Looking to the future, what are your biggest concerns for your child or children, in terms of them becoming a responsible adult, having a good and productive job, and living happily? Do you ever worry about them being less than successful in life, or not being able to cut it? If so, do you have specific concerns (whether about your child or the world in which they will be growing up)? Or is it a vague sort of dread?
This is not homework.
I have seen a lot of parents worry about this and over correct or become obsessive with their children based on their ego or experientia. Children have their own person to become. I can see a lot of damage being done from neurotic over-bearing.
I’m not terribly worried about my kids’ ability to get along in the world. I’m more concerned about what they’ll find when they get there.
Me too. I, even though they are only 5 and 8, have no worries about what type of person they will be when they grow up. They are smart and compassionate and even have a decent amount of motivation (though now it is only focused on how to get candy or get more TV or Wii time). What I worry about is climate change, the economy, natural resources (especially water), and the ascendancy of religious fundamentalism worldwide (including in the United States). What kind of life have I signed my children up for? Regardless of what happens, no matter how bad it is, they deserve their chance to live and make their worlds what they want them to be. I keep telling myself that.
My sentiments exactly. My kids are practical and intelligent; they will be alright. It’s what they are going to have to work with that worries me. That, and the mobs of people who don’t know enough about how to live in desperate times who will be dragging everybody down.
To be a parent is to worry. I teach them to be independent, strong, and think for themselves. I do not helicopter over them, which I think is the most damaging parenting trend of our times.
I think they’ll be alright.
I know my kids are smart already, so I don’t really worry about how they’ll do academically, etc. And I honestly don’t care whether they grow up to be astronauts or janitors, as long as they’re 1.) a productive member of society and 2.)happy.
That said, I worry about that number two a lot. I want them to be strong and self-confident, but I doubt my ability to make them so, since I stuggle with those things myself.
The United States is going to be **HUGELY!!! ** into debt, bankrupt, poor, overpopulated, lots more crime, lots less available jobs, polluted and dirty, higher taxes, high inflation/hyperinflation, a worthless dollar, more laws more regulations more searches less privacy less freedom, civilian gun ownership/self-defense will be illegal, food shortages, water shortages, oil and energy shortages, and the chinese buying up all the nicest places in America.
There will much less jobs and much fewer factories in America as we continue “free trade” and NAFTA CAFTA even though at the same time the population in the USA will be over 1 billion by the end of the century because of continuing record immigration from third world countries.
With no money no jobs and too many people living here, the infrastructure in America, roads, bridges, dams, schools, hospitals, and the United States military will all deteriorate into shambles and the liberal Democrats and communists will control all political offices and whites and Christians will be a small minority and politically insignificant.
With the US military/World Policeman gone, there will many wars everywhere all the time, and there will be another huge World War, along with several limited nuclear wars esp in the Middle East and in asia.
The future is going to be very different for your children and your grandchildren. Prepare them for it.
(BTW, this is the “sugar coated” version )
Quite probably it will be. However, we’ve had it better than virtually any generation in human history, so my kids will still be better off than a lot of people, relatively speaking–though I don’t think that things will be that awful. There has been a lot of various doom-portending over the last 100 years, and so far the future has never been like anyone thought it would be. IIRC Bertrand Russell said that by 2000, we would be either extinct, living as animals, or under an all-controlling world government.
Not by me. I can take a perspective from 100 years ago as if I was there, and I would not see a weak America in the 1900’s. I know my grandpa in the year 1900 saw a VERY!!! bright future for America and was full of hope and invested in America. I would never see America losing WW2. None of any of my relatives ever had a single doubt about whipping Hitler and Hirohito. I would not see the US dollar be worthless. I would not see running out of fresh water 100 years ago. I would not see any other country being the Arsenal of Democracy" in WW2 except for the USA. The American standard of living/wages/safety/pride/strength rose almost continuously from 1789 up into the late 1900’s.
The future WAS!!! bright for the USA 100 years ago, it WAS a bright future 150 years ago, it WAS a bright future 200 years ago.
Very different today. The future of America in the 21st century is doom, bankruptcy, overpopulation, starvation, and becoming a third world primitive country with no energy and no industry.
Bankruptcy, overpopulation, no industry, not enough energy or water or food, are clearly in today’s future (even a child can see it) and yet nobody today wants to do anything about eliminating deficit spending, nobody wants to pay off our federal debt, nobody wants to bring back our manufacuring jobs and factories, nobody wants to stop immigration.
Therefore, unlike at ANY! other time in our past, the doom of the USA is inevitable.
hear! hear!
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
I’m 35 and my mom still worries about my future.
The future will have tons of problems with natural resource depletion, pollution, income inequality, lack of jobs and debt. However I don’t know if it’ll be as bad as you are saying.
And I don’t agree that we will ever see starvation in the US. It costs $2/day to feed someone in the US, if that, if you plan it right. I think our standard of living will go down (even though we will become wealthier collectively, income inequality and growing expenses will reduce our standard of living for 90% of us) but I doubt we live worse than people in middle income countries do.
If anything, I see a massive overlap between wealthy and middle income countries opening markets for low cost, high quality goods and services. If over the next 10-20 years the standard of living in Russia, China, Brazil, India, Vietnam, etc. continues to grow at a clip and the standard in North America and Europe declines, sooner or later we will all be looking at the same income bracket lifestyles. PC tablets that cost $20, cars that cost $5000, medications that cost $2/month, $10000 open heart surgery, finding ways to have 5 people in the same house and still have a sense of privacy, etc. I’ve always felt that that fact would cushion some of the blow. There will be a massive market of several billion people as developed incomes go down and developing incomes go up and start to match to find ways to live decent lives on 20k a year personal income.
Of course reducing income inequality and reforming health care in a meaningful way would do a lot to improve our standard of living. But that isn’t going to happen.
Originally Posted by Susanann
whites and Christians will be a small minority and politically insignificant.
Nope! Just a solid projection of current population and immigration trends.
It is up to the people who will live thru it to judge whether it is a good or a bad thing.
You are not considering a projected population of 1 billion people living in America, combined with a drastic reduction in agriculture because of a running out of water in California/Nevada/Arizona, together along with and emptying of the Ogallala aqufier. Overpopulation combined with running out of fresh water is a formula for starvation, and it is coming soon (i.e. before the end of this century).
$2 a day per person is unaffordable to a country that is bankrupt, a country that does not produce enough food or energy for itself, a country that has no factories and no industry, a country that produces nothing that anybody else wants to buy, and a country that is hundreds of trillions of dollars in debt and whose dollar is worthless and cant get anyone to loan us any more money.
$20,000 a year is a fairy tale. No American will be earning that kind of money 50 years from now, and most Americans will be unemployed.
Where are the jobs? Where are you going to find** a billion jobs **in America, for a billion people, from our exploding immigration/population growth, jobs that pay $20,000 a year? Who is hiring? What and where are all these jobs?
The United States, currently, today, needs to borrow and extra additional **$1 1/2 trillion dollars **each and every year, year after year, just to finance its federal government. It also needs to borrow and extra $500 billion a year for its balance of trade deficit because it imports much more than it exports. Who is going to continue to lend the United States $2 trillion dollars a year, year after year after year? …at zero interest rates?
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Where did you get 1 billion people in the US? The 2050 population will be about 400-450 million from what I’ve read.
There are other areas to grow agriculture if the southwest fails. Northern Africa and Eastern Europe are seeing investments in farmland.
Not only that but something like 60-70% of all agriculture is used to feed beef, make ethanol or manufacture things like plastics. We only use a fraction of the corn, soybeans, wheat, etc we grow to eat directly. If push came to shove we’d just stop making beef, ethanol and plastic out of corn and eat the corn instead. Starvation is highly unlikely in the west. A reduced standard of living is coming but not starvation.
Not only that but I’m sure we’ll find ways to continue to increase crop yields. The bushels per acre will probably be doubled at least by 2050.
The US still manufactures things. There just aren’t many good jobs associated with domestic manufacturing.
Even if the US had a billion people, which it won’t, you don’t need a billion jobs. Newborns and retired people don’t work for pay, neither do housewives. In the US we have about 315 million people and about 130 million jobs.
20k a year is only about $10/hr full time. It is not impossible to get.
Much of our debt is due to the recession. Before the recession the deficit was 75% lower than it is. Theoretically, once the economy improves (who knows when that’ll happen, the job market has been collapsed for 3 years now and isn’t improving at all), the deficit will go down.
This. I’m doing my best with what I have to work with. I have an unusually smart kid. The rest is in God’s hands.