Generation RANT

A tweet I saw today (04/03/20):

“Young people are so privileged” says member of generation

that bought up all the houses on the cheap and got free uni education

and loads of free shit and voted to remove young people’s rights

and opportunities and burnt up the planet so young people are screwed.

I disagree with this on so many levels. Buckle yourselves in - RANT AHOY!

Generations 101:
LOST GENERATION born 1883-1900 (currently dead)
GREATEST GENERATION born 1901-1927 (currently 93+)
SILENT GENERATION born 1928-1945 (currently 75-92)
BABY BOOMERS born 1946-1964 (currently 56-74)
GEN X born 1965-1980* (currently 40-55)
MILLENNIALS born 1981-1996* (currently 24-39)
GEN Z born 1997-2010* (currently 10-23)
ALPHA GENERATION born 2011 or after (currently 9 and under)
* dates disputed

For the record my parents are Silent Generation (1942 & 1944) I'm Gen X (1978) my eldest is a Millennial (1996) and my youngest is Gen Z (1999)

Disclaimer: this rant is from a British perspective - I am well aware that the generations in other nations struggle with entirely different issues.

1) Young people are so privileged
Well, lets see... today's young person usually comes from a smaller, wealthier family than their parents' generation, they have better education, better diets, better health, longer life expectancies... Today's young people have greater legal protections and better working conditions than ever before so, yeah. Privileged. More on this topic to follow.
The theme of younger people blaming the older generation for their woes, and conversely older people bitching about how easy the younger generation has it, are timeless - go look at Aristophanes' The Wasps (circa 446-386 BCE) for a generational conflict over two-thousand years old. There is eff-all unique about this.
It is basic, timeless human nature: parents always think their kids have it easy (and in many ways they do) and kids always think their parents fucked it all up (and in many ways they did) - each generation has different difficulties and challenges, that is the way of the world. One day you will be the older generation and to blame for every complaint the current youth have.

2) says member of generation
Right, can I just stop you right there. Being a member of a particular generation does not automatically follow that you have lived a life with any particular privileges. 
My generation largely grew up in the thriving 90s - boom years for many but especially hard on those of us who were welfare dependent - no food banks in those days! (And let's just mention here that the supposedly blessed Silent / Boomer generations had to deal with dig for victory and rationing!) 
From that perspective today's youth ARE privileged because so much is available, and not just in terms of food. In my youth if you wanted to know a thing it was hours of research at the library IF your parents let you go, now immense amounts of information are just a click away and accessible everywhere... so long as you have the tech, which not everyone can afford.
'Available' is a loaded word because whilst it might be present not everyone has it. Not every household in the '60s had indoor plumbing, not every household in the '80s had a phone, and here I am in 2020 still sans automobile. Don't assume the two are synonymous.

3) that bought up all the houses on the cheap
Yes, houses were cheaper in the past and even allowing for lower wages and so on have you SEEN what interest rates were like in the 80s and 90s?! Also, if they hadn't bought those houses what would you be living in? If your landlord hadn't bought that property for you to rent would you expect it to still be sitting there, in livable condition, at a 1970s price?! If people HADN'T invested in property there'd be a lot of people living in squats and a lot of those homes would be rotting shells.
Seriously though, if people hadn't bought property in the past where would the youth of today be? I have a roof over my head because my parents invested in property, my daughter works in property rentals, my youngest is renting in an investment property at uni.
And here comes another privileged generation comment: back when your parents or grandparents or landlords bought their house or investment properties (dependent on specific dates, obviously) here are some of the other things they may have been contending with: 

• No minimum wage
• No statutory sick pay
• No maternity paid leave and for many older gen women they were actively excluded from the workplace after having a child

That oh so 'lucky' older generation usually had a sole (male) breadwinner paying 15% interest on a mortgage and heaven help him if he got sick or laid off. Women didn't have it any better being expected to stay at home... suffering from financial dependence, thwarted aspirations and worse if the marriage was unhappy. There weren't the refuges and help against domestic abuse like there are today and marital rape wasn't even outlawed until 1991! Now OBVIOUSLY not all domestic violence / rape victims are women but given that almost all the currently available support is geared to female victims the point is negligible. A woman had little choice but to stay because although divorce has been available (there's that word again!) for generations it is fairly meaningless if one party has no where to go and minimal means of supporting themselves.
The younger generation has minimum wage and sick pay and maternity pay and civil partnership and rights for co-habiting partners and work welfare and maximum working hours etc etc etc precisely because of the shit your grand/parents endured. Debt might be higher now but there's far better terms and conditions.

4) and got free uni education
FFS GO LOOK UP UNIVERSITY TAKE UP RATES. Just 4% in the early 60s (when my parents were 18-ish and working rather than studying) according to this source:
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jun/24/has-university-life-changed-student-experience-past-present-parents-vox-pops
It might have been 'free' but very few got the chance. And then Labour fought against the state footing the bill because university was seen as privileged, elitist, intensely Tory... 
My kids have spiralling uni debt but they wanted degrees and understood the concept that if you want it you have to pay for it.

5) and loads of free shit
What on earth are you talking about now?! My parents never got anything handed to them. Neither did I.
My dad left school at 15 with no qualifications, worked his arse off in the building trade, got zero support when he got sick in his 50s and lost his job. He paid that 15% interest rate and went without for every damn thing he has.
My mum's parents forced to quit her education after her O-levels because education wasn't valued. She was forced out of work when she was expecting me in the late 70s, she cared for her parents at home until they died in 2000. Tell me, what did she get free? Or that she doesn't deserve what little she has.
I was a teen mum, forced to subsist on welfare because subsidised childcare didn't exist. my youngest attempted suicide after I was forced back to work and she was left home alone. I put myself through 5 1/2 years of uni only to end up living off my mum's pension caring for her full time as a stroke survivor. I am nearly 42 and I haven't even started supporting myself yet. Nor am I ever likely to be able to.
But yeah, sure, all us oldies got handed everything on a plate. Whatever.

6) and voted to remove young people's rights and opportunities
Is this a Brexit comment? I suppose it must be cos it doesn't make any kind of sense.
First up, we never voted into the EU. I thought we voted into the EEC (which was a good idea) but it turns out we joined in 1973, BEFORE the 1975 & 78 referendums (and the youngest person to vote for the EEC would now be 60!). 
The EU came into being in 1993 (although the fate was sealed with the Maastricht Treaty in 1992). This was never a democratic process. And that, for me, is a huge problem. We never voted to give anyone EU "rights and opportunities" so why should we be vilified for voting to leave a situation we the electorate never chose to be a part of? A few alleged perks don't negate the restrictions our nation has suffered.
Freedom of movement has, to a large extent, meant that work hungry migrants (who, I want to make perfectly clear, I have no problem with whatsoever) have been willing to take the jobs so many of our native young people turn their noses up at. I've encountered a fair few barely literate young adults who think that their GCSE grade D in PE entitles them to better than scrubbing toilets for minimum wage. What is it about our society that results in such a shoddy work ethic?!
As most young British people are working in the UK I'm not clear what Brexit is supposedly doing to harm them. People travelled / worked / studied abroad before this, they still do and always will. Not to mention, a lot of people travel / work / study OUTSIDE the EU.
Young people HAVE rights, and opportunities - loads of which are unconnected to the EU. Given the fact that Brexit is the ONLY example of direct democracy in recent British history you could only ever blame GOVERNMENTS, not an electorate, for any other perceived slights to the youth of today... and neither the gov't nor the electorate is all Boomers anyway so you still can't blame a specific demographic! 

7) and burnt up the planet so young people today are screwed
The industrial revolution is where today's environmental woes began and given that dates back to 1820-1840 no fucking way are you blaming that on people born over a century later. 
It was far older generations than mine who were responsible for Bhopal and Chernobyl, my generation has suffered for the actions of previous generations; the kids who died at Aberfan from the coal board's greed would have been Boomers; the smogs of my parents' youth were the fall-out from their great-grandparents. The young people of the past were screwed over too.
But contrary to popular bullshittery we didn't just sit there and take it - the activism of previous generations is WHY there's a growing vegan movement, why there are renewable energies to invest in and electric cars to buy... It was Boomers who were protesting at Greenham Common, Silent Gen behind CND, both for Greenpeace... The oldies were trying to save the bloody planet before the disillusioned youth were conceived! 
Environmental activism isn't a 21st century phenomenon and nor is it mid 20th century people's fault it's not fixed.

But here's what for me at least is the kicker:
The man who tweeted this is actor / comedian / director David Schneider who, according to Wikipedia, was born May 22nd, 1963. Making him a Boomer like the people he's so harshly criticising. He doesn't even seem to have any kids whose futures he is worried for.
He apparently went to an independent boys school and then uni all the way up to doctorate studies. He is exactly the privileged generation he bitches about on social media. Maybe this is his definition of comedy?! I for one am intensely annoyed by incredibly privileged people like this guy spouting outrage about the conditions of a working class they have never been part of.

Complaining about what you can (and probably should) change: a rant from someone who is up shit creek without a paddle

Disclaimer: If that title doesn't tell you that this may not be the most well-balanced of arguments you might try Reading Comprehension 101. This is me, letting off steam that one career path is given a curiously privileged status.

This video is one of a set on the BBC site: "I wanted to crash my car to avoid teaching" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-hampshire-46738445/a-teacher-s-story-eat-sleep-teach-repeat 04 Jan 2019

Other titles include: Why teaching is making me ill (18 Sept 2018), More teachers seek help for stress (03 Sept 2018) and PE teacher left 'sobbing like baby' (17 Sept 2015).

*seething intensifies*

Stress happens in EVERY walk of life. The stresses this teacher talks of are stresses faced 24/7 by many parents - especially lone parents, and even more so homeschooling parents who aren't even getting funding for the materials their kids need, let alone a pay-cheque for doing the job.

You can argue that homeschoolers brought it on themselves but often parents homeschool because traditional schools can't don't or won't meet their kid's needs. I homeschooled my eldest after she'd been effectively excluded from the main body of the school because that was the easier path for them to take than to address the severe bullying she faced daily. I homeschooled my youngest because she was held back a year for being "too smart" to need the stimulation of being in the correct class. I homeschooled because professional teachers failed my kids.

*and breathe*

The point I really want to make is that teachers are well paid, highly qualified individuals with transferable skills. If teaching is so damn stressful change careers! Try being exhausted and stressed in a minimum wage job (7.5 years as a part time cleaner, struggling to keep afloat - 6 months of that homeschooling, another 5.5 years of it putting myself through uni in the hopes of a better future...yeah, that didn't work). Better yet, try being exhausted and stressed in a NO INCOME role such as welfare-dependent single-parent or full-time carer for an elderly & disabled parent. 

This is how I have spent virtually my entire working life. I have virtually no experience, minimal skills, no savings, no pension fund...my degree is just a piece of paper. I don't have the freedom to pursue a better future. If I have a breakdown (as I have before) I don't get 6 months off; I've never even had anti-depressants. Why? The NHS has failed me for 28 years of mental health problems. One ex GP told me in no uncertain terms he didn't care about mental health, I asked for help so many times that the rejections mean I'll never ask again.

My kids already have these problems and my youngest is still at uni. My eldest just quit her retail job cos the stress is too much...fortunately she has qualifications and transferable skills. Curiously, she is thinking of taking up teaching. 

*breathe*

Some people are in especially stressful public service jobs which deserve a bit of extra TLC - emergency services, air traffic control, ER staff, the armed forces... - but teachers? Maybe you've been lucky and had amazing teachers who've nurtured you / your children and done amazing things. My experience, my children's experiences, somewhat different. Some, of course have been good. A few have been very good. Most however, poor. Several, bloody dreadful.

Examples of our own experience include but are not limited to:

• Calling a child a liar in front of the class...because the teacher doesn't believe the kid is going to a particular place on holiday. Or, memorably, because a teacher decided what my cousin's wife's name was!
• Humiliating a kid in front of class for being illegitimate.
• Calling a child a cheat for getting answers right.
• Calling a child stupid for getting answers wrong.
• Deciding a child is a troublemaker because of their height...and then thinking it was okay to tell the parent that!
• Setting a class insane amounts of homework to counter the fact that the teacher just didn't bother teaching the class - literally sitting at the front telling the class to read in silence for the entirety of the lesson.
• Teaching a GCSE class one part of the syllabus only so they all flunked the exams...
• Dropping a GCSE class mid year (and so 'entrusting' their chances to the whims of various supply teachers) because writing a novel is more important than their futures.
• Calling kids names and making up nicknames for one particular child.
• Punishing one kid for the wrongdoings of the entire class.
• Punishing a child for being bullied.

Yes, I am 40 and my kids are 20 (tomorrow) and 23 (next week) so obviously a few of those things happened a good while ago but believe it or not many of those teachers will still be teaching; teachers in their 20s or 30s when I was in my mid teens would now be in their 50s and 60s.

In my years of education I had THREE really good teachers. And I went to four schools. Three. That's not a good proportion at all. Our kids deserve better and we're well aware that our cookie-cutter results-only education system is failing a proportion of kids that is scandalous. This is why I refuse to put teachers, as a whole, on a pedestal. 

*tense pause for glaring*

Teachers do not save lives, they do not put their lives on the line. And the moment Ofsted 'threatens' to hold them accountable for teaching standards they strike! Yes, teaching is an important job but it's also, supposedly, a vocation. What it is not is a life sentence - you can just hand in your notice and go do something else if the mood so takes you.

With this in mind, why is the stress experienced by teachers somehow a special case? Teachers have it easier than ever before with classroom assistants (didn't have those in my younger days), high tech teaching aids, and (generally) far smaller class sizes - an average of 20.4: "...the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) found that the UK had some of the smallest average class sizes in the developed world" (Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-38506305) and the same BBC article - from nearly two years ago - cites a year 9 maths class of 46 students...but when my mum was in primary school in the late 40s, early 50s that could be the size of a single form, not just one lesson, yet somehow teachers complain more than ever about their inability to cope. WHY? In what way is the job really harder and / or more stressful than it was in the past?!

One of the biggest complaints of teachers seems to be that the poor lambs they're struggling with performance targets and reviews...like that's not a nasty feature of most 21st century jobs! For heaven's sake, I worked as a cleaner in a school and it was all regular reviews and performance appraisals! My last job came with a whole bunch of unrealistic sales targets - partly cos you can't make customers by crap they don't want and partly cos the town was being redeveloped and people were largely going elsewhere so as to have a less stressful shopping experience. Unrealistic pressures, unreachable targets are just a fact of life nowadays. Also gonna say that I was put in charge of a shop (against my will) with virtually no training and minimal experience. I still think it's a minor miracle no one died on my watch! Teachers are at least trained and prepped for the job they do...and they sought to do it and are (contrary to their own PR) actually pretty well remunerated for it. 

I have struggled with depression virtually all my life and it is damn hard to see people act all hard done by for the career choices they made and could potentially change without much likelihood of difficulty. This is not to negate the stress they're under but I feel giving teachers some kind of special status it diminishes the stress suffered by others; their stress is not more important than anyone else's. EVERYONE who suffers stress should be entitled to support and help. There needs to be a shift in how we treat all workers in this country.

Even the headline annoys me - oh, so you wanted to crash your car to get off work? What about the emergency services called out to your rescue and NHS staff who'd have to look after you? What about the tax payer who has to cover your sick days, especially if you faked your injuries? What about the sub who has to cover your classes? What about the scare that'd give your students and the disruption to their learning?

INSERT HERE: I was run over at age 7,

my kids were at a school where a teacher died in an RTA.

At risk of sounding like a snowflake this is a really triggering thing to even suggest doing

to a class full of kids who might easily have a past trauma of this nature.

And more to my personal viewpoint...what about those in jobs where you're not entitled to paid sick leave? People who've struggled through incredibly painful shifts cos they simply don't have the luxury to recuperate. What about those struggling through life unable to drive and / or unable to afford a car? The sheer PRIVILEGE involved in that statement makes me livid.

Okay, so it's a wild statement born of severe mental distress rather than an actual action but all the same...

It will never not bug me that people who have the education, pay grade and personal freedoms to change their circumstances don't, and those of us at the bottom of the heap with no way out just have to make do. No one wants to hear about the stress of being a single parent, a cleaner, a sales assistant. We don't have the same allure, obviously.

Gun Ownership Restrictions and Common Sense VS the NRA

All quotes: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/obama-to-gun-owners-im-not-looking-to-disarm-you/#

"Why don't we treat this like every other thing that we use? I just came from a meeting today in the Situation Room in which I got people who we know have been on ISIL Web sites, living here in the United States, U. S. citizens, and we're allowed to put them on the no-fly list when it comes to airlines, but because of the National Rifle Association, I cannot prohibit these people from buying a gun." - President Barrack Obama

There were a whole bunch of responses to this statement, particularly of the "To restrict someone based off what they read is a dangerous course. I don't care if it's a book, a website or a letter, it is punishment without due process. Restricting the rights of a person without due process is the opposite of what we claim to be about." (Observations99) variety. Now obviously Americans take their civil liberties very seriously but what is the alternative? The same argument that is applied here - visiting a terrorist organisation's website does not make you a terrorist was previously used as a defence against child pornography websites, that looking at these things did not make you a paedophile...which is now understood to be nonsense. Websites generate revenue from hits - by visiting a criminal website you may be supporting that crime financially. It has been established that there is no legitimate reason to look at child pornography 'for research'; similarly there is no legitimate reason to be visiting an ISIL website. Waiting for a paedophile to physically hurt a child is irresponsible, waiting for a terrorist sympathiser to mount an attack is waiting too long. If someone is pointing a gun at a woman and her child do you wait for them to pull the trigger or do you call for help / attempt to intervene / cause a distraction BEFORE they get shot? Preemptive measures will always be unpopular and someone will inevitably suffer for it BUT is the right of the individual greater than that of the masses? I don't think so. I would rather be wrongly subjected to restrictions than have my children slaughtered because those restrictions couldn't be applied to someone who really deserved it. The idea that a person's travel can be restricted on suspicion but their ability to buy weaponry can't...totes illogical.

"Safety laws are applied to all individuals equally - both law abiding and non-law abiding.

The example Obama uses is that everyone must get a driver's license and pass a test to prove they can safely drive a vehicle. Even if you are a known felon, child molester, tax avoider, etc you can still get a license. Then everyone must register their vehicle regardless of how they acquired it. Again.. doesn't matter what laws you have broken (or not broken) in the past. I will also mention that a car is considered a deadly weapon depending on how it is used.

The only time special scrutiny is applied is after you have committed a crime directly related to driving (drunken driving, reckless driving, etc). Then your license and ability to drive be revoked or curtailed." - Sean

This statement raises some interesting points: the ownership restrictions on cars doesn't affect the majority and we don't question the existence of those restrictions anymore (once upon a time driving licences hadn't been invented and literally anyone could get behind the wheel without censure). Virtually anyone can own a car, virtually anyone (in America) can own a gun - but is that really such a good idea? And cars have to be registered, taxed, insured; the driver licenced...why isn't this applied to guns? Why are people free to buy multiple weapons without checks? Why aren't they required to purchase insurance against the use of those guns - to cover you if a bullet ricochets and hits someone or damages their property, for example? Procedures that would have minimal impact on the responsible but be something of a deterrent to others. A car has a valid, practical use...hunting is the only valid, practical use of a gun and that doesn't apply to most American gun owners.

"How does registering a car decrease crimes that utilize cars? When there are drinking and driving accidents who calls for stricter licensing, more training and bans of certain types of cars? Who calls for cars to be governed so they cannot exceed the speed limit? Nobody. Who calls for mandatory breathalyzers to be installed in every car (analogous to a background check for every gun purchase), Nobody. Who calls for restrictions on the amount of alcohol you can buy? Nobody, they call for stricter penalties on the perpetrators. Yet you demand analogous restrictions on all guns and their owners not just on criminals. Why is it different for guns? Because you want to take our guns, you have no interest in banning cars." - George Mason

Okay, this is gonna be fun...

• How does registering a car decrease crimes that utilize cars? - It's harder to commit a crime with a car that can be easily traced back to the owner. It's a deterrent and it means the gov't know you have that car...shouldn't the gov't know about that home arsenal you're putting together?!
• When there are drinking and driving accidents who calls for stricter licensing, more training and bans of certain types of cars? - not sure how alcohol and the crime committed by drunk drivers is linked here, but the sale of alcohol is licensed and restricted.
• Who calls for cars to be governed so they cannot exceed the speed limit? - plenty of people actually. The ability of cars to travel at well over the legal limit is contentious. The popular UK car Vauxhall Corsa has a top speed of 113 MPH; 43 MPH over the top speed limit in the country. Totally unnecessary to enable people to break the law.
• Who calls for mandatory breathalyzers to be installed in every car? - actually again plenty of people would like this to be a thing. Just imagine how many lives would be saved each year!
• Who calls for restrictions on the amount of alcohol you can buy? - again, this is actually a thing. It'd do a lot for public health too. And coming from the nation that came up with prohibition that's just funny.
• You demand analogous restrictions on all guns and their owners not just on criminals. Why is it different for guns? - because a car is a transport vehicle, because alcohol is an intoxicating substance but a gun is a WEAPON PURELY FOR KILLING. WHY ARE YOU TOO FUCKING DUMB TO SEE THAT???

Also, why are you so hung up on linking alcohol and driving? Car drivers can't use mobile phones, eat or drink while driving. Driving while on drugs, driving while tired...there are many factors in non-deliberate road deaths and I don't know about America but in the UK there are all sorts of rules and regulations aimed at preventing these things. A person receives points on their licence for infractions and at a certain point will lose their licence. A person who receives certain medical diagnoses can lose their licence as unfit to drive...why doesn't this apply to gun ownership? Infractions like improper storage and wrongfully discharging a firearm would incur penalty points; visiting terrorist websites and diagnoses such as psychotic illness would involve a revoking of a licence. No one can just go buy a car, they have to have a valid driver's licence...allowing any idiot to go buy a gun is all kinds of nuts. Only a true dumbfuck would put an individual's 'right' to own an offensive weapon over the rights of innocent people to not get slaughtered.