How do your kids feel about the future?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Those of you with kids, especially any younger than their 20s or so… how do they feel about the future? Is there any difference between how they feel about their own future vs that of the greater community/country/world around them?

Are they excited and hopeful? Gloomy and worried? Nonchalant? Oblivious? Some mix of the above?

Anecdotally:

As a Millennial, many of my age peers (in their 30s and 40s) have seemingly settled into a comfortable mix of “I have a stable-ish career and can finally afford a small house and maybe one kid now”, combined with a generous dose of learned helplessness (“Oh well, everything’s gone to shit… I did what I could and it made no difference… too bad”). My particular friend groups tend to lean liberal to progressive, though.

The more worried ones amongst them chose to never have kids at all (which used to be pretty uncommon, right, but maybe isn’t any longer?). Of the rest, several did eventually have kids, but they’re still mostly infants or toddlers and don’t really have much of any opinion yet. I guess we popped 'em out later in age & career than in the past.

I went back to community college last year to study some stuff. The teenagers and 20-somethings there for the most part reminded me of my own college experience, full of angst over romance, tests, part-time work, etc. Nobody really talked about politics or the world at large, at least not in my classes, and nobody seemed particularly distressed. But that’s a tiny sample size.

So how’s Gen Z doing? Alpha?

How do they feel about their own career prospects? War with whoever? AI? Climate change (is that still a thing people talk about?) Inflation? The next pandemic? LGBTQ? Abortion? Guns? School shootings? All the social controversies of my generation and earlier… did our fears get passed on at all? Or do they have a whole separate set of worries?

2

I’m a Xennial. I don’t have kids but I have nieces and nephews who are Gen Z. School shootings are a huge concern, and that was never something we had to worry about when my generation was younger.

There is also a huge gender divide among Gen Z, as men are falling into the manosphere while women are moving in the opposite direction since their rights are under threat.

3

Sorry, man. My kids are your contemporaries. But they are pretty disgusted with my generation for having allowed such wealth disparity and failed to address so many critical issues including the environment and universal health care.

I note all of my kids are married, employed, and own homes. So they are doing well personally. Just bear some resentment that more hasn’t been done about so many blindingly obvious problems. I also have heard my kids and nieces/nephews question whether they wish to bring children into this world.

4

Damn. I don’t even know what to say to a kid about that. It’s so commonplace now that it must feel like every day is Russian Roulette…

How do the nieces and nephews deal with it? Do they arm themselves or bring body armor to school? Just have a lot of active shooter drills? :confused:

Manosphere, like the hyper-masculine misogyny movement?

And “opposite direction”… is that a particular counter-movement (some modern evolution of feminism?), or just support for women’s rights in general?

Eh, for what it’s worth… sure, that was a common sentiment among my peers a decade or two ago. But hell, by the 2010s and 2020s… we were certainly old enough to have inherited at least some of that responsibility (or neglect), and yet most of us did nothing either. It’s our fault now (does Gen Z hate us yet?).

Sure, a few of us went into political office, a few became vloggers and talking heads, a few started movements… but the rest of us? We got really good at Instagram selfies and reddit arguments. We inherited the information superhighway and turned it into the crapvertisement roundabout.

We made wealth disparity worse with every Like on Facebook, and all our meager environmental efforts were outdone by a single Swedish child. I don’t think we have much to be proud about, either, lol. By the time they were our age, previous generations had already won a world war or two.

Yeah. I have more friends who don’t want kids than do, though of course it’s also a self-selecting crowd. Most of my friend group now consist of DINKers for life. The ones with kids understandably went on to lead their own family lives.

5

I think one of the challenges is trying to figure out what you CAN do. Other than voting and trying to lead as good of a life as you can. I’m not sure when it happened or if it has always been this way, but it seems as though so much takes place on such a massive scale.

A person - young or old - can express support for less advantaged individuals and groups. And can decide the extent to which they are going to dedicate themselves to the simple amassing of wealth.

My generation had it pretty easy, at least in terms of get and education, get a decent job and be able to have a decent life and retire at some point. I’m fortunate that my 3 kids seem to have done well enough. But I think that with every passing year, that easy, straightforward route is getting harder and harder.

6

Vaderling is 16 years old.
He is (in my eye) a caricature of a teenage boy in a lot of ways, but not in all ways. I get a shrug and a grunt when I try to talk to him about the future. The only thing I’ve ever gotten out of him when trying to ask him about his plans for the future is a non sequitur that he has rejected christianity because the church was trying to tell him who he could be friends with and supportive of in their life.

I don’t know that he has hopes or plans for the future, seems sorta nihilistic sometimes

7

My youngest 2 girls, (early 20s, I don’t know the meaning genZ or X), are dead set on NO KIDS.
Which is fine with me.

Both are nearly SJWs though. Lots of mouthing, not much action.

My older 2 have kids. 6 in fact, between them. They’re deep in school stuff and daily schedules. Summer is planned pretty tightly, with lots of activities and day trips.
None, seems to me, to be very worried about the state of the world.

I grant they’ve been pretty insulated out here in the boondocks. All went to college or Military. They’ve seen some things.
I told them all vote democratic in November. And as far as I know its exactly what they did.
When, before the election, I had CNN on my TV non-stop, they’d come to my room and groan.

TV news or Newspapers are not a thing they keep up with. They clearly get their news from social media.
At what cost? I couldn’t tell you.

My 12yo grand-daughter is more up to date than they are.

Still, I’m sure they are concerned about climate, global wars, immigration and persons in need. They know, because I taught them to care.
I set example by volunteering, giving and charitible acts.

This age young people cannot tolerate it stuffed down their throats. They need guidance, forsure. But if you start pressing they zone out and play minecraft.

It may be, the only way to get to them is presenting it in X posts, memes, and Tiktok vids.
Hmmm :thinking: This may be what Trump succeeded at.
He was talking in a language young people understand. To be sure.

8

My kids are in their mid-20s and are optimistic about the future. My daughter (26, nurse) is a little more worried about the state of the world and what’s happening locally, and would probably be a bit more activated/motivated to “do” something about her causes, if she weren’t so lazy. She wants to own a house some day, but I don’t think she will start a family - that’s a maybe. She’s not against kids, just indifferent to the idea, like her father :slightly_smiling_face:. My son (23, financial analyst) ignores news and politics and is focused on his job/career/company and his car and investments, hanging out with his friends and watching sports. He talks about owning a house and having kids some day.

IMHO they will both get what they work for. Every generation has had it’s worries that challenged their future, from the Nazis, to the Red Scare, to M.A.D, etc. and everyone just kept chugging along and living their lives. The current generations will end-up doing the same regardless how optimistic/pessimistic they feel.

9

My eldest son is nervous about things. He and his second wife, who are in their 50s have kids who are still in middle/high school. They’re very worried about the future of healthcare and school grants/loans, not to mention the fact that his 401 took a major hit. No idea what my younger two think about it, but I think I’ll bring it up. I know that I’m concerned for them and am hoping that the midterms will flip things to stop the current juggernaut.

10

Your kids sound like mine - they pursued traditional routes/jobs and expect to be OK. I wonder if that avenue is pen to fewer folk. Is there a tier of jobs that used to be filled by (community) college grads that provided benefits and decent promotion/career possibilities that simply no longer exist, or are now performed one a pt-time/gig basis?

Are a good percentage of the folk who see the future as bleak the (for lack of a better word) underachievers? Are there now just fewer opportunities to slide by under the radar?

11

Well, tech is one of the big ones. A few years ago, it used to be that some basic “bootcamp”-style training (a few months of intensive workshops), or some basic stuff from community college, could get your foot in the door and lead to more career opportunities within a few short years. That industry especially exploded during COVID. And then afterward, because of COVID over-hiring and the general economy and inflation and then AI, the industry crashed hard and is pretty much dead to newcomers now, unless they are from a very prestigious place with a strong AI background.

And the fields that typically supported those jobs (marketing, sales, etc.) are also taking a hit. All the money is going to AI now, which is a pretty different skillset (very heavy on math, not so much on traditional computer stuff).

The tech industry was pretty much the equivalent of “decent factory job” for my generation, one of the very few avenues to a middle-class-ish life available to people without a strong pedigree (educational or otherwise). I’ve met several people who came into tech from a poorer background, absent a degree, and then learned the skills, worked the jobs, and eventually built themselves a middle class life.

That might not be the case for Gen Z and beyond :frowning: College ROI has been pretty bad for many majors for many years, but STEM used to be a relative safeguard against that. Maybe not for much longer…

And the whole AI thing is a big open question too. I’m not sure how many human jobs will be left in a few more years, at least the kinds that could sustain a household. That’ll especially be the case if the Republicans keep winning at all levels and removing what few safety nets we had to begin with… unions won’t do any good if capitalists don’t have to hire human labor to begin with. I expect a whole lot more wealth polarization leading into a hyper-gilded age…

But, you know, that’s me speaking as an old, jaded man. Hopefully the youngins will be both more optimistic and more effective at finding innovative solutions to social problems. If not, well, they can continue to blame earlier generations, just like their forebearers :slight_smile:

12

My kids are all in their '50s (gacch, my daughter will turn 60 next year) so I will talk about my grandkids. One just turned 30 his three sibs are in their 20s. The youngest of them just graduated from college, is moving in with his GF who graduated a year earlier and has a job as a HS teacher. He will try to make it as a musician (jazz). Lots of luck. Not one of the other 3 has shown any signs of pairing up or of having any interest in it. The 30 yo calls themself asexual. None of the four has begun to build anything that looks like a career.

#5 is 18 and calls themself non-binary. They have decided to leave the US and is about to head off to college at St. Andrews, studying international relations. Perhaps they hope to stay in Britain. Finally, #6 will turn 17 tomorrow and does not respond to any question about the future, college plans or anything like that. So far, the only thing he has shown much interest in is drawing and once had a charcoal sketch he made hanging in the Met for 6 months as the best 4th grade art work by any NYC 4th grader. Only #5 seems to have given any serious thought for the future.

13

I agree it can be a challenging environment now for young people. The places they want to live (urban areas) are often expensive and competitive, and as you say they need a strong skillset just to get started, which is counterintuitive. And then many are saddled with the whole college debt thing putting more pressure on them to get working right away, doing anything for income, with expensive degrees of limited value. I can see how the future might look bleak and they just want to dial-out.

My two have had their share of challenges, but one common thread for them has been little to no interest in news, politics, or current events (unless it affects them directly) and little to no interest in social media (shocking, I know, for them in their 20s). The absence of exposure to a steady stream of toxic and worthless information likely influences their opinion of the future.

14

My kid and some of her friends, who range from high school seniors to just graduated college, are in a mentoring program that I participate in (co-lead). Mostly STEM oriented kids.

There is a sort of dread around a lot of things.

Of what AI is going to do to their employment prospects

Of the impact of climate change

Of the seemingly global reversal of the ideals of equality and acceptance on many dimensions

Of the divide between men and women in their generation in social and political issues

From what I remember of the previous cohorts (my nieces and nephews now in their 30s, for example, there was a lot of optimism that we were progressing inexorably toward a better world. That we could do something about climate change. That the bigotry of older generations would die with them. I don’t hear any of that now. It’s all struggle and fear.

15

I remember hearing on the radio a while back that there used to be a “standard” applied to young people, asking how many of 5 or so things they had accomplished by age 25. I forget what exactly they were, but they were along the lines of:
-a full time job;
-graduate college;
-living on their own;
-married…
The radio bit said that so few young people had accomplished many/any of these by age 25 - or even later - that the measurement had ceased to be meaningful. Not exactly sure what that indicates, but it does seem to suggest things have changed significantly. I’m not sure how one would separate out what portion of that chage reflected choice.