must admit that sometimes youngsters must feel a little stifled, just by say well meaning yet over protective parents and perhaps even society as a whole, I cannot be sure of the current threshold these days where children might play, loiter, laugh, good forbid get into some mischieve on their own, is it 10, 11 or 14 I am guessing the age increases each year and no doubt with each national tragedy or scandel ??

There hardly seems a time when up to a certain age there is never adult supervision, which in turn results in reports back and sanctions by the relevent supervisor to the associated parent and so on, it dumbs down play and perhaps childrens own natural interactions.

This just isn't the case.

There isn't really a set age regarding children being unsupervised e.g out on their own, or babysitting or walking to school. The NSPCC suggest that kids under 12 should not be left on their own. I think some schools in Brighton ask that kids do not walk to school unaccompanied until they're 9 or 10.

However....Regarding kids being out on their own in their own social time without supervision. Talk a walk around town and you'll regularly see kids from 11 upwards (secondary school age) wandering about. Same goes for parks or other areas where they might congregate after school.

In addition there are kids from 10 upwards hanging out un supervised, just less of them which is understandable.

 

[BigGully]

This just isn't the case.

There isn't really a set age regarding children being unsupervised e.g out on their own, or babysitting or walking to school. The NSPCC suggest that kids under 12 should not be left on their own. I think some schools in Brighton ask that kids do not walk to school unaccompanied until they're 9 or 10.

However....Regarding kids being out on their own in their own social time without supervision. Talk a walk around town and you'll regularly see kids from 11 upwards (secondary school age) wandering about. Same goes for parks or other areas where they might congregate after school.

In addition there are kids from 10 upwards hanging out un supervised, just less of them which is understandable.

It wasn't a legal comment, more how comparatively children are given less freedoms than say a generation or two before.

With this, I beleive there are some negatives, certainly based on my own experience on how children grow socially.

For me, it seems quite old to only be offered friendship freedoms nearly exclusively from secondary school age upwards, whilst looking at my local secondary schools traffic jams at start and home time it seems to not be for many either at this age.

 

[banjo]

I'm always happy to be alive.

 

[Garry Nelson's teacher]

Well this is very brave question to ask as it's almost impossible to answer - mainly as we've never lived more than one lifetime so have nothing to compare it with. However, I did read somewhere the best date to have been born was 1947 for all sorts of reasons - the best of the baby boomer years in effect.

I'm not quite of that vintage but am of the age that - and now living where my dad was born as were my two sons were too - that I can look across 3 generations and draw some conclusions.

1. Without doubt my lot (1950s) had a better deal than my dad's generation (1920s) - he was born poor and pretty much remained poor; in and out of work, left school at 14 and saw some of his mates killed in the war (which somehow he managed to avoid). My lads' generation (1980s) also had it better than my dad's. No doubt in my mind.

2. So the main issue - and one which is topical - is whether my baby-boomer lot did better than my boys' generation. Well it's difficult to say but of course the key variables are

a) university fees (I got a grant; they got a shed-load of debt)
b) housing costs (headache for me; night-mare for them)
c) job security and career options (OK for me; dodgy for them)
d) pensions (fine for me; shite for them)
e) public provision - will it (mainly the NHS) still be there for them? (iffy?)

3. However, they do seem to have more disposable income; have more fun; and are much better travelled. And the luckier members of their generation will also inherit some of the accumulated wealth (house?) when my lot pop our clogs.

So - as they have yet to live their lives and I hope (if not as much as they do!) that I won't be around to see how things pan out for them - the jury is still out. But I do worry - and if you put your mind to it, there's a lot to worry about.

 

[Blue3]

Well this is very brave question to ask as it's almost impossible to answer - mainly as we've never lived more than one lifetime so have nothing to compare it with. However, I did read somewhere the best date to have been born was 1947 for all sorts of reasons - the best of the baby boomer years in effect.

I'm not quite of that vintage but am of the age that - and now living where my dad was born as were my two sons were too - that I can look across 3 generations and draw some conclusions.

1. Without doubt my lot (1950s) had a better deal than my dad's generation (1920s) - he was born poor and pretty much remained poor; in and out of work, left school at 14 and saw some of his mates killed in the war (which somehow he managed to avoid). My lads' generation (1980s) also had it better than my dad's. No doubt in my mind.

2. So the main issue - and one which is topical - is whether my baby-boomer lot did better than my boys' generation. Well it's difficult to say but of course the key variables are

a) university fees (I got a grant; they got a shed-load of debt)
b) housing costs (headache for me; night-mare for them)
c) job security and career options (OK for me; dodgy for them)
d) pensions (fine for me; shite for them)
e) public provision - will it (mainly the NHS) still be there for them? (iffy?)

3. However, they do seem to have more disposable income; have more fun; and are much better travelled. And the luckier members of their generation will also inherit some of the accumulated wealth (house?) when my lot pop our clogs.

So - as they have yet to live their lives and I hope (if not as much as they do!) that I won't be around to see how things pan out for them - the jury is still out. But I do worry - and if you put your mind to it, there's a lot to worry about.

I totally agree with your post I was a child of 1960 and my children were born in the late 1980s and they are fairly well set but my step son is younger being born in the 1990s and his life is tough really tough and if it were not for our support he would not currently be able to support himself even though he works 50 plus hours a week

 

[Seasidesage]

Being born in the forties, I have somehow survived being born to a mother who may have smoked drank or both while she carried me. She probably took aspirin, ate blue cheese, tuna from a tin, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, my baby cot was almost certainly covered with bright colored lead-based paint. The family had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets. And when I rode my bike (on the road) I had no helmet, then imagine the risks I took hitchhiking .. As a child I would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags, sometimes in the back of a van, loose, which was always great fun. I drank water from the garden hosepipe, sometime a stream, and never from a bottle. I shared one soft drink with several friends from the same cup, and no one actually died from this. I ate cakes, white bread and real butter and drank pop with sugar in it, but I wasn't overweight because.....I WAS ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING, AND AS HAPPY AS A PIG IN S***
I'd leave home in the morning and play outside all day, and as long as I was back when the streetlights came on, no one cared. I was gone all day. And I was OK. I would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then ride downhill, with only my feet as a brake. After running into the bushes a few times, I'd learn to solve the problem . I didn't have feckin Technology! Playstations, X-boxes, no video games at all, or come to that a tv for many years. But this meant I had .....FRIENDS and I'd go outside and find them! I fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. I played with worms and mud pies made from dirt. Ate scrumped apples, maggots optional, unless not seen in time. I made up games, threw and fought with sticks and although I was warned it would happen, I didn't poke out any eyes.
If I got into trouble and my parents found out I'd get punished, even sometimes get my arse thrashed, without that turning me into a homicidal maniac when I finally grew up.
Footballers got hurt, got up and tried to pretend they weren't in pain....need I say more!
My parents never attempted to defend my wrong doing, they chastised me for it.
All this however was before the lawyers, government and councils regulated our lives for our own good.
How did I survive?
Best time of our lives....yours maybe, definately not mine, too much hate and mistrust.. I only hate Palace fans Though even that's tongue in cheek...I think. ...

Post of the ****ing century! It's not just councils to blame it's the whole molly coddling, wrapped in cotton wool society of today. Life is often shit, deal with it, do what you can to make it better and adapt, don't whinge about how unfair it is because guess what it's always been like that. I was born in the Sixties but my life was similar, hard but mostly fun. No money, no dad, ho hum. I've done the best that I could, hopefully my kids will do better than me they seem to have made a good start and I've done better than my mum did that's how families move forward. Governments and the elite have always loaded things in their favour, they've just become better at it...

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Tommorrow will be even better.

For those wailing about the good old days, most of you would probably be dead already if it wasn't for medical advances - so stop moaning and get on with the only life you'll ever have.