The trick with demographic truths

[Lesley_Roberta]

I was reading something on another forum, it concerned Girl Guides. It was a comment about their being in decline.

Often we can completely miss certain truths if we talk ourselves into ignoring some things though.

The reply that one poster gave was quite enlightening. It might also be relavant to Boy Scouts and regardless of their recent actions with regards to who can join.

Some will say it will cost them members. Then again, they might gain members who would not have joined otherwise, net result same as before, just different people.

But consider the details from the Girl Guides observations I read.

People have less money these days, who can afford to support the organization?
Parents might simply not have the time any more to volunteer, life has gotten more hectic not less.
Smaller families means fewer kids in a community to have access to begin with.
Life is getting increasingly urban/suburban, how many people will even know what camping is?
And tech has made it increasingly such, that kids don't even want to play outside let alone spend several days a month stuck out in the sticks for hours and no way to indulge their tech.

The point I am making here, it is not specifically about Scouting, but it is about demographics, and how they will influence everything.

I often wish I could have the world of the 50s even though that world was one of impending nuclear doom as well.
But the world is increasingly made of of young adults that don't even recall the gulf war let alone the cold war.

I used to love so many things that predated the electronic entertainment that is so much of our lives. Today so many can't even relate to a world without them. I never socialized through the internet as a youth. Just about all of my thinking was developed in a different world. My ways of doing things, and my attitudes are so totally pre information era. People ask a question online, and the reply is usually a Googled answer or something copy pasted. Myself, I am used to getting all of my answers from a life time of reading them in books. In a debate here, you can assume, all of my answers will not be capable of being referenced via links. I am not getting my answers from links, or wikis or any of those means. It's called learned experiences.

The world though just keeps on evolving demographically speaking. I am a baby boomer. I am concerned about a variety of things. What will the world be like in 20 years as I become a senior. I am only looking for details connected to being a senior now. I have no interest in fretting about the job market, that is the problem of a young adult. Thus it colours my circumstances. I am of course concerned about TG issues as it affects the work place, but, it isn't a 'problem' for me, it is just a topic. I am way past needing to worry about education based issues.

The world that we will be coping with, as TG persons, will be shaped by all these demographics.

Your specific place in the community, it will determine so much for you. Right now for instance, the whole climate debate, not really much of a big deal for me. I likely won't live to see if one side if critically right or wrong. Now on the other hand, if you are under 20, you might have much bigger worries to deal with, than gender in 50 years time.

[Lo]

Yep, as a 24 year old, things are pretty dismal and I have pretty low expectations of just about everything I was told I could rely in as a kid. I expect no loyalty from any institution or employer, I expect no empathy from the people who were supposed to help make the world a better place for me. Millennials are going to be in the business of cleaning up peoples' messes and just trying to survive for a very long time. :V

[Lexi Belle]

I was reading something on another forum, it concerned Girl Guides. It was a comment about their being in decline.

Often we can completely miss certain truths if we talk ourselves into ignoring some things though.

The reply that one poster gave was quite enlightening. It might also be relavant to Boy Scouts and regardless of their recent actions with regards to who can join.

Some will say it will cost them members. Then again, they might gain members who would not have joined otherwise, net result same as before, just different people.

But consider the details from the Girl Guides observations I read.

People have less money these days, who can afford to support the organization?
Parents might simply not have the time any more to volunteer, life has gotten more hectic not less.
Smaller families means fewer kids in a community to have access to begin with.
Life is getting increasingly urban/suburban, how many people will even know what camping is?
And tech has made it increasingly such, that kids don't even want to play outside let alone spend several days a month stuck out in the sticks for hours and no way to indulge their tech.

The point I am making here, it is not specifically about Scouting, but it is about demographics, and how they will influence everything.

I often wish I could have the world of the 50s even though that world was one of impending nuclear doom as well.
But the world is increasingly made of of young adults that don't even recall the gulf war let alone the cold war.

I used to love so many things that predated the electronic entertainment that is so much of our lives. Today so many can't even relate to a world without them. I never socialized through the internet as a youth. Just about all of my thinking was developed in a different world. My ways of doing things, and my attitudes are so totally pre information era. People ask a question online, and the reply is usually a Googled answer or something copy pasted. Myself, I am used to getting all of my answers from a life time of reading them in books. In a debate here, you can assume, all of my answers will not be capable of being referenced via links. I am not getting my answers from links, or wikis or any of those means. It's called learned experiences.

The world though just keeps on evolving demographically speaking. I am a baby boomer. I am concerned about a variety of things. What will the world be like in 20 years as I become a senior. I am only looking for details connected to being a senior now. I have no interest in fretting about the job market, that is the problem of a young adult. Thus it colours my circumstances. I am of course concerned about TG issues as it affects the work place, but, it isn't a 'problem' for me, it is just a topic. I am way past needing to worry about education based issues.

The world that we will be coping with, as TG persons, will be shaped by all these demographics.

Your specific place in the community, it will determine so much for you. Right now for instance, the whole climate debate, not really much of a big deal for me. I likely won't live to see if one side if critically right or wrong. Now on the other hand, if you are under 20, you might have much bigger worries to deal with, than gender in 50 years time.

Eh, you make good points, and being 19 I think you and I can both agree I won't be able to really say much as it comes to "worldly experience."

Yes, I was raised a tech child. My father is a programmer and my mother is an accountant.  My uncle works for tech support, so on and so on.  However, I fail to see how being raised around the world of the internet during an era of technology has any sort of impact as a general whole on the opinions, advice, or statements we make or give.  I know I for one, have done a lot of research. Maybe it isn't worldly, I didn't experience it. But SOMEONE did or has, which makes it equally as valuable but maybe not entirely as portray-able as it would be had I personally experienced it.  I give advice based on the little I have lived through and the little I have experienced as well as assessments other's have made regarding the same subjects.

I will agree about how the world will be progressively declining as we get more and more enveloped as a species in our reliance on technology and often, very isolationist lifestyles.  I just fail to see how a generalization can be made about the new generations simply using almost in a sense automated responses, I personally don't feel I, or other people my age do that as frequently as you think.

[Lesley_Roberta]

You might have mistaken what I was saying partially

It's ME that has the larger barrier when it comes to conditioning. I was raised in the era of job security, so I likely would have more trouble coping than someone not really used to it. If I had to find work today I'd be totally screwed mostly. I recall going to job boards at the UI office and seeing jobs posted on index cards and then checking them out. Applying for job ads in the local paper. Today, your resume is not even on paper in a lot of cases and you submit electronically to services. I have no experience with any of that.

Then there are roles. I grew up in an era when it was considered ordinary that a wife was a housewife. She didn't work, she raised kids. Mr mom was not a term yet invented. Men that didn't have jobs were basically just lazy. Half the holiday weekends hadn't been invented and you sure didn't work from home.

All of this, it colours MY views more than it will a person that never lived through the era though.
Being TG today, is really substantially different.

I admit, I worry about the whole issue of where the world is headed economically speaking. If society were to crash, well, would I be able to support myself at all let alone the expense of transition and the whole routine. But, I think if I were to be suddenly penniless and unable to afford transition, and and a 20 something was in the same situation, I'd have to feel sadder for the 20 something stuck with so much more life to live under those conditions.

Life simply looks a lot different on the other side of the hill

I do though, feel a lot of dissatisfaction with the 60 and 70 something crowd. They made this world, my generation has only really been maintaining it. I do wish there were signs people my age and older were interested in fixing it. It's unfortunate that politics is dominated by people too old to need to care if they make it a mess.

I wonder, how would the world look like, if politics was limited to persons 30 and under? Not controlled by the old and the unconcerned.
I will be lucky to live 20 more years. I might live 30 more years. If I was told the world was going down the toilet in 40 years, I have nothing to worry about.

There are so many things said to be on the horizon for humanity. And it seems most of it is negative too.
Life, it is getting more and more crowded, it is getting more and more busy, it is becoming more and more stressful, and it is getting more and more unable to maintain the status quo for a lot of things a lot of people have taken for granted would never be a problem.

Things like TG acceptance, well that is nice, and it is cool that people are moving forward on things like that.
But it seems the house is getting crowded, likely could burn down at any moment, hasn't been repaired in like forever, the insurance hasn't been kept up and no one seems to care. Being told it is ok to be TG in that house, is not really going to help if the other problems come home to roost.

[Lexi Belle]

You might have mistaken what I was saying partially

It's ME that has the larger barrier when it comes to conditioning. I was raised in the era of job security, so I likely would have more trouble coping than someone not really used to it. If I had to find work today I'd be totally screwed mostly. I recall going to job boards at the UI office and seeing jobs posted on index cards and then checking them out. Applying for job ads in the local paper. Today, your resume is not even on paper in a lot of cases and you submit electronically to services. I have no experience with any of that.

Then there are roles. I grew up in an era when it was considered ordinary that a wife was a housewife. She didn't work, she raised kids. Mr mom was not a term yet invented. Men that didn't have jobs were basically just lazy. Half the holiday weekends hadn't been invented and you sure didn't work from home.

All of this, it colours MY views more than it will a person that never lived through the era though.
Being TG today, is really substantially different.

I admit, I worry about the whole issue of where the world is headed economically speaking. If society were to crash, well, would I be able to support myself at all let alone the expense of transition and the whole routine. But, I think if I were to be suddenly penniless and unable to afford transition, and and a 20 something was in the same situation, I'd have to feel sadder for the 20 something stuck with so much more life to live under those conditions.

Life simply looks a lot different on the other side of the hill

I do though, feel a lot of dissatisfaction with the 60 and 70 something crowd. They made this world, my generation has only really been maintaining it. I do wish there were signs people my age and older were interested in fixing it. It's unfortunate that politics is dominated by people too old to need to care if they make it a mess.

I wonder, how would the world look like, if politics was limited to persons 30 and under? Not controlled by the old and the unconcerned.
I will be lucky to live 20 more years. I might live 30 more years. If I was told the world was going down the toilet in 40 years, I have nothing to worry about.

There are so many things said to be on the horizon for humanity. And it seems most of it is negative too.
Life, it is getting more and more crowded, it is getting more and more busy, it is becoming more and more stressful, and it is getting more and more unable to maintain the status quo for a lot of things a lot of people have taken for granted would never be a problem.

Things like TG acceptance, well that is nice, and it is cool that people are moving forward on things like that.
But it seems the house is getting crowded, likely could burn down at any moment, hasn't been repaired in like forever, the insurance hasn't been kept up and no one seems to care. Being told it is ok to be TG in that house, is not really going to help if the other problems come home to roost.

Oh, okay. Muh mistake.

I'm just so used to people talking down about us anymore. Forgive my ignorance. xD

[Lesley_Roberta]

I will agree that too often too many do indeed tend to slag off the current new generation as if they invented themselves.

This parent tells parents on a regular basis, if you don't like your kids the way they are why did you make them that way?

Kids are a reflection of their parents after all. A 5 year old is not responsible for being the way they are.

Every last whiny child is not at fault for being whiny. My son was never whiny. Every last annoying preteen is not responsible for being annoying. My son was never annoying. If you have a problem teen, it's not so much they want to be a problem, you gave them those problems. My son has one year left to be any problem at all, he hasn't been one yet.

My son isn't perfect, but, just about every aspect of his personality that is less than perfect, is more the fault of his parents.

I say blame where blame belongs. I am the result of my upbringing. If you don't like it, my parents are at fault

My son needs next to no form of income, but he was raised needing next to nothing too. My bother's boys on the other hand, were raised in a privileged home and it shows. My sisters girls, same thing, my sister was always giving them things, and as such they do tend to be fairly high maintenance. It's not surprising my son has no incentive to get much in the way of a job, he has almost no need of much in the way of cash in his life. He wont really change until he needs rent money and a capacity to do his own shopping.