Expectations as a Kid Vs. Reality

 

Wow this one hit hard! False expectations may set up kids for future depression as adults. I had an abusive childhood but school gave me many messages, that since I was good in school, I would have a wonderful career etc. I was like the kid in the video thinking about "when I would have money", "travel" and "grew up" how great life would be. I had no idea. My cluelessness was off the charts. 

Us Gen X kids played the game with folded paper about how many kids we would have, the mansions we would own. We also played the game of "Life" giving us false hopes. No one ended up broke in the game of Life and the car always had enough plastic little round head peg people in it.

We don't want kids depressed and having no dreams but sometimes it seems being told more of the truth would help kids in the long run. This doesn't mean dumping the horrors of the job market on a 2 year old, but as children grow into their teens, give them some warnings. Prepare them. If your family is rich or middle class, warn them how easy it is to fall down the ladder. Teach them to protect their health.  Don't let them live in candy-land dreams where reality will bite them hard once they hit adulthood. I wrote this on Reddit to a depressed person wondering why life turned out so bad. They had the very harsh place of coming out of foster care.

"I wish I had been told reality, then I could have been prepared. I don't think resiliency is built on a bed of lies. I hate how they tell young people this slop and give no preparation for the real world. I was raised by upper middle class parents who gave me no life skills but school was no better, I did learn how to make white sauce and meatloaf at home ec, but I know schools don't even teach that anymore.

People who hide troubles or act like they got it all going on and that they are "perfect" [narcissists] you don't learn anything from. As I got older into my 30s, I befriended a lot of elderly friends, so I knew how life went even for the better heeled just for the facts of aging and more. I became disabled young too, and poverty comes with disability, I was lucky and married and got to have some working class years, better off than a lot of disabled people but then trouble came for us as husband aged and got health problems.

I have written about life troubles, but I don't fit in with the "think positive" crowd. While I do think people should enjoy life the best they can, I read graphic novels this week, and garden and read Russian novels from the library, I think all the lies and fake platitudes set people [and children] up for failure. It also is something where people learn they can't share problems or ask for help on anything. I was fortunate for happy marriage, but even there seeing someone you love suffer un/under/employment, working constantly worn out and they can have their issues too can be hard, especially if you don't know how to help them more though you are trying the best you can.

I turned to religion and God, that got complicated but see world in more spiritual way though I've read stoicism stuff and prison planet ideas to try and "explain it all". Life is hard, and I think they should prepare kids or even tell them of the losses to come or steps in how to deal with becoming disabled, or what to do if you are poor and practical survival skills. USA society especially sets up false expectations, everyone is rich on TV, no one struggles and it's simply not discussed but we can see all the homeless in the streets and beggars and people with cardboard signs.

Hopefully things will get better for you, and you can find help for depression. Foster care is one of the most difficult starts and many end up homeless and desperate coming out of foster care, not the same as having a loving family. Others in foster care sometimes join military, or find a mate or career but health problems in your case definitely steered things towards struggle."

One scary thing to notice is people did have leisure time, careers, houses, families, and they weren't so hard to get before. When I did geneaology, my janitor, factory, laborer, farmer grandfathers had the trappings of basic lives, back to the 1800s, that the greedy elite are busy denying everyone especially the young today. This system isn't sustainable.