Hmmm. I’m a little older than some here, so my grandparents go back a long way.
They didn’t have votes for women, airplanes, telephones, TV, the Internet, the National Health Service or penicillin.
My life is very different from theirs.
OH YEAH!?! Well, my grandparents lived under the British regime! 
Actually, they didn’t have most of the stuff you mention, either…older or not, I don’t think it was that different. Well, also they were in India.
My God, what a depressing thread! With all the shit going on in today’s world, I suppose we should still be happy things don’t seem quite as bad…
Never heard this proverb before. It’s an interesting one and for the most part I can’t say it’s true for people my age. The positives for me would be pretty limited - my grandfathers are/were old enough to have seen the Marx Brothers movies in the theaters, which must’ve looked better, but they were probably too young to have seen them on the stage.
My paternal grandfather’s life is one of the last ones I’d ever want to live. Went through the Great Depression as a young boy, then at about 20 he was sent overseas and was one of the first U.S. soliders to see Auschwitz following its liberation. He almost never talked about it and certainly never discussed it with me, but I don’t think he ever came close to getting over it. He was a violent, scary father with an awful temper (and a gun collection to boot, which must’ve ramped up the scariness somewhat), had a major heart attack in his early 30s, lost his first child to suicide when she was in her late teens or early 20s, divorced at one point, had a few more heart attacks and died before he was 70 - and then the horror stories started coming out. I hadn’t known about any of this while he was alive, but the basics are more than enough.
My maternal grandfather did better - he was a drill sergeant who never had to serve overseas, did live through the Depression but later made a more than significant amount of money in insurance, has been kvetchily married to my grandmother for, oh, 60 years and is pretty healthy and about to turn 88. It’s not the kind of life I want and he’s not at all the kind of person I’d like to be like, but I confess I could do worse (See Above).
Hmm…
Lack of electricity? Nope?
Walking to another town for school? Nope.
Making the same walk for various medical things? Nope.
5 or more kids? Nope.
Changed citizenship, despite living in the same place all my life? Nope.
Genetic heart defect likely to kill me by 50? Nope.
Likely to be widowed in my 40s? Nope.
No, I think I’ve made a good start on NOT living my grandparents’ lives.
I have a really weird obsession with “where were my parents at my age?” (which would be 1968 for my father and 1977 for my mother), a habit that I was surprised to learn my brother shares. I’ve never done it with my grandparents though.
My grandfathers were born in 1892 and 1893 respectively, and I’m pushing 42, so that’d make this about 1934-35. The country was in an economic downspin (check) though the worst was over (probably not check). A major war was brewing (probably check [though really when is it not?]), the USA was resisting the urge to interfere in international matters (check and not check), there was a Democratic president (check soon hopefully)- hmmm.
When my grandmothers were my age WW2 was in its early days.
It’s interesting, but ultimately, nah. There’s really no two years within the last century you can’t compare and contrast with long columns on each side.