One of my concerns for the future of my daughter, isn't about my daughter directly at all. Rather, it is about the ecosystem she will be contained within, and the people who will be there with her. We are products of our environment and we will be continuously influenced by it, until our death. So in some way, it doesn't matter how well I raise her, she is going to be affected by many people who were not raised in the same way, with the same values, or with any values at all. She is going to enter into a world of potential mayhem, and the best I can do is try and instil in her the skills she might need to navigate it successfully.
More than math and reading is needed.
When I write, I often feel somewhat alarmist in the way I see the direction of the world heading, but at the same time, I believe I would be remiss not to at least try and talk about these things. When it comes to the future of our society and the young as they grow into it, I am sceptical if they will on average have what it takes to survive what is to come. Perhaps I am wrong and it will all shake out for the better, but I don't see that happening and I suspect that it is going to get much worse in ways that we are yet to imagine.
Or perhaps we can imagine it, but like a fantastical dream, we never expected it to become a reality. Yet, here we are, life imitating art, with people eating themselves to death, believing obvious identity misnomers, and falling into love with robots. Straight out of any number of science-fiction novels. People cite flying cars as the failure of science-fiction prediction, but when it comes to predicting how a lot of our behaviours would shift, many have been accurate.
We are predictable by nature.
Through nurture. We are conditioned by our environment to become even more predictable by adhering to a set of learned rules and behaviours that guide our thought and decision-making processes. We act on what we have been conditioned to think and believe, even when it is unhelpful or harmful. We default to what we know, rather than having the curiosity to discover what we don't, and prove our beliefs wrong.
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
The Merchant of Venice
And while in Shakespeare's time scripture was the go to guide, now there is the internet where there is a line to support or denigrate any position. We have built an information system that has all we know, but all we use it for is to support our purpose. And for most, the only purpose there is, is to make oneself feel good.
Or less bad.
For those who are old enough to have walked the streets of a city thirty years ago, go for another walk down the same streets today and take stock of what you see. Notice what has changed, and look at the faces you see pass you by. What do you notice? For me,
People used to smile more.
Now, they are all frowning, wrinkles on the forehead, as they stare at the phone in their hand, as if they are looking at something important, some bit of news that is so consequential and troubling, it has darkened their mood and sucked all of their attention. But catch a glimpse of the screen, and they are just scrolling the endless stream of inane content that they say they enjoy so much.
It is not the face of enjoyment.
And this is the world that my daughter is going to grow into. One that is filled with people who do not actually enjoy their life, except when they feel they are scoring points against their enemies. And the enemies are plentiful, because that is anyone who doesn't agree with them on any particular topic. She is going to have to deal with what I predict will be a majority of people who do not like their life, nor do they like themselves, but they keep lying over and over to try and fake it until they make it. But there is no making it on that path. There is just the postponement of misery until it cannot be held back anymore.
All children blame their parents for some part of their upbringing, and I wonder what the ten year old kids of today will mention in a decade from now, or two. Will they be glad that their parents fed them as they did and gave them all of that screen time? Will they be glad for the time spent playing computer games and scrolling social media? Will they be grateful for their childhood?
Or will they feel damaged by it?
Parents can only do the best they can, but what does that actually mean in practice? When parents look in the mirror of their parenting, do we really think that is our best? Do we not know any better, or are we unable to improve for tomorrow?
Children are our future.
The future concerns me.
Taraz
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A good set of friends will make all the difference . I always say it , the friends are the key especially in their teens.
I agree. I am hoping that at her new school she will be able to improve her friend group. They seem like more stable kids there.
Any tips?
Organise more play dates with the gooduns 🤣🤣. Gently swaying them in the right direction .
All I read is, "start a cult"
Of course people used to smile more. In part that's because the world then was better, the standard of living was better. Now things have got much worse and most people just turn to digital pleasures to ease their discomfort, hence the continuous scrolling. But instead of easing their troubles it rather compounds it. A lot is fundamentally wrong with our world presently and any person who's got a kid to raise should be alarmed. The best parents can do is, like you said, instill in their kids the skills they need to navigate their world successfully.
It is like being sad due to being over weight, and then eating to feel better.
It is hard for me to predict what skills she will need, but I suspect a lot of the emotional and social skills are going to at least help deal with people better. Emotional resilience is going to be key.
Emotional resilience is one, another Important one is the ability to make smart decisions. Emotional resilience helps her weather the storms of life, ability to make smart decisions will help her find her way out of life's many complexities. These I consider to be the most important two.
I think they go hand in hand. When people are emotionally unstable they are unable to make good decisions either. Hopefully she will make better decisions than me :)
It’s true that no matter how well we raise our children, the world around them will still shape who they become. It’s scary to think about how much technology, social media, and negativity are influencing people today. Everywhere you look, people seem more distracted and unhappy, miserable, and keep chasing what is not lost. Looking back, I remembered what grandma used to say then that life were good when they were young as they always feel contented with the little they have and never for once grumble or curse their parent for not doing enough. But what do we have these days. Bunch of ungrateful entity that don't seem to appreciate the kind of life they have now, even though there is virtually advanced in everything. Now people are living in modern houses without having a "modern destiny" to match it.
In all honesty, the society is just being fuck up. A lot of immorality and crime and evil has become the other of the day. I think we will have to keep trying our best to guide our kids to the best of our abilities because the environment has a way of influencing us on what become in the future.
Also, as parents, we can only prepare our kids the best we can, teaching them values and skills to face a world that might not always make sense and also ensure they keep good company of friends. I just hope the next generation won’t grow up feeling lost or damaged by the very things meant to make life easier. I hope that our religious leaders can make things better since religion is the opium of the people. There are ways people get manipulated through religion. Perhaps this can help in reducing numbers of immorality in society today.
I was trying to teach my daughter yesterday that, Maturity comes through experience, not age. I think a lot of the "upgraded" lifestyle is making kids less mature, and more ungrateful.
That's the problem. We are living in a more materialistic society. Youth nowadays value gadgets more than anything. Most of them do all sort of things just to get the gadget.
I obviously don't have kids, but I have been saying this and worried about this for a while now. We've seen it time and again how parents can actually do everything "right" and still outside influences or factors can undo all of that in a split second with kids and young adults. It's scary!
It is scary and scares me. The best I can do is try to teach Smallsteps to take care of herself, but so much is out of my hands, and hers.
Yeah, that is very true. Fingers crossed I guess!
When I was in the higher institution, I met several students with different characters that I begin to wonder if they were brought up by their parents. It is important to lay good foundation for children when growing up so they wouldn't forget that so soon, in other to remember their background.
You are being realistic, and rightly so, you deserve to be. I have also given it some thought too.
The world isn't as it used to be, a lot has changed. Some people believe that children belong to the community (not in a bad way, more like a general sense of possession) in the sense that a good amount of their upbringing is carried out by the community
You are right, the future is unpredictable, well if the child is raised correctly and his life is good im sure he will be grateful to his family. well people's perspectives also vary. so im praying that my son will be kind until he grows up.
I consciously limit the flow of unnecessary information. This makes me feel better. My two constant internet resources are News Feed (mostly just headlines) and Hive (mostly just subscribers). So now I have time to go make coffee and open a book by Alexander Kuprin. I'll read 1-2 stories, it's a great luxury these days to read a book.
The only constant thing in this world is change. It may be frightening, but we cannot deny that it is inevitable. Every generation has its own way of overcoming change, and I believe the current one is more adaptable yet easily influenced, which is quite perilous. I agree with your opinion that no matter how well children are nurtured by their parents, they can still become rebellious. This leads me to the question: "How can we entrust our future to the children when they are the ones who need help?"
I agree with you on so many levels. I also think that, if we want our children to be able to navigate this kind of world successfully ( however we define success for ourselves) we need to teach them skills that are totally different from e.g. what is being taught at school. It will be a crazy ride...
I think it is concerning how much outside factors can affect children's views and overall health. Parents should work hard to build a nurturing atmosphere while also pushing their kids to analyze the world they live in.
Because people no longer depend on each other. When opportunities were limited, you used to connect with everyone to survive and get things done. That's no longer the case. People shop online. They don't interact with any sellers face-to-face, they don't communicate. It seems people are becoming increasingly unhappy. These are the good times.
yeah, I feel like I lived my life (the first half) by what I learned was good and right by society and people. Now I feel I am free to CHOOSE just what maked me happy and content, and peaceful, and NO stress. :)
One of the reasons why I'm so keen on building community at the moment is to show to Lily how that works. How to give to and how to receive from, how to behave in it, and the values necessary for it. She will eventually choose her own community or build it, and the more non-individualist behavior I can teach her, the happier she might be. I hope.
Yeah, me too! Not sure when it is time to pull the plug on enjoying myself in a big city, but I don't think being in a big city is going to be a good look when the shit finally hits the fan. I plan on going full Voltaire and buying some land to cultivate my own garden.
Learning would be so much more fun if people kept this in mind when encountering new information. I wish my students had the same curiosity about math that they do about the new cool trend on TikTok!
This saddens me the most when I am riding on public transport. When I was a kid and nobody had mobile phones, some people would be reading books or newspapers. But anyone who wasn't reading was fair game for a random conversation. I would try to strike up a conversation with anyone who seemed interesting. These days, it is rare to find anyone without earphones listening to something. They are staying busy consuming content, but happiness has mostly left the building.