They’re one and three. I’ve devoted a LOT of thought to wondering what their lives will be like as they grow up.
What will the economy by like? Will climate change make their lives miserable, or wipe them out entirely? Will oil shortages wreak havoc with their futures (someone claims that page 24 of this US military report says that we’ll have “severe oil shortages” in FIVE YEARS)?
OTOH, technology’s growing at a rapid pace all the time. It’s likely (if the severe reactions from the factors above don’t pan out) they’ll have opportunities and tools that I can’t even imagine right now.
Considering the US’ national oil reserves and the expected lifetime of current oil and gas deposits being tapped, I’d expect that he’ll live to see oil become a scarce. But I don’t think he’ll grow up with it. As for his quality of life, that’ll depend heavily on where he grows up and lives, as it does today.
Oil has allowed the world a boom of expansion and artificially accelerated growth, but that doesn’t mean we’ll be unable to cope without it. There’ll be a painful period of readjustment, true, but with foresight and care even that transition can be managed.
I think it’s a coin toss either way. Foresight and care aren’t usually the stamp of short-term elected officials, but I don’t want to sell the world short. Even though politicians can be fools, most of the work and innovation needed would be accomplished in labs, by corporations and by permanent administrations, not as pet political projects. And which corporation wouldn’t want to be the one who could patent the “next big thing” to oil? (Excepting perhaps the oil corporations, obviously.)
What is their families socioeconomic status? Are their parents educated? Do they work professional jobs? What part of the country do they live in?
It’s impossible to predict the world in 20 years but I suspect that their quality of life will be similar to that which they grew up with. Plus whatever gadgets are popular then.
"It is hard to make predictions especially about the future. " It really all depends on how well technology can keep up with the demand for solutions to our problems. It also depends on how well we identify our problems and deal with them. Right now we are spending a huge proportion of our money on military defense. The problem is that Super-carriers can’t fight global warming.
Socially things could go either way. I mean we’ve already decided that blacks, women and homosexuals aren’t sub- human. Maybe we will realize that poor people are not subhuman either. Then again maybe we won’t and we will end up as a nation of very rich and very poor with nothing in between.
I guess the short answer to your question is no one knows.