I personally cringe when I hear a friend js having a kid. All I can think of is how bad theyre going to have it. Hell id definitely have been better off being born 20 years earlier, but these new kids are REALLY screwed unless they have super rich parents.
“Nothing new under the sun” I suppose!
Every single generation talks about how good it was when they were young. This generation will ultimately be no different. And as a parent, I am doing whatever I can to ensure my kids are happy.
On top of that, you can’t miss what you never had. Humans are adaptable and resilient, and kids’ imaginations are unstoppable, and my own kids, despite the constant intrusion of digital dopamine, still love to build forts, and play with Lego, and dolls, and just run around being goofballs.
Just gotta hang on.
Sorry did I miss a decade? My youth consisted of hanging chads -> 9/11 -> The War on Oil -> 2008 financial crisis -> the death of Hope via congressional fuckery -> Trump. When were things good…? I had hope for universal healthcare with Obama and hope for Bernie before Trump 1.0 but now I’m not sure what to look forward to. That said; can’t stop won’t stop.
I honestly and truly hope you and yours remain healthy and happy. I don’t begrudge you that or wish you ill. But I haven’t seen good times and at this point don’t really expect to.
Yeah I was 14 for 9/11, for frame of reference. I’m somehow able to look back at the last 25 years or so and glean some positivity from it, because I’m unwilling to burden myself with global problems. And that doesn’t mean they’re not issues I’m interested in and care about, but I try to comparmentalize my life. I don’t bring work home and I sure as shit don’t bring politics to bed with me. I spend time with my friends, and now I have a family of my own, and we make memories, and we create glour own good times.
I just feel like it’s useless to base my life on these big problems. I am not 9/11, though I live in Jersey and know many who were affected. I’m not the wars in Iraq, though I served and know people who came home unwhole or not at all. Even though shit is bleak, I’m not going to allow it soil my life, because then I become bleak, and then what’s the point.
So yeah, I can’t stop trying to positivity in my life, and I won’t stop, because then I’m fucked.
And so I’ve said it many times here and on Reddit, that my fights are local. In my town, and county, and State (not that big) are the things that I can personally get involved in and see the fruits of my labor.