Why every generation thinks theirs is the best!

WEBVTT
00:00:00.239 --> 00:00:04.879
One of the things adults say is, kids these days don't know they're born.
00:00:05.120 --> 00:00:08.480
But I remember hearing that from adults when I was a kid.
00:00:08.720 --> 00:00:16.480
Given that modern day human race is about 300,000 years old, is this rhetoric something that's been repeated ever since?
00:00:16.719 --> 00:00:19.120
Is it are kids today really different?
00:00:19.280 --> 00:00:21.920
Or is this what every generation thinks?
00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:27.039
Adults have apparently been complaining about the younger generation for thousands of years.
00:00:27.280 --> 00:00:31.280
Why does every generation think the next one has gone to hell?
00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:42.240
I'm Sharon from Straight Up Talk, and this is Pete Johnson.
00:00:42.479 --> 00:00:43.520
Hello, Pete Johnson.
00:00:43.679 --> 00:00:45.039
Hello, Sharon Jones.
00:00:45.359 --> 00:00:52.799
It was uh the other day when this topic sparked because you had watched a podcast from a woman in the UK.
00:00:52.960 --> 00:00:54.079
So do tell.
00:00:54.719 --> 00:01:05.040
Okay, there's this lady I follow on Twitter, or X, as it's now called, and she makes light of uh modern-day living with kids.
00:01:05.120 --> 00:01:16.000
She's got three kids, she makes podcasts, and she explains how much more difficult things are these days, and how she's always moaning at her kids because they do stuff wrong.
00:01:16.239 --> 00:01:25.359
And uh her parents have told her that you actually did you went through exactly the same thing when you were that age, and she disagrees, she's like, Oh, I was never that bad, you know.
00:01:25.439 --> 00:01:27.120
But anyway, but she's quite funny.
00:01:27.200 --> 00:01:37.840
She's uh I don't think she set out to be a comedian, but she's got such a big following now that she makes these podcasts for all her followers where she goes and takes her kids out for the day.
00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:59.519
She goes to the beach, or she'll go, she'll get get on a train and go into London and go uh to a museum, and she she kind of like highlights just how difficult everything is, and in in in the uh the uh the wish to make things more simple, they've actually made things much more difficult.
00:01:59.760 --> 00:02:15.840
Train tickets, you know, just purchasing three train tickets, you and your three kids, it's got to the point now where you have to each you have to you know uh mm uh make sure you got their ages and they ask for confirmation of their ages and everything like that.
00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:21.840
And you know, back in the old days you just jump on a train and buy four tickets, and now she's saying it's you know it's just crazy.
00:02:22.159 --> 00:02:23.280
You want the ins and the outside.
00:02:23.520 --> 00:02:32.800
The ins and the outs of dates of birth, or you know, if your kids up near to the age of 14 where they have to pay an adult ticket, you have to prove the kids under 14, stuff like that.
00:02:33.039 --> 00:02:40.800
So do you think there's a big difference between the generation that preceded you, us, and the one that came after us?
00:02:41.280 --> 00:02:42.400
Well, me personally.
00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:43.199
Yeah.
00:02:43.439 --> 00:02:54.879
Um well I think we always look back with rose-tinted specks, and I always say that the 60s and 70s were the best times, but Right, but what I'm talking about is your parents, right?
00:02:55.120 --> 00:03:00.639
So that generation, do you think they were vastly different from our generation?
00:03:00.800 --> 00:03:04.800
And is the current generation that different from our generation?
00:03:05.360 --> 00:03:09.360
I don't know, I don't really know because I can't take myself back.
00:03:09.599 --> 00:03:19.840
And um uh I think I think today uh the the the modern world is taking over and it's a lot more difficult for kids actually growing up.
00:03:20.560 --> 00:03:25.840
Well, it's interesting because the whole kids these days is is about two and a half thousand years old.
00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:31.520
Researchers have traced complaints about declining youth back to at least 624 BC.
00:03:32.159 --> 00:03:34.719
Um yeah, the themes are remarkably similar.
00:03:34.879 --> 00:03:39.840
Young people are disrespectful, badly behaved, lazy, less intelligent, don't respect authority.
00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:49.199
These are things that I heard as a kid about this generation, about my generation, and these are things that I hear people say about today's generation.
00:03:49.680 --> 00:04:08.479
So is it that I do know that there are definitely some differences with generations because they put them in these different cohorts, for example, baby boomers, and technically you and I fit in that category, but I don't feel the same way as somebody who was born in 1945.
00:04:08.800 --> 00:04:13.039
What I grew up with and they grew up with is is very, very different.
00:04:13.199 --> 00:04:27.120
And in fact, there's a separate generational cohort called uh the Generation Jones, which is born people born in the early 60s, so between like 60 and 64, because there's a catch group of people.
00:04:28.079 --> 00:04:29.279
So there's a group within a group?
00:04:29.519 --> 00:04:33.040
There's a group within a group because it went baby boomers, then Gen X.
00:04:33.199 --> 00:04:45.680
So I often feel more like a Gen X than I do a baby boomer, but uh uh but so if you happen to be born on the 31st of December 1964, you're baby boomer.
00:04:45.759 --> 00:04:49.839
And if you if you're born a day later, on the first of January, you're Gen X.
00:04:50.240 --> 00:04:52.560
Only because you have to draw a line somewhere.
00:04:53.040 --> 00:04:53.199
Okay.
00:04:53.519 --> 00:04:53.839
Right.
00:04:54.079 --> 00:05:03.839
But it it's it's really what you grow up with because we were at the we weren't slap bang in the middle of a generational cohort, we were towards the end of it, and that's the challenges.
00:05:04.319 --> 00:05:12.959
But what we've uh talked about is that genuinely childhood has changed, especially since since we were kids.
00:05:13.199 --> 00:05:24.720
Um we were talking about this the other days that we used to go out and play, and there was no um no parents saying to us, Oh, you've got to report in every five minutes.
00:05:24.879 --> 00:05:27.839
It was go and get lost until it gets dark, basically.
00:05:28.240 --> 00:05:30.399
I thought I misunderstood what you said meant.
00:05:30.480 --> 00:05:34.800
I thought you meant have the kids changed, the the society's changed definitely.
00:05:35.120 --> 00:05:38.800
Well, but that's they're they're two different sides of the same coin.
00:05:39.120 --> 00:05:43.040
Because uh are children being born any different?
00:05:43.199 --> 00:05:46.319
Well, no, they're not, but it's what's they're surrounded by.
00:05:46.480 --> 00:05:49.600
It's the environment because babies being born are the same.
00:05:49.839 --> 00:05:50.160
Yeah.
00:05:50.319 --> 00:05:50.560
Right?
00:05:50.639 --> 00:05:54.319
They they all cry, they all shit, they all do what babies do.
00:05:54.560 --> 00:06:03.680
They've all got little personalities, and then we all develop according to our environment, so it's a bit of nature nurture, but our environment's very different.
00:06:03.839 --> 00:06:07.839
Like your daughter doesn't know what it was like to grow up in the 70s.
00:06:08.160 --> 00:06:11.839
Well, 60s for me, yeah, but 60s and 70s, right?
00:06:12.160 --> 00:06:13.680
Because she wasn't a kid then.
00:06:13.839 --> 00:06:18.319
Yeah, I I actually told her some stories of what I did when I was a kid, and she couldn't believe it.
00:06:18.560 --> 00:06:26.480
I told her about the Red Rover ticket, uh, me and a mate Anthony Stone, one of my old pals, um, from Norman Man of Boys.
00:06:26.639 --> 00:06:30.560
He actually moved to Australia when he was about 10, so I didn't ever see him again.
00:06:30.720 --> 00:06:35.680
But we used to go out and buy a Red Rover ticket, and that is basically an all-day ticket.
00:06:35.759 --> 00:06:51.120
You can jump on and off any bus in the London network, and we used to go to all these far-off places that we never even heard of, and uh uh just jump on a bus, jump off when you liked, and uh there was no restrictions on travel at all.
00:06:51.360 --> 00:06:55.600
So we got to see the whole of London, you know, pretty much before we were teenagers.
00:06:55.920 --> 00:07:04.160
So imagine that you're back in London today and you see two little boys your age on the tubes, tube way, tube way.
00:07:04.560 --> 00:07:06.000
No, it was only the bus network.
00:07:06.399 --> 00:07:07.360
Right, bus network, yeah.
00:07:07.519 --> 00:07:09.040
But you see two little guys.
00:07:10.639 --> 00:07:11.439
What would you think these days?
00:07:11.839 --> 00:07:15.120
You think you'd be a bit worried, bit concerned for them, yeah.
00:07:15.439 --> 00:07:31.040
Well well, uh and other things that have changed since we were since we were kids, of course, that we used to do, and I don't think that there are proportionately any more deranged people today than there were back when we were kids.
00:07:31.439 --> 00:07:33.279
It's just that it's highlighted more, yeah.
00:07:33.519 --> 00:07:38.399
Yeah, but we are now more aware of them, so we're more aware of the things that go wrong.
00:07:38.560 --> 00:07:47.839
Because I remember when I was a kid being being chased by a guy, but it me and my friends, but we didn't really make a big deal of it.
00:07:47.920 --> 00:07:58.879
Now, I'm not saying that's good or not, I'm just saying that's at the time, it's like if you fell off your bike, be oh, you know, don't come running to me if you broke your leg.
00:08:00.160 --> 00:08:06.959
Your your parents were more and stick stick a plaster on you, a band-aid on you, get you to drink some leukasaid.
00:08:07.120 --> 00:08:08.959
That was their answer to everything if you were sick.
00:08:09.120 --> 00:08:09.519
Yeah.
00:08:09.759 --> 00:08:14.079
So And they'd allow us out all day, like in the long summer holidays.
00:08:14.319 --> 00:08:14.639
Yeah.
00:08:14.800 --> 00:08:18.160
Uh we had like seven weeks off in the summer in London.
00:08:18.480 --> 00:08:22.079
And basically my mum used to say, you know, go down the park.
00:08:22.160 --> 00:08:23.360
We haven't got any, there's no money.
00:08:23.439 --> 00:08:25.120
There was never any money to do anything.
00:08:25.360 --> 00:08:30.480
So you had to go and find someone who had a football, go down the park and kick a ball around all day.
00:08:30.879 --> 00:08:35.120
Well, what's interesting about that is um, and we've talked about this before.
00:08:35.200 --> 00:08:44.799
When we go to horse shows, one of the things, I mean, I'm not a big fan of of children anyway, they're just small people and they annoy me, just like proper sized people do.
00:08:45.039 --> 00:08:55.919
There's nice kids and there's some not nice kids, but when you go to a horse show, you see kids actually interacting with animals, doing stuff, yeah, being responsible, taking a kid.
00:08:56.240 --> 00:08:57.679
Marking out stalls and stuff like that.
00:08:57.919 --> 00:09:04.000
Yeah, things that we things that we would have done as kids because we had to use our imaginations more.
00:09:04.480 --> 00:09:11.600
Whereas these days you get a lot of kids with our faces glued to computer screens and phones all the time.
00:09:11.919 --> 00:09:19.120
I wonder whether they've lost the ability to be creative based on having nothing to do.
00:09:19.519 --> 00:09:29.200
Because I was seldom bored as a kid, but our enjoyment, our fun wasn't given to us, we had to create it for ourselves.
00:09:29.360 --> 00:09:29.759
Yeah.
00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:34.879
Whereas there seems to be a load more organized activities.
00:09:35.279 --> 00:09:44.159
Children's time is scheduled and managed from you're gonna be do this between this time and this time, and this day it's hockey, this day soccer.
00:09:44.480 --> 00:09:45.600
It's all organised now, isn't it?
00:09:45.759 --> 00:09:51.840
It seems to be more organized, and and I'm not close enough to any children for good reason.
00:09:52.320 --> 00:09:53.360
I scare them.
00:09:53.840 --> 00:09:55.840
No, I don't, um, they scare me.
00:09:56.080 --> 00:09:57.679
I wouldn't actually know.
00:09:57.840 --> 00:10:00.639
I don't I've got I don't know how to communicate with kids.
00:10:00.720 --> 00:10:04.879
I was once talking to a five-year-old and I said, Did you have you ever had a migraine?
00:10:06.320 --> 00:10:06.799
Like, what?
00:10:06.879 --> 00:10:08.879
I said, okay, have you ever had a headache?
00:10:08.960 --> 00:10:11.919
And the kid I couldn't communicate with this kid at all.
00:10:12.080 --> 00:10:15.919
So it's best that I'm not not left alone with children.
00:10:16.399 --> 00:10:23.279
I think to to show you where we're at at the moment is to recognise that the punishment for kids these days is they take their phone away.
00:10:23.360 --> 00:10:27.679
They say to the kid, if you don't behave, you know, I'm gonna take your phone away.
00:10:27.840 --> 00:10:33.840
Whereas when we were kids, it was where you're not gonna go out and play, you can you're not gonna be allowed out this weekend.
00:10:34.080 --> 00:10:34.559
Right.
00:10:34.799 --> 00:10:36.240
So, you know, that's where we're at.
00:10:36.320 --> 00:10:38.240
The kids are on their phones all the time.
00:10:38.480 --> 00:10:41.600
Yeah, we sound like a real couple of old fogies here, you know.
00:10:42.080 --> 00:10:48.080
We we basically are, but we're doing exactly what every generation does, which is complaining about the ones come behind it.
00:10:48.720 --> 00:10:52.320
So and every generation gets attacked from both directions.
00:10:52.399 --> 00:10:58.639
When you're young, old people don't understand us, and then we get to young people don't understand how the world works.
00:10:58.720 --> 00:11:00.720
So you go through this transition.
00:11:01.120 --> 00:11:04.799
Meanwhile, you know, the generation above us thinks that we ruined everything.
00:11:05.039 --> 00:11:08.960
So you see a lot of posts these days talking about how the boomers have ruined everything.
00:11:09.279 --> 00:11:20.080
Reality, of course, is they didn't, but it is true to say uh that it was easier for us to get on the property market ladder than it is today.
00:11:20.399 --> 00:11:22.559
Yeah, but you'll always have periods of time like that.
00:11:22.960 --> 00:11:26.080
You will, but that the disparity has got way bigger today.
00:11:26.320 --> 00:11:26.960
Yeah, I agree.
00:11:27.600 --> 00:11:37.519
Each generation is born with a different set of circumstances, like those kids that were born or going to school at that pivotal time during COVID.
00:11:37.840 --> 00:11:43.360
You know, from 2020 till 2022 when the world was pretty much in lockdown.
00:11:43.600 --> 00:11:52.080
So kids who are at that developmental age, what are they gonna be like when they are adults and and running businesses?
00:11:52.879 --> 00:11:53.200
Yeah.
00:11:53.519 --> 00:11:56.159
And I'm not expecting you to have the particular answer.
00:11:56.639 --> 00:11:59.840
Difficult time for everybody though, really, because even the parents suffered.
00:11:59.919 --> 00:12:04.320
Because what do you do if you got two or three kids and you live in an apartment block?
00:12:04.559 --> 00:12:05.440
What are you gonna do?
00:12:05.600 --> 00:12:06.480
You weren't allowed out.
00:12:06.799 --> 00:12:09.519
Well, yeah, I mean, that would have been uh awful.
00:12:09.600 --> 00:12:11.919
Um that's one of the things we talk about as well.
00:12:12.080 --> 00:12:20.159
As we've got older, our desire to live um surrounded by lots of people uh in built-up housing has diminished.
00:12:20.799 --> 00:12:30.080
So, yeah, those people who are stuck who were stuck in flats and apartments with kids, that must have been absolutely awful for them to deal with.
00:12:30.399 --> 00:12:42.720
Difference is though, adults, because we've got the knowledge and the memory of being children without the restrictions, so we we've got something to go back to, but those kids haven't got that knowledge base yet.
00:12:44.000 --> 00:13:05.759
So I think ultimately the reality is that children are born not vastly different to begin with, it's what happens after you're born where everything changes, and that can be the economic situation that you're in, you know, things like wars, etc., the rapid change of the business world and the world in general with AI, etc.
00:13:06.320 --> 00:13:13.360
You know, by the time if your daughter ever has kids, she'll probably be s complaining about that generation too.
00:13:13.679 --> 00:13:22.720
One thing I did notice actually locally in Dunville was um the uh soccer school got cancelled twice this year already because it was too hot.
00:13:23.360 --> 00:13:28.399
I'm not being funny, but you should not be cancelling a sporting event because it's too hot.
00:13:28.879 --> 00:13:34.559
Well, so maybe you would have to it's a very different perspective, but things like corporal punishment.
00:13:37.679 --> 00:13:39.679
Well, that there there could be an aspect of that.
00:13:39.840 --> 00:13:51.840
There is if it's dangerously hot, um it it but if it's just well it's a bit too warm, then you're not teaching them how to manage themselves in those scenarios either.
00:13:52.399 --> 00:14:12.960
I can understand like in the in the winter time when it's too cold and you can't actually physically get the uh school buses out of the parking lot or whatever, but I mean to to you know it tw twice in the last three weeks, I think it's happened on on the on the day that it was supposed to take place, they said, Oh, we're gonna cancel it, it's a little bit too hot.
00:14:13.600 --> 00:14:16.240
Well, we've been waffling on quite a bit now.
00:14:16.720 --> 00:14:18.639
So a couple of old fogies, don't we?
00:14:18.960 --> 00:14:19.840
I think that's because we are.
00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:20.720
We have to face it.
00:14:20.799 --> 00:14:27.519
Uh so if a generation comes to that end, they always end up old fogies if they are privileged enough to live that long.
00:14:27.679 --> 00:14:34.480
So my brutally honest takeaway of the week is I don't really think that people look all that different how they start out.
00:14:35.120 --> 00:14:43.919
I think it's what happens to us after we're born, influenced by our environment, the people around us, that shapes how we learn to live our lives.
00:14:44.159 --> 00:14:44.799
Yeah.
00:14:45.519 --> 00:14:53.840
Well, my take is just brief again, just you know, it's our turn to hand the baton over to the younger people and let them have a crack at it.
00:14:53.919 --> 00:14:56.320
I mean, we ain't done we haven't done too bad.
00:14:56.960 --> 00:14:57.840
But they might disagree.
00:14:58.240 --> 00:15:00.720
They might disagree, but I mean, you know.
00:15:01.279 --> 00:15:09.360
Well, each generation does what it can, and and we're we're quite a bit past our best, I think, in many ways, apart from knowledge and experience.
00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:10.799
We can't take that away.
00:15:10.960 --> 00:15:13.039
Anyway, it is good night from me.
00:15:13.279 --> 00:15:14.480
And it's good night for me.
00:15:14.639 --> 00:15:20.320
And I forgot to say you forgot to mention the Isle of Sound, thoughtfully produced by the Isle of Sound.
00:15:20.399 --> 00:15:21.840
So it is good night from both of us.
00:15:21.919 --> 00:15:22.240
Good night.
00:15:22.480 --> 00:15:23.679
And Chris, our producer.
00:15:23.919 --> 00:15:24.639
Good night.
00:15:24.879 --> 00:15:26.000
Good night.