"We had a way harder life than you!"

[the clockmaker]

I think a lot of the time, not all of the time mind, it comes from the parents trying to instill a sense of perspective. For example, when I was growing up, we were poor. Not, I am concerned about my financial security poor, not I may not be able to go to uni or get a new Iphone poor, we were scrounging for shrapnel at the back of the couch to pay the bills before the power was cut, my parents were ( I found out recently) skipping meals because they could afford to feed themselves or us kids, not both. But, as my father is very fond of saying, we always had a roof over our head and we (the kids) always had food on the table. My father, when he was growing up, had none of this, having grown up in a boys home and never owning anything for himself.

My family is well off now, most of us (including myself) have moved out and we are all doing well, but the other day my sister (my older sister btw) started complaining about how my father was canceling her Austar and demanding that she pay for her own internet. SHe gets massively angry whenever someone challanges her view of what she deserves. This leads not only to my father telling her that 'I had it much harder' but 'we all had it much harder' just to try and get her to appriciate how good she has it.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Yeah pretty much from my parent well I can understand from their point of view.
I kind of agree with this generation seeing how my childhood was before the internet was born. So doing homework I had to go to the library or using encyclopedia as oppose to these day you can just look it up on the internet.

 

[Kargathia]

Actually... I've never heard that.

I did, however, have the advantage of a mother who pulled stupider shit in her youth than I ever will. Being able to remind your parents that compared to them you're still a beacon of virtue is a great boon.

 

[FamoFunk]

I agree that they did have it harder, they had nowhere near all the luxuries we get nowadays and did have to work harder to achieve things.

But that doesn't need the can be a bit compassionate towards certain things, like you struggling in school and such.

 

[Starik20X6]

I never get this from my elders, in fact they talk about how much easier they had it! One of my exes was like this though. No matter how shitty my day had been, she'd always have to one-up me. "You failed a test? I failed my whole course." "Your friend was being an asshole? All my friends are assholes." "Your aunt has cancer? I know someone who died from cancer." So glad that's over.

 

[Sporadic]

Haha I think everyone has gone through this speel before.

 

[Shivarage]

I completely agree. Problem is, some, including my parents, are one of those "If you get lower then an A+ you won't get anywhere in life, and plus, don't be so proud of your marks because your school is shit" type.

This is the flaw in education... there HAS to be a loser even if they are still absolutely brilliant

A qualification where 10/10 people get A+ is literally worthless

 

[Griffolion]

Have you ever heard this from your parents when you were growing up? Maybe when you did bad at something, like school, and you tell them that you tried your best, but they come up with some snappy response like "You ONLY studied for 5 hours for ONE test. I had to memorize the entire textbook, and they were twice as thick back then!"

Is the statement really true though? Is "Our current life" easier than what it was back then? Or is it actually harder, and they're just trying to push us? Sure, we have way more/better technology than back then, but is that really a positive point? Or does it just make things more complex?

What do you guys think? Did we have it better back then, or do we have it better now, even though there are way more options in our life?

I was once in a discussion like this with my grandma, she's a great woman, of the WW2 generation. I'm sure many of you guys have/had grandparents of the same generation. And she said to me with great conviction, "Andy, if I was asked if I wanted to be young in this generation, I would always say no.".

She went on to explain that while they lived in lower working class means and never really had many luxuries, the sense of community among neighbors, ability to walk down a dark alley without feeling fear of getting mugged or raped, and generally how "uncomplicated" things were back then compared to how they are now, made all the difference to her.

I guess this generation, while living in a time when human kind has never been so advanced, with all our luxuries surrounding us, we have our own problems to face that simply didn't exist back then. I must admit that at least with where I live and have lived, the sense of "community" among neighbors simply doesn't exist. In the house I lived previous to my current one, it was in a Cul-De-Sac among 10 other houses in the immediate vicinity. I would go as far to say that in the 10 years I lived there, we never even spoke to 6 of them and were only friends with 2 of the houses.

I guess each generation will have it's own problems to face that weren't the problems the previous generations even knew about or conceptualise.

 

[Mayhaps]

Have you ever heard this from your parents when you were growing up? Maybe when you did bad at something, like school, and you tell them that you tried your best, but they come up with some snappy response like "You ONLY studied for 5 hours for ONE test. I had to memorize the entire textbook, and they were twice as thick back then!"

Is the statement really true though? Is "Our current life" easier than what it was back then? Or is it actually harder, and they're just trying to push us? Sure, we have way more/better technology than back then, but is that really a positive point? Or does it just make things more complex?

What do you guys think? Did we have it better back then, or do we have it better now, even though there are way more options in our life?

Spoiler: basically this

How they lived their lives is not really relevant to the way you perceive yours, just as much as they don't care how their parents lived, they might say 'my father had to walk 292929 miles to school every day' but really, it doesn't cross their mind when they're sitting in their car driving to their job, being pissed because they are behind an old lady driving 2 mph below the speed-limit.
We don't do all we can do, no one I know "lives up to their potential".

Concerning your test, I never studied very hard, mostly not at all outside scheduled classes. I had a friend who studied super-hard and got the highest grade in every course. Now he's burnt out and working at a kindergarten and I'm studying at the most prestigious science-related Uni in my country.

You shouldn't feel bad about the way you live your life as long as you don't hurt anybody else.

 

[Raven's Nest]

Forgot to mention I live in America. To top it off I live in Michigan one of the worst unemployment states (and near Flint, the shittiest city in America). My parents and all their friends admit how much easier they had it back in the day. Also when you say education is better I'll ask how, it's better we learn more things but it's also more stressful.

I can only really speak for the UK but year on year more kids achieve better exam grades. They have more choice than ever when it comes to choosing subjects to study, especially at university. University students now come from a wider range of backgrounds than ever before. Opportunities are bought and paid for the poorest students to ensure they too have the ability to study at the highest levels thus breaking the cycle of poverty among working class families (that's the hope anyway).

Britain's education standard as a whole is very good, it's one of the things adults would first admit that is better for kids today.

Meanwhile in America you are struggling to have evolution taught in every school... So I can see why you'd be surprised.

Saying kids are more stressed out about school is probably true, because they probably have much less to be stressed about outside of school. Kids are under pressure to do well for sure. Just be glad you don't live in Japan where the levels of stress and anxiety surrounding education are off the chart.

 

[CapitalistPig]

Thats a relative question, but academically, our generation has it pretty hard in college. I'd say in general if you put a PHD student from the day they graduated in 63' as compared to an undergrad college student today the undergrad would be the PHD's boss. Its interesting because colleges are so proud at how great the students do and so they increase the workload but one thing I'm very certain they don't consider is upwards of 60% of U.S college students supplement their academic life with drugs. For instance many students take Adderal either just for cramming or on a regiment in order to study for their classes. I think this creates a false performance level that can't be sustained. Students like me who actually study chemistry and pharmacology and wouldn't take these drugs for the adverse reasons or just dedicated students, feel the backlash of over work from classes and wonder how everyone else sustains. Then we watch them pop pills and realize its all some facade. Its quite discouraging.

It also doesn't help that those pretentious people who are so quick to judge how much harder their lives are then ours are our PROFESSORS. Needless to say, the "uphill both ways" crowd can kiss my ass when it comes to their hard college lives in 1968.

 

[Ickorus]

School is easier but it's ease makes everything else harder, they teach kids to pass tests these days rather than give them the actual knowledge and let the tests come naturally.

This means students leave school or college and go into work not actually knowing much on the subject they're applying for jobs for.

I speak from experience, most of the knowledge in IT that I have is self-taught, not from the 4 years of IT courses I did at college.

 

[MetalMagpie]

I used to get this from my Welsh grandparents (not in an angry way, just in an informational way). But since they were talking about being teenagers during WW2, I believe them!

My parents generally say they had less money when they were my age (early twenties) but that finding a job was actually easier. Just having a degree was enough. Now almost everyone has them, so it takes more to stick out from the crowd. They do think exams have got easier, but since expectations have got higher to match, that doesn't actually mean anything.

 

[Latinidiot]

Everyone has their troubles, because standards change with time, and that is not something you can blame a child for. For example the problems of my generation? From the age of 10, I have been told that with every light i switch on, I destroy our planet.

This is a scaredy age, where every possible threat is taken measured out immensly, and then immediately fed to the public in horrifying hyperbole.

shit aint easy, but it never is, and that's the point. at least I have never had to worry about food.

 

[RubyT]

Cold War (actual possibility of Apocalypse).

We're more likely to get nuked to oblivion now than we were then. MAD kept Russia and America from firing. MAD isn't going to work against a nation run by people who believe dying in battle is a good result and who genuinely hate our very existence.

If certain nations, which are trying their hardest, manage to acquire ICBMs, we will be closer to Armageddon than we ever were during the cold war.

If you believe that there are whole nations of suicidal people out there, you gotta stop with the Fox News consumption.

The people in power, the ones with the finger on the trigger, from Saddam to King Jong Il, from King Jong Un to Ayatollah Khamenei - all those people labeled crazy by Western propaganda are actually rational, cold-blooded arseholes. NONE of them wants to die prematurely. ALL of them know that firing a nuclear missile will achieve just that.

Even China has nowhere near the nuclear arsenal for the threat of mutual assured destruction, India and Pakistan have a handful or warheads but no ICBM capabilities at all, North Korea has even less warheads and the last missile they tried to demonstrate that was rumored to reach Alaska at best crashed into the sea.
Iran is even behind that.

The countries labeled "rogue states" are trying to get nukes because that greatly decreases the likelihood of US invasion. Not because any of them could reach US soil, but they usually have neighbours (Israel, South Korea, Japan) that are getting nervous and so pressure the US into diplomatic strategies.

MAD was horrible. Because the SU and the USA had the capabilities to wipe out the other side in the first strike, both sides had mechanisms in place that would engage Apocalypse mode if signs of that first strike were detected.
At least once, it is documented that the Soviet mechanism detected a full first strike by the USA and it was reportedly one guy who kept his cool and prevented the end of days.

The only country that can currently blow anybody into oblivion with their nukes is the US.

I believe that exposure to hyperbolic 24-hour-"news"-networks and Internet discussion forums that tend to be cynical at best has turned the post cold war generation into a bunch of over-anxious doomsayers.
I can only imagine what would have happend if Fox News and online forums had been around for the Cuban missile Crisis.

 

[Elgnirp100]

My mum tells me this occasionally. I tell her that she never had to deal with depression. I know that this doesn't apply to everyone but its my experience with this topic.

 

[Agayek]

Have you ever heard this from your parents when you were growing up? Maybe when you did bad at something, like school, and you tell them that you tried your best, but they come up with some snappy response like "You ONLY studied for 5 hours for ONE test. I had to memorize the entire textbook, and they were twice as thick back then!"

Is the statement really true though? Is "Our current life" easier than what it was back then? Or is it actually harder, and they're just trying to push us? Sure, we have way more/better technology than back then, but is that really a positive point? Or does it just make things more complex?

What do you guys think? Did we have it better back then, or do we have it better now, even though there are way more options in our life?

Every generation in Western culture since the 1200s has had an easier life than their parents. Scientific advancement does wonders for that.

Now, that's not to say that each generation hasn't had their problems, or that these problems are insignificant, simply that when restricted to simply living, our lives are much easier than our parents, as their lives were/are easier than their parents' and so on. The actual distinction between two generations is actually the most pronounced in all of human history with the gap between Gen X and their kids. Technology is advancing at such a rapid pace that the lives of each are hugely different.

 

[Username Redacted]

I've had a few "we had it harder than you" conversations with my parents to which I politely remind them that they should be nice to me because I'm their tech support and because it was their generation that ruined the economy in 2008 which has had, as one of its main effects, the effect of making things incredibly difficult for my generation.