Does the next generation stand a chance?

I’ve been pondering our little ones and what sort of a life they’ll be able to lead. The question is, are they doomed?

Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!

It began with a conversation with my mother. I mean, it was more of a rant. I was frustrated with being an uncle.

Sometimes, you wonder if you’re getting enough quality time with your nephews. Like, the amount of screentime they have. The mood swings when they come off them. The need for attention when you have nephews that have an age difference. It’s often like navigating a tsunami. I’m trying my best. But the reality is I don’t have experience of being a parent and I can only relate to a certain point.

I bloody love hanging out with my boys and treasure our time together. But I worry about their future intensely. In fact, as a single gay man with six Godchildren - as well as my boys - I’m often wondering what the future will hold for all these children who are a part of my life as they get older.

Lately, I’m continually being asked about whether I’m going to have children myself. Truth be told, I fear I’m over the hill in that department. My dad was 45 when I was born. That felt old back then. Maybe it was an eighties thing, and older dads weren’t the same. Not as much energy and stumped with gender-assigned parental roles. I don’t feel particularly over the hill now at the same age – but could I give the deserved amount of energy to make a child’s life feel properly fulfilled. It’s a maybe. I think.

Also, would I want to be in a proper relationship with a partner before I embarked on that sort of journey? It’s not like I’m a woman and I have a cosy womb for said creature to develop. Maybe I would have gone it alone years before now anyhow. There’s no doubting, I’m swarmed by close friends on the brink of their fertility diminishing. I feel their fear and pain about whether they’ll be able to have a child without being in a committed relationship. I understand they don’t want to be engulfed with deep regret and reflect on this time of their life and realise they didn’t do enough to become a parent. Even if they were on the journey as a solo parent.

It's a hard decision for anybody to make. I know some that have gone and done it solo. Frozen their eggs, chosen the sperm from a handsome Danish gentleman via the sperm bank and are frightfully happy with the entering motherhood on their own. I know others who have adopted and that’s gone well. I even know friends who have teamed up and created a baby of their own via a doctor (mostly the man has been a gay) and they’ve been exceedingly happy with becoming parents with this scenario.

But what are we actually doing by enabling our dreams of becoming a parent become a reality in 2025? I’ve been thinking a lot about what the future holds for this next generation. Like, how will their lives pan out? What will they experience? Will they be happy?

Talking to my mother I realised I was borderline ranting about the subject. I definitely lay my cards on the table about parenthood and where things stand in my mind.

They’ll struggle to find work with the rise of machines and AI. How will they make a living? Will they ever be able to afford to buy a house with the way house prices are going? Will they even have a pension by the time they retire? Doubtful the way things are heading. Then there’s the world as a whole. How will they live through global warming? Will they face World War 3? How bad will pollution and wildfires get across the globe? Will the sea rise and floods begin? Will there be even more huge natural disasters that wipe out more of humanity? Sure, I’m very aware of the fact I sound like a mentalist and I’m overthinking it. But is this rational thought or the mind fucks of somebody who might have been watching the news too much of late.

I guess what I’m asking is do my friends and family having babies think about the ‘what ifs’ or are they just procreating like their ancestors engrained into their souls and human ethos?

I worry about so many elements of the kids of today growing up. I hate the fact they can’t play outside freely. I hate the fact they don’t have a chance to leave the house on their bikes after breakfast and return for teatime without parents freaking out with fear and dread. The world right now is a scary one for parental anxiety. Hell, it’s an angry place in London. So much anxiety. A friend’s mum in Chelsea told me she can’t leave the house wearing jewellery anymore because of robberies in the street. Another friend won’t go on public transport as she’s fearful of bombings and disasters. More than a dozen won’t do parties with lots of people because of their fear over big crowds.

On the flipside, I’ve got friends who are affluent enough to have beautiful country estates with lots of land for their lil nippers to play around in. Obviously, money goes a long way with allowing children to live a life like yester year. But without the country estate and a truckload of cash, there really isn’t much hope for muggles to give their offspring the freedom-enhanced life we all lead growing up. You know, away from screens. Away from danger. With a chance for life to pass at a slower pace.

Across the last two weeks I’ve seen groups of teens on the streets in my town on the outskirts of London. They are probably 14 or 15. All buying beers at the local off license. All fighting in the street and generally intimidating a lot of the elderly residents walking home of an evening. It’s clear they’re bored with nothing to do. There are no police on the streets these days to move these scamps along. They head into the park, play music, screech and yell and generally piss me off. They smash their beer bottles. The park has deer within it, so this really pisses me off.

The local Sainsbury’s has had to employ security and there’s even a metal shutter across all the alcohol and ciggies now. All this and the area I live in is deemed a fairly posh area of the suburbs. WTF.

This week I saw an amazing post on social media about a US mayor of a town (I think) who had reintroduced and funded youth clubs and after school clubs to his state as an experiment to see what effect it would have on life. It was insane what these clubs had done to change the tapestry of an entire state. Crime was down, muggings were down, assaults were down, hell even murder was down significantly in the space of a short few months.

That was a post I needed to see, and I wish I could find that post for this piece (and I hope it was true). If we were to look at the root of the problems with the younger generation maybe we could start our kids off on the right track. Could it help? Maybe. I mean, Cubs and Scouts all seem a little lame these days. Not even Bear Grylls could save that. But maybe that’s the sort of thing we need to invest in? To help get our kids on the path to greatness from the roots upwards– fueling creativity and drive to be a better human being. Rather than just sitting on a Switch or continually asking for extra screen time.

I fear if I was to go down the road of fatherhood I’d want to move to the countryside, home school and do anything and everything I could to keep my kids using their brains as much as humanly possible without a screen involved. I wouldn’t allow them on Snapchat, Instagram or any other form of social media. They’re making society dumb. Literally shriveling up the brains of our children and degenerating society and community. You can argue being online with a community is a good thing and that kids simply have to live in a world where screens and technology is part of their lives. Sure, you can try and say that. But the reality is all social media and all this screen time is doing is damaging the way us humans live. On every level.

The final insult to injury occurred this week when my nephew sat down and proudly showed me his new calculator. I vividly remember my grandparents and possibly my dad sitting down with me when I got my first ‘proper’ calculator. They were perplexed with this modern piece of tech. I didn’t get the fuss or why it was so difficult.

Flash forward to my nephew showed me various things. It might as well have been in Japanese as none of it made sense to me. Then he proudly revealed the best thing was that you could press a button to ‘toss a dice’ or ‘flip a coin’ with a graphic to show the process. It was his favourite aspect.

I could barely contain my eyeroll as I calmly said: “But why don’t you just roll a dice or toss a coin in actual real life.”

“But why would I do that – when I can do it all on here,” he replied like he’d written a thesis on it for his university dissertation.

I’ll continue to try on every level I possibly can to ensure whatever I do for my nephews and godchildren enhances them using their actual eyes, their touch and their creativity. Toys will be wooden. Aside from Lego. I’ll try and give them actual reading books rather than a kindle voucher. I’ll always try and get them out into the fresh air and doing activities that aren’t infront of the telly or involving a phone. I’m mindful about my own phone use when I’m with them. All we can do is try, right? I guess with all the breeders out there it’s the same mentality with all this reproducing. All they can do is give it a shot, try hard and hope for the best.

My fingers are firmly crossed for us all.