I'm over 40 and I went through all the same stuff. Also, I remember a time when there was no cable TV. In Canada we had 3 channels and one of them was French! Also, no computers games. We played Monopoly and Operation and we liked it! You did have to wait all week for 4 hours of cartoons on Saturday and one hour of Walt Disney on Sunday. No VCRs to record anything, no Walkman to carry your music with you. We had 8 tracks and record players.

We wrote letters and postcards and had to actually got to a store and buy a gift or call Sears and order something. No Amazon.com in those days. A bookstore wasn't a place where you sat and drank overpriced coffee.

We played baseball in summer, hockey in winter, built cabins in the woods, tried to find ways to sneak our parents booze and cigarettes, and trying to get money to get booze or to borrow someone's car to go on a date on a Friday night was like planning the Normandy Invasion.

A camera had film and flashbulbs and you took it to a shop and had to wait a few days and later only one hour to see your pictures. Unless you had an instant camera, which was like a miracle the first time I saw one when I was about 8 years old. Going to Macdonald's was a once or twice a year treat, a movie maybe four times a year. You saw all new movies in a theater not on the Internet or a pirated DVD. I saw Star Wars before it was popular and you couldn't get a ticket. I didn't understand Close Encounters or Blade Runner until years after I saw them the first time.

And that's my rant! Oh, but I do love all the modern technology. Hell, I'm using it right now.

I don't look down upon the younger generation because they have things that I don't. I look down upon them because of things that I had that THEY don't.

(NOTE: The below is a generalisation and of course will have some exceptions.)

A good example is a lack of education. Today they basically get a free ride constantly told how awesome they are. This produces self-entitled functionally retarded students. This is regardless of how much they actually study as even those that had parents that forced 24/7 study hours on them, don't actually learn things. To them, memorising is "learning."

Another example is lack of independence. They'll complain and talk about how much of an individual they are, but that's a bunch of crap. When I see parents walking around with there kid(s) at University, figuring things out for them, buying books for them, it's just sad. When I went to University my parents thrusted that upon me and I was embarrassed of it and all those around me clearly felt for me having to go through that. But, every kid that I see doing this, doesn't appear to think that it is even remotely out of the ordinary. Similarly for parents coffering there kids around when ever and where ever they want.

They also have little to no work ethic. In fact, a couple years ago this was talked about in magazines. As in, the employers are actually considering putting in the job advertisements, "we expect you to work your entire shift." Because, the younger generation thinks that going to work is getting paid and doing work when not talking amongst themselves.


The younger generation will be lost when they actually have to fend for themselves. What will they do when mommy and/or daddy can't be there at there job to defend them. Well, we know the answer to that question because it's already happening. Work becomes like paid high-school.

As part of the generation closer to ecgordon, I feel for you since I've already lived through this realization for several generations. And having parents that were children during the Depression and grandparents that somehow remained employed during said Depression, I can only say that simpler pleasures can have a much greater reward than many people alive today can comprehend. And I'm glad I bothered to listen to a lot of practical advice from my elders even though I thought them hopelessly out of date. The more things change, the more they remain the same. That's human nature.

Should I tell you how you wouldn't have made it in 1957?

Not only no internet, no computers, no video games, no cable whatsoever. Only three channels on tv, so we ended up watching crap that today I would be embarrassed to admit I watched.

Damn, you kids from the 80s had it so easy.