"We had a way harder life than you!"

[Buzz Killington_v1legacy]

My parents had to look through card catelogs and didn't have near instant communication with their professors and other inputs and sources of information.

Damn straight. I'm slightly too young to be your parent, but I'm old enough to remember when I had to use card catalogs. Want a book?



When you eventually found the card for the book you wanted, was it on the shelf? Hah! WHO KNEW? Have fun trudging through the stacks to figure out what was actually shelved and what was checked out or on loan to another library.

Leaving aside books for a minute...did you want to find an article from a magazine or a journal? YOU POOR BASTARD. Say hello to your new best friend:


This was it. There was no automated searching. I didn't see a computer with a searchable article database until 1988 at the earliest. You had to sit with this ungainly fucker at a table and manually look up articles for your subject year by year.

Then, once you've located the article you want, pray that the library a.) carries that periodical, and b.) has holdings for the year you need. Then, if you're very lucky, you'll be able to get the actual issue of the magazine or journal and pay an ungodly amount in photocopying fees to get the article. If you're unlucky, you'll get to use the microfiche or (sweet zombie Jesus help you) microfilm readers.

Academic research is so much easier now, you can't even imagine.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Of course they had it harder.

When my dad was growing up everything was black and white, how the frack they could tell what was what without any colour i'll never know.

Also water was wetter, snow was colder and they had to walk to and from school uphill both ways ... wearing clogs.

Don't forget they also had to kick the rooster in the ass to get it to crow in the morning, fight the bear to get to that hill that goes to school, and jumped in freezing lakes to get fish for dinner.

OT: I find it interesting to hear how hard it was for them "back in the day", although if I have to hear it from some total stranger I will be less inclined to listen. Don't really know why, but it always comes across as preachy. In any case, it makes me appreciate how good I have it now, even though I want to call BS at times.

 

[Raven's Nest]

I would say they had it easier, the economy wasn't shit and they didn't have as much trouble finding a job.

For the UK in the 70's this was the complete opposite. Major strikes up and down the country (which actually brought the country and families to their knees. Frequent power cuts and in some cases they simply switched the electricity off at night. Mothers giving up their meals so they could put food on the table for their kids.

More people unemployed than there are now in Britain. A recession that looked even bleaker than it does now.

Today's children, I (i'm 24 but still...), have not had to endure the same hardships as my parents. Who in turn did not suffer as much as their parents and so on and so on.

With each generation, life becomes more and more convenient. Transport gets better, average pay gets better, housing quality gets better, entertainment gets better, education gets better, state benefits (used to) get better and so on...

Many young people take this completely for granted, and they are the ones who eventually realise and then turn to their kids and say, "things were harder in my day" when they see their children acting like brats. And guess what? They are simply seeing their younger selves reflected back at them...

 

[chiefohara]

Its always amusing to hear people say that to a child, since its already been proven roughly 5000 times now that school is 10 times as stressful nowadays.

It is?!

There was capital punishment in my fathers day, and the standards for tests were higher. Even at my age im scoffing at how the Irish version of the SAT's have gotten easier in the last ten years. Not to mention a hell of a lot of more outreach and social support programmes to keep kids and help them talk to people.

 

[Raven's Nest]

Its always amusing to hear people say that to a child, since its already been proven roughly 5000 times now that school is 10 times as stressful nowadays.

Tempted to say kids are just 10 times more easily stressed due to having less of the other first world problems...

But seriously, kids can grow up at their leisure these days. 30 year old's still living with mum and dad isn't that uncommon these days... Housing crisis not unaccounted for.

 

[chiefohara]

Its always amusing to hear people say that to a child, since its already been proven roughly 5000 times now that school is 10 times as stressful nowadays.

It is?!

There was capital punishment in my fathers day, and the standards for tests were higher. Even at my age im scoffing at how the Irish version of the SAT's have gotten easier in the last ten years. Not to mention a hell of a lot of more outreach and social support programmes to keep kids and help them talk to people.

Yes, it is.

I cant remember any sites that back this stuff up, I read it in books, so I cant link you, but if you do a bit of digging you should be able to find one of the various studies.

Fair enough, you've peaked my curiosity. Thanks!

 

[zelda2fanboy]

Writing a term paper pre-internet would have been a nightmare. In school, mine was probably the last generation to be instructed on the proper use of a card catalog and dewey decimal system. I'm very grateful that I never had to use that skill.

 

[IrateDonnie]

Writing a term paper pre-internet would have been a nightmare. In school, mine was probably the last generation to be instructed on the proper use of a card catalog and dewey decimal system. I'm very grateful that I never had to use that skill.

Nah us old guys just went to the library & used the encyclopedias. *grabs cane & hobbles out*

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

I agree with them because them moved over here to escape the Vietnam war. (They are South Vietnamese and lived in Saigon).

Besides any arguement would soundly be ignored by them or countered with punishment. Damn strict Asian parents.

I feel your pain, brother. My parents are exactly the same, Asian and obnoxiously arrogant (I love alliteration).

OT: Whenever anyone, not just my parents, tries to use this argument I point out that this isn't a "who had the worse life" contest.

Just because you had a dark and edgy past, it doesn't justify you being an asshat. Of course I don't do this to my parents, because if I did, I'd get kicked out of the house. *SIGH*

 

[Iron Criterion]

Well, they mostly had it worse. And probably complained less.

I love how this generation really seems to have everything but keeps pretending the end is nigh.

Think of the seventies: Oil Crisis, Vietnam War, Cold War (actual possibility of Apocalypse). And back then they thought a new ice age was upon them. Still had less little dipsh*ts who hate mankind walking around.

This a thousand times.

Of course they had it harder, just like we'll say the same thing to the next generations. It must be frustrating from the point of view of someone who is 40+ to see a teenage dipshit complain because his Ipod's run out of charge or because they have 900 channels with nothing on.

And I picture in 20 years I'll be bitter about my children's friends complaining about The Universal Hive Mind 'being slow'. People take what they have for granted. This is a beautiful time to be alive.

 

[Veylon]

Writing a term paper pre-internet would have been a nightmare. In school, mine was probably the last generation to be instructed on the proper use of a card catalog and dewey decimal system. I'm very grateful that I never had to use that skill.

I'm with you there. We had to use this in grade school; it wasn't until junior high that the district converted over to using computers. In the good 'ol days, index cards were the pinnacle of progress.

I think we were also one of the first years, maybe the second, to use computers to type papers. You complain about the text justifying now? Back then we had to justify it manually. And we had dial switches to decide which computer got to be connected to the printer.

At least I haven't had to endure the shaming of the older generations. My parents and grandparents are glad to share their stories of how they had it, but didn't try to make me and my siblings feel bad for not having an arm broken starting the Model T.

 

[Iron Criterion]

But beyond tech advancement we are in a age of poor economies, more higher education people than the job market needs, terrorism, and many other problems we face today. It isn't that they had it easier they just had other problems fitting their times and we have ours.

ALL of these things are not new developments you know - with possible exception of the education issue.

 

[DSK-]

I hear this all the time from my parents. I've blocked out the "When I was your age" and "If I did that I would have..." comments a long, long time ago.

 

[Viptorian]

Yes, they had it harder. Hell, I had it harder. When you have to you a 40 volume encyclopedia set to do do a paper in elementary, come back to me. Encyclopedia Britannica on CD-ROM was just about the best thing ever when I was the age of most of the people on here.

Yes, there is certainly a level of "advancement" that has taken place, but that doesn't mean life isn't easier because of it.

 

[strangemoose]

damn kids and their Internets and their flying contraptions and their automobiles AND THEIR VACCINES! WHEN WE HAD HERPES WE JUST DELT WITH IT!
but yeah i agree that statement is complete bullshit

 

[Oro44]

Well, I was born with spina bifida, had 5 major surgeries before I was 3, then, despite the brain damage and learning disabilities, my parents enrolled me in a "normal" school where I endured regular beatings for being in a wheelchair.

Now I'm in college studying to be a psychologist, so...yeah my parents can't pull the "we had it harder" shit on me.

And having said that, was life harder back then? According to my parents, no. Attitudes haven't changed all that much where I live in the past 30-40 years. Technology, pop culture, fashion, all that stuff changes, but I'm not sure if the essential experience of growing up does.

Now my grandma growing up in the Great Depression is another matter entirely....

 

[NowAndZen]

What bearing does it have? Sure, my parents lived a harder life. Can they swap their memories for mine? It's the same logic that goes behind the old 'eat up, there are starving kids in Africa' line. What does me finishing my meal have on that? At most it makes me want to box it up and send my food to them.

Just remember that they're frustrated; they don't mean to come off sounding as they do to you. It's hard for most people to express just how they feel.