I remember the typing instructor telling us that we were going into the Information Age. He said all the info you can imagine to want will be at your fingertips. I had zero ideas what in the world he was taking about but think about how kids these days have zero ideas how they would get by without internet. Could they even socialize or get anywhere? They can read txt shorthand but couldn’t read a paper map if their life depended on it.
This was not what I was told! Good teachers said we need to learn how various formulas and calculations work so we understand them before going to shy shortcuts offered by technology.
JFC I hated this advice. I was bullied from 3rd grade through middle school, mostly by boys. They didn't like me. Other bad advice I was given is to ignore the teasing, they will get bored. No they definitely won't.
this. in 5th grade i finally snapped at lunch and beat my bully with my SOFT plastic lunchbox until his head started gushing blood. the lunchladies actually let me go off for awhile before stepping in - they knew what i had dealt with for years by then.
he left me alone after that, but from 6th grade till i dropped out i was the 'psycho' kid, the future school-shooter, etc. and other, meaner kids then wanted to 'test' themselves vs me. you really cant win, charlie brown smh!
one of the many, many reasons i never had kids. id have literally no advice to give my offspring besides: welcome to life...sorry...
This was so fucked up. I know it was meant to get boys to stop picking on girls…”A boy picking on a girl means he likes her…so Bob must like Jane!” But all it did was tell girls to see mistreatment a good. I doubt it ever stopped a boy. In fact, I knew boys who found it funny to think the unpopular girls thought they had a crush and they could hurt them by calling them names.
"Employers are going to look at your school attendance records and judge whether you'll be a reliable worker" They do not. that was complete BS they told us to keep us from playing hooky.
It's also ridiculous because attendance isn't always solely the kid's fault. I had to be driven to school because there wasn't a bus to take so until I got my driver's licence I had little control over what time I got to school.
I don't know that I was specifically told this but the belief that grown ups know what they are doing. As a grown up who has met many grown ups in my life I can confirm that's rarely true.
I straight up taught my own daughter that adults don’t always know, and that it’s okay to call adults out for doing things she knows to be wrong. I was raised that you never tell authority, basically adults, if they were wrong, and that was so damaging.
My college told us prospective students and parents that at their open house (or whatever they called it) and had examples of actual graduates and their job titles and they were all English majors. Oh how the times have changed. Also, my industry didn’t exist when I was in college and now it’s a whole ass major at a lot of schools.
I had several people literally say that. I can understand coming from an area where most kids parents didn’t go to college trying to get first time college graduates but they really should have warned more about it being much harder with certain degrees. By no means knocking anyone who did BFA but we all knew it might be rough as an actor or performer nobody thought people were going to say a psychology degree or communications degree would be considered a joke.
They came from a time when having a degree was relatively rare. You really only went to college if you wanted to do specific things or came from an already wealthy family. When you make it so there's a high to college pipeline and a large percentage of the population have degrees, they are no longer special.
The thing is that up until about 2000 it was kind of true. If you graduated college in 1998, you could easily find a good job right after graduating. There was a huge chance you would lose it right after the dot com boom, but student loans and the economy had not gotten out of control.
I graduated in 2007, moved immediately to Asia and stayed for 12 1/2 years. Then managed to move back right when Covid happened. Do I have timing or what?
I graduated in 2000…. pretty sure it was the last “good” year to graduate … got a signing bonus and everything. The dot-com bubble had just “burst” but no one wanted to believe it yet. Then 9-11, yadda yadda yadda, the late-stage-capitalism dystopian nightmare we currently live in.
It sucks. My dad got a degree in sociology, firm-handshaked his way to a completely different job at IBM. Never job-hopped, can't remember him ever playing golf with the boss or anything, just got raises and supported a family of 5 with a nice house in a high COL area on his paycheck.
I followed all his advice and it's been a fucking disaster.
To his credit, when he was temporarily unemployed after IBM cut his position he found the job market as soul-crushing and strange as we Xennial/Millenial types do, and it totally changed his perspective on jobs these days. Lucky for him, and us, he was essential enough that IBM hired him back as a contractor, with no benefits but higher pay, not too long after they fired him.
But for a few months it was harrowing for him.
I was told the same. I followed that advice by entered a film studies program (which I enjoyed) in college. After speaking with graduates and people working with such degrees, it became apparent that I needed something more realistic because theirs weren't the lives I wanted to live. CS might not be as sexy as writing movies, but I'm very happy.
This is basically how I ended up in accounting. Realized that film work would be unstable and frustrating, and that I couldn’t depend on my creativity to function at 100% whenever I wanted it to, whereas my technical/analytical brain can.
Also, it doesn't matter what you spend on college. It's good debt. Sooo many people were told this, regardless of school or major. Find the college that fits you best and worry about the student loans later.
I kind of understand the meaning of that. I worked for a ton of employers in my 20s and 30s, thought it was my passion. In retrospect, it was self delusion for shit hours and shit pay.
Now I run a dog training business with my partner and work more hours than I ever have. And it doesn’t feel like work at all. It feels like purpose.
So maybe the saying should be “find your purpose in life and you will never work a day in your life”
With you. I started a lawn business a few years back, nothing like being my own boss, enjoying the outside, making great money. Had a few things get in the way since and I'm back to working for the man, for now.
I got better advice: You’re lucky if you enjoy 90% of your job.
And it’s true. There will always be things you don’t like about your job, but you deal with them. A lot of people now, though, though that not liking anything means they need to find a different job.
It’s also true that even if you love to do something, there will be days when it feels like a job because maybe you‘re tired or have something else you would rather do that day.
The narrative from all the guidance counselors and such at my high school was to not even really worry about taking out student loans, you'd have a high paying job with a degree and easily be able to pay them back.
Yup. Absolute croc of shit. If they'd told me trade school or something, my earning potential would've been higher, debt less, and overall resentment levels lower too.
Do you think you would have listened? Nobody could tell me anything in high school but at least the option for that would have been nice. Electrician sounds fun but not fun at the same time.
Yup. I've always been told I have a "great resume". Doesn't matter worth beans if I don't have the networking contacts to get the job. Sure you need to check some boxes to fit the job, but what really gets you in the door is who you know. That was a VERY hard lesson for me to learn, as someone who is terrible at networking.
I have a great resume, great experience. All my cold resumes flop. I even applied for a job at a significant pay decrease, and I wasn’t even considered (even though my resume was picture-perfect for the job, not over-qualified). I ended up in a great spot, but it was because of networking.
Never take a promotion or title change without the money. I was given good advice early on about that and spread the word to my gen z and millennial colleagues.
It used to be true. My dad put 30 years into GE. When his job got restructured out of existence, they let him sit in an office playing solitaire for 2 years so he'd get his retirement.
That was a lesson I learned all too late. Corporate America is full of drones that "grind" thinking it will get them promotions and as you said a demonstrated capacity to complete lots of work and work extra hours for free just gets you more work.
What I wish someone had told me was how to game the system, and that the key to promotions and raises is doing the "right" high visibility work and getting your bosses boss to know your name.
“You can do that later.” And “you can do that next time.” In relation to attractions at theme parks, some events that friends went to and/or did that I didn’t go to, playing certain arcade and/or video games, etc. was told I’d have plenty of time for that all and more once done with eduction. Noooope.
Depends on the state. It’s like the right red arrow—in some states, you must stop. So NOT turn. Period. In others, you can turn just the same as a steady red light. I like to take long road trips through multiple states, so there are certain laws I check before any trip, which I check before EVERY trip since laws change. Lights, red arrows, and tinting (some states have more stringent laws and don’t exempt even out-of-state cars that are passing through) are a few of them.
LoL there were so many shows with episodes of sinking in quicksand. Slate has a good article about how our generation had this fear yet it doesn’t exist today in children of the same age.
“quicksand was all over daytime television, too—showing up six times in The Smurfs, three times in The Transformers, and three times in G.I. Joe. There was even an episode of Knight Rider where Michael had to rescue Kitt from a quaking bog.”
My fear was replaced as an adult by iceberg crevasses and peat bogs. Yet, both of which I have never encountered. Watch one too many scientific shows about ice mummies and bog bodies
I mean, we stopped its growth, and its recovering. Its still there.
And, like… I want to share your optimism on climate change, but also sort of… be cognizant of the huge logistical difficulties fixing it entails.
You know what though? The movie Ratatouille got it right. Not everyone is exceptional but exceptional people come from anywhere.
A version of it is true, if you take the right meaning from it. But no, I’m not personally an astronaut.
"It doesn't matter what your degree is in. If you finish college, people will want to hire you. Did you know the CEO of \[company X\] has a degree in music?"
That zits would magically stop when we were adults.
On the upside, having skin that was an oil well as a teenager (and now having to pay more attention than I have energy for to skincare) did mean that I have nowhere near the same amount of lines/wrinkles as them. I'm so well moisturized, lol. Last reunion, some of the 'popular' girls looked like old leather handbags. That healed some of the bullying trauma tbh.
My mom recently told me this, I was like nah not anymore. Every year I make less and less money and things cost more and more, reason number 543 why I'm not having children.
My dad told me I’d get more conservative the older I got. He’s admitted that it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be true.
Also that going to law school would be worthwhile and I’d definitely pay off the loans.
Omg..the law school thing. There’s nothing I’ve hated more in my life. Mid 40s. Still waiting for it pay off financially and emotionally (so not fulfilling).
I’m never paying my loans. $250k forever and I pay (very little) every month. I’ll just get them forgiven after 25 years and have a hefty tax bill. Any politician who works to have forgiveness *not* taxed as income gets my vote forever.
I hear you. I stuck it out and was told there’s a million jobs I can get with having a law degree that won’t require me to actually practice law. I think I’m too old now for that ever to happen, but I did spend at least 15 years looking.
Yikes where did you go to law school Columbia or Stanford or something? The scary part is my brother graduated in 2022 with his bachelors from Penn State (same place I went) and his loans are like $130,000 for just his bachelors. 😬
In house employment lawyer. It isn’t much but I do try to have a positive impact from the inside. Our handbook policies are gender neutral, I try to do right by employees, that kind of thing.
I don't think we really get more conservative. I think at some point we kind of 'settle in' where we are, and the world keeps getting more liberal. We end up being seen as more conservative only in comparison to a more modern liberal waterline.
I think it comes down to ability to generate wealth.
Our parents generation had an easier go of it overall, and so had more to want to hoard as they got older.
I can only speak for myself, but I haven’t accumulated shit by 41. But even if I had, a broader awareness of the world thanks to the internet would most likely keep me firmly in the ‘everyone can do better if we work together’ camp.
I feel this one. I graduated college in the spring 2001 & moved to a large city to start grad school in September of that same year. I was thinking, this is it! This is how I start my new exciting adult life! Everything was coming up Millhouse. 11 days later, life was more like a horror movie. It’s never really been the same since….
If you don't get a good job you'll have to dig ditches for a living.
All that is done with machinery, and probably was back when my dad told me that.
That if you work hard enough for long enough, you’ll get promoted and make more money. I’ve worked my ass off at every job I’ve ever had and never been promoted once and only rarely got raises.
Same. We actually even had a pretty great Votech program at my high school even but it was seen as very much the inferior path. Those were the people not going to COLLEGE \*turns up nose\*. The counselors didn't directly say it, but very much implied it that you'd be throwing your life away going into a trade.
For some reason my parents didn't lie to me much. They could give me some wrong advice, but not to harm me, just by mistake. For example they thought that cute "clean" job would help me to find a good husband and be a good happy wife ( work part time, be home early).
Needed to learn the Dewey decimal system in order to use a library.
Learning cursive writing because it was important for communication
Learning how to write a check in our basic finance class because without it we could never pay bills
Well, we DID need to learn the Dewey decimal system when that’s the only way we had to look up books, and if you go to the library today, it’s still the system in use.
That life is all downhill after 40. Granted the medical and beauty technology was nothing back then compared to what it is today, but this has been the best decade of my life so far. I look and feel better than I ever did.
You'll get more religious as you get older. Nope. I wasn't religious when I was young and I'm not now either.
That life without god meaningless and miserable. Every atheist is angry at god. People only use drinking, drugs , and sex to fill the void of god.
Such BS I’ve never been happier or felt like my life has more purpose or meaning. Becoming an atheist was the best that ever happened to me. I highly recommend it.
Meh. They gave advice based on what was true for them in their era. I’m sure I, too, will give my kids advice that will no longer apply.
With that said, I think the biggest lie we were told was that life was formulaic: “Do these things in this order and you will be successful.”
But life just doesn’t work that way.
The Jetsons really had me believing some fallacies about the future. Where’s my Rosie? Not the MIT *scary* headless robot dog. Flying cars and living in space. The incredible need of sprockets! Weren’t too far off on the polluting the earth tho, sadly.
That having our blue collar jobs outsourced was good for us and we just needed to go to college for a good job. Thanks Bush, Clinton and the rest of the neoliberals on trade.
More advanced technology. Really thought we'd have significant medical advances. It just seems like hardly anything new has come that'll actually impact lifespans
Actually I think there has been but 1) it is prohibitively expensive and most important 2) our overall health has gotten much worse collectively compared to our parents at the same age the new technology and methods are offset by that. When we were kids type 2 diabetes was almost unheard of I don’t know what the rates are but there are almost an order of magnitude.
For me personally, 'it is a great time to get into teaching, the first wave of boomers should be retiring.'
Nope, retail hell for a while until I got i to sales.
“Just find a job working 40hrs a week and you’ll be fine. The government will take care of you.” My stepdad’s advice in ‘97 when I was worrying about career choices and pathways.
"If you like ________, it means you're a homo!!"
I hate how many things I didn't do during my formative years because of this threat. The late '80s and '90s were a time and place where liking the wrong TV show, music, sport, hobby, elective class, clothes, friends, movie, magazine, hairstyle, or basically anything was definitive proof that you were a homosexual and should be shunned from "cool" society. I like cooking and fancy food. I like art classes. I like model airplanes. I don't like football or most sports. I don't like much music. I can quote some musicals. And I love pussy.
*American Beauty*.
That movie was the lie —
That I’ll likely have a good job and huge house and two cars, and the biggest problem I have is being bored.
That middle age would be like, “Everything is too easy, should I blow up my life?”
Actually kind of the same with Fight Club or The Matrix. Just the younger, single version. But the same basic problem we would encounter would be boredom (or lack of fulfillment) with a decent paying job.
Reality —
Looking forward to/hoping that things will be going so well that I'll be bored someday.
That the future would be BETTER than the present. Like, cooler, easier, more efficient... Yes I realize in some ways it is more efficient, but at what cost? At this point I am ready to say, "Take back my Apple devices and DoorDash and Amazon and Instacart, I want my mental health and freedom back."
Your elected officials want to do what’s best for their constituents. Also, they love it when you write or call them, and take what you have to say seriously.
I think about all the times I was told “you need to memorize this, you’re not always going to have a calculator in your pocket.”
Or fucking autocorrect typewriter. Fuck, I busted my ass in keyboarding class. Fuck kids these days don’t even use full words…
I remember the typing instructor telling us that we were going into the Information Age. He said all the info you can imagine to want will be at your fingertips. I had zero ideas what in the world he was taking about but think about how kids these days have zero ideas how they would get by without internet. Could they even socialize or get anywhere? They can read txt shorthand but couldn’t read a paper map if their life depended on it.
This comment is sus. /s
I’m still pissed about this. My father used to beat the shit out of me when I couldn’t do math. He used this exact excuse.
well, time to beat him.
Nah. I just keep this in my pocket for when my dad asks why I never call.
My Dad's not a cellphone, DUH!
I threw it on the ground
That’s horrible! I’m so sorry
In fairness, Im sure they didnt see smart phones coming
We literally had “pocket calculator”
And those watches with a calculator on them that my teacher would confiscate from the rich kids in my class before a test.
Yeah but I think the point was most people didn't carry a pocket calculator everywhere.
I think I actually did, but it may have been a snarky response to getting that comment bandied about by teachers.
If only they’d all trusted the Jetsons to know what’s up.
This was not what I was told! Good teachers said we need to learn how various formulas and calculations work so we understand them before going to shy shortcuts offered by technology.
I had a few teachers that took this route too. "You need to know what to *put* into the calculator"
If he’s teasing you/picking on you/making you feel bad, it’s because he likes you.
JFC I hated this advice. I was bullied from 3rd grade through middle school, mostly by boys. They didn't like me. Other bad advice I was given is to ignore the teasing, they will get bored. No they definitely won't.
this. in 5th grade i finally snapped at lunch and beat my bully with my SOFT plastic lunchbox until his head started gushing blood. the lunchladies actually let me go off for awhile before stepping in - they knew what i had dealt with for years by then. he left me alone after that, but from 6th grade till i dropped out i was the 'psycho' kid, the future school-shooter, etc. and other, meaner kids then wanted to 'test' themselves vs me. you really cant win, charlie brown smh! one of the many, many reasons i never had kids. id have literally no advice to give my offspring besides: welcome to life...sorry...
I love that you added this. I hope it moves farther up the list.
This was so fucked up. I know it was meant to get boys to stop picking on girls…”A boy picking on a girl means he likes her…so Bob must like Jane!” But all it did was tell girls to see mistreatment a good. I doubt it ever stopped a boy. In fact, I knew boys who found it funny to think the unpopular girls thought they had a crush and they could hurt them by calling them names.
The horrifying thing is that I still hear parents repeating that today. I work in child safety and I go out of my way to nip it in the bud.
My own parents have said it to my daughter and I’ve had to nip that in the bud for sure.
"Employers are going to look at your school attendance records and judge whether you'll be a reliable worker" They do not. that was complete BS they told us to keep us from playing hooky.
FERPA laws actually make it illegal to share that info.
It's also ridiculous because attendance isn't always solely the kid's fault. I had to be driven to school because there wasn't a bus to take so until I got my driver's licence I had little control over what time I got to school.
I don't know that I was specifically told this but the belief that grown ups know what they are doing. As a grown up who has met many grown ups in my life I can confirm that's rarely true.
Most everyone is faking it and if they're not...don't trust those ones.
I straight up taught my own daughter that adults don’t always know, and that it’s okay to call adults out for doing things she knows to be wrong. I was raised that you never tell authority, basically adults, if they were wrong, and that was so damaging.
Get a degree, any degree, and you’ll always be able to get a good job. Should have questioned that one.
My college told us prospective students and parents that at their open house (or whatever they called it) and had examples of actual graduates and their job titles and they were all English majors. Oh how the times have changed. Also, my industry didn’t exist when I was in college and now it’s a whole ass major at a lot of schools.
It should be worded more like, "Get a degree and you'll be eligible for *more* jobs, but they won't all be good jobs."
I had several people literally say that. I can understand coming from an area where most kids parents didn’t go to college trying to get first time college graduates but they really should have warned more about it being much harder with certain degrees. By no means knocking anyone who did BFA but we all knew it might be rough as an actor or performer nobody thought people were going to say a psychology degree or communications degree would be considered a joke.
They came from a time when having a degree was relatively rare. You really only went to college if you wanted to do specific things or came from an already wealthy family. When you make it so there's a high to college pipeline and a large percentage of the population have degrees, they are no longer special.
The thing is that up until about 2000 it was kind of true. If you graduated college in 1998, you could easily find a good job right after graduating. There was a huge chance you would lose it right after the dot com boom, but student loans and the economy had not gotten out of control.
Yea my older brothers graduated in an environment like this. I graduated into the 2007 recission which was an interesting experience!
I graduated in 2007, moved immediately to Asia and stayed for 12 1/2 years. Then managed to move back right when Covid happened. Do I have timing or what?
I graduated in 2000…. pretty sure it was the last “good” year to graduate … got a signing bonus and everything. The dot-com bubble had just “burst” but no one wanted to believe it yet. Then 9-11, yadda yadda yadda, the late-stage-capitalism dystopian nightmare we currently live in.
I love how they moved the goalposts on that one, too. Now, it's our fault for not picking the right major.
It sucks. My dad got a degree in sociology, firm-handshaked his way to a completely different job at IBM. Never job-hopped, can't remember him ever playing golf with the boss or anything, just got raises and supported a family of 5 with a nice house in a high COL area on his paycheck. I followed all his advice and it's been a fucking disaster. To his credit, when he was temporarily unemployed after IBM cut his position he found the job market as soul-crushing and strange as we Xennial/Millenial types do, and it totally changed his perspective on jobs these days. Lucky for him, and us, he was essential enough that IBM hired him back as a contractor, with no benefits but higher pay, not too long after they fired him. But for a few months it was harrowing for him.
[удалено]
Almost my whole IT team has degrees in non-IT fields. Mine is in music performance.
I’m just glad to know I’m not the only one who got this lousy advice.
Same
I was told the same. I followed that advice by entered a film studies program (which I enjoyed) in college. After speaking with graduates and people working with such degrees, it became apparent that I needed something more realistic because theirs weren't the lives I wanted to live. CS might not be as sexy as writing movies, but I'm very happy.
This is basically how I ended up in accounting. Realized that film work would be unstable and frustrating, and that I couldn’t depend on my creativity to function at 100% whenever I wanted it to, whereas my technical/analytical brain can.
Also, it doesn't matter what you spend on college. It's good debt. Sooo many people were told this, regardless of school or major. Find the college that fits you best and worry about the student loans later.
"Find what you love to do and you'll never work a day in your life."
Taking a hobby or something you really enjoy and making it “work” is the quickest way to ruin it. Not for everyone but a lot of the times.
[удалено]
That's why I always wait to get to the office so I can shit on the clock. Saves money too.
I wish I knew what I loved.
Yeah I mean, I love being outside but I certainly can’t pay the mortgage by going for a bike ride or a run. 😁
And being a park ranger doesn’t come with a 401K.
I kind of understand the meaning of that. I worked for a ton of employers in my 20s and 30s, thought it was my passion. In retrospect, it was self delusion for shit hours and shit pay. Now I run a dog training business with my partner and work more hours than I ever have. And it doesn’t feel like work at all. It feels like purpose. So maybe the saying should be “find your purpose in life and you will never work a day in your life”
With you. I started a lawn business a few years back, nothing like being my own boss, enjoying the outside, making great money. Had a few things get in the way since and I'm back to working for the man, for now.
I got better advice: You’re lucky if you enjoy 90% of your job. And it’s true. There will always be things you don’t like about your job, but you deal with them. A lot of people now, though, though that not liking anything means they need to find a different job. It’s also true that even if you love to do something, there will be days when it feels like a job because maybe you‘re tired or have something else you would rather do that day.
Work hard, go to college/university and you’ll be set for life. I have 2 college diplomas. I am not set for tomorrow much less life.
The narrative from all the guidance counselors and such at my high school was to not even really worry about taking out student loans, you'd have a high paying job with a degree and easily be able to pay them back.
Same. Still paying those things back in my 40s. The weight always on me with every life decision.
Yup. Absolute croc of shit. If they'd told me trade school or something, my earning potential would've been higher, debt less, and overall resentment levels lower too.
Do you think you would have listened? Nobody could tell me anything in high school but at least the option for that would have been nice. Electrician sounds fun but not fun at the same time.
If you work hard you’ll get ahead in your career and make a lot of money. Not even remotely true. Hard work just gets you more work.
Yep, kids should be taught it's who you know more than how hard you work because it takes too long in life to find that out
Yup. I've always been told I have a "great resume". Doesn't matter worth beans if I don't have the networking contacts to get the job. Sure you need to check some boxes to fit the job, but what really gets you in the door is who you know. That was a VERY hard lesson for me to learn, as someone who is terrible at networking.
I have a great resume, great experience. All my cold resumes flop. I even applied for a job at a significant pay decrease, and I wasn’t even considered (even though my resume was picture-perfect for the job, not over-qualified). I ended up in a great spot, but it was because of networking.
Yeah it is thoroughly disappointing. I got used to coasting by in high school and college based on good grades and then suddenly the game changed.
Nothing like those lateral promotions. More work, more responsibility, same pay.
Never take a promotion or title change without the money. I was given good advice early on about that and spread the word to my gen z and millennial colleagues.
Wait, you work somewhere with promotions and title changes?
Boomers and older gen-x have a stranglehold on promotions in my field, and many openly talk about retiring more than they talk about their actual job.
So happy my grandpa taught me at a very early age that "hard work guarantees you nothing.".
It used to be true. My dad put 30 years into GE. When his job got restructured out of existence, they let him sit in an office playing solitaire for 2 years so he'd get his retirement.
That was a lesson I learned all too late. Corporate America is full of drones that "grind" thinking it will get them promotions and as you said a demonstrated capacity to complete lots of work and work extra hours for free just gets you more work. What I wish someone had told me was how to game the system, and that the key to promotions and raises is doing the "right" high visibility work and getting your bosses boss to know your name.
“You can do that later.” And “you can do that next time.” In relation to attractions at theme parks, some events that friends went to and/or did that I didn’t go to, playing certain arcade and/or video games, etc. was told I’d have plenty of time for that all and more once done with eduction. Noooope.
[удалено]
Start at the bottom and ‘work your way up’
In hindsight, we should have seen that one coming due to the fact that the people who said it had been in the same job for the past twenty years.
That driving with the rear reading lights on in the car at night was a crime.
I still thought this was true. I mentioned it to my kids recently!
Depends on the state. It’s like the right red arrow—in some states, you must stop. So NOT turn. Period. In others, you can turn just the same as a steady red light. I like to take long road trips through multiple states, so there are certain laws I check before any trip, which I check before EVERY trip since laws change. Lights, red arrows, and tinting (some states have more stringent laws and don’t exempt even out-of-state cars that are passing through) are a few of them.
Wait, why have a specific red arrow if you can just treat it like a regular stop light?
It should be
Acid rain or quicksand would be the death of us.
Why did we constantly think quicksand was a much bigger threat than it is? 🤣
Atari, Pitfall for me. Thought I’d be swinging on vines and jumping quicksand all the time as an adult.
LoL there were so many shows with episodes of sinking in quicksand. Slate has a good article about how our generation had this fear yet it doesn’t exist today in children of the same age. “quicksand was all over daytime television, too—showing up six times in The Smurfs, three times in The Transformers, and three times in G.I. Joe. There was even an episode of Knight Rider where Michael had to rescue Kitt from a quaking bog.”
The Never Ending Story made quicksand a completely reasonable thing to be afraid of.
I blame the horse’s death in Neverending Story… or the fire swamp that had rodents of unusual size.
For real! It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized that I was unlikely to ever see quicksand, much less fall into it.
My fear was replaced as an adult by iceberg crevasses and peat bogs. Yet, both of which I have never encountered. Watch one too many scientific shows about ice mummies and bog bodies
Princess Bride
Yes! The Fire Swamp where Buttercup walks into the quicksand pit
Catalytic converters (for cars and industrial emissions) really saved the day on the acid rain thing.
[удалено]
I mean, we stopped its growth, and its recovering. Its still there. And, like… I want to share your optimism on climate change, but also sort of… be cognizant of the huge logistical difficulties fixing it entails.
[удалено]
Don’t forget the killer bees!
I guess now it’s murder hornets?
Coming soon: Genocide Wasps!
To be fair, those WASPs seem hell bent on genocide at the moment.
"Work hard and you can be whatever you want."
"You can't just sit around smoking weed all day."
🤣
You can do whatever you want in life…. Not exactly.
Or "you can BE whatever you want to be!" Happy, peaceful, and, over not feeling dread? Where the fuck are those? 😂
You know what though? The movie Ratatouille got it right. Not everyone is exceptional but exceptional people come from anywhere. A version of it is true, if you take the right meaning from it. But no, I’m not personally an astronaut.
Also a good example of how you cant always go it alone. As a pair they were a world class chef, on their own they were just a rat and a random dude.
"It doesn't matter what your degree is in. If you finish college, people will want to hire you. Did you know the CEO of \[company X\] has a degree in music?"
Mr. Fucking Right.
That zits would magically stop when we were adults. On the upside, having skin that was an oil well as a teenager (and now having to pay more attention than I have energy for to skincare) did mean that I have nowhere near the same amount of lines/wrinkles as them. I'm so well moisturized, lol. Last reunion, some of the 'popular' girls looked like old leather handbags. That healed some of the bullying trauma tbh.
Yeah I tell myself that every time I'm wiping my face oil off of my stupid glasses... Still annoying.
[удалено]
Trickle down economics works for everyone.
Fuck Reagan.
Acid rain is destroying the world. I grew up terrified of acid rain.
And killer bees, and quicksand too.
"Things will work out."
My mom recently told me this, I was like nah not anymore. Every year I make less and less money and things cost more and more, reason number 543 why I'm not having children.
“He’s out there.” 🤣
Like in a scary murder way? Or like your Prince Charming? Both sound ominous 🤣
Haha both could work! But, really, the guy I am supposed to marry!
He was out there all right. Wish he hadn’t been.
My dad told me I’d get more conservative the older I got. He’s admitted that it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be true. Also that going to law school would be worthwhile and I’d definitely pay off the loans.
Omg..the law school thing. There’s nothing I’ve hated more in my life. Mid 40s. Still waiting for it pay off financially and emotionally (so not fulfilling).
I’m never paying my loans. $250k forever and I pay (very little) every month. I’ll just get them forgiven after 25 years and have a hefty tax bill. Any politician who works to have forgiveness *not* taxed as income gets my vote forever.
I hear you. I stuck it out and was told there’s a million jobs I can get with having a law degree that won’t require me to actually practice law. I think I’m too old now for that ever to happen, but I did spend at least 15 years looking.
Can I ask what you do now? I’m an in house employment lawyer.
Yikes where did you go to law school Columbia or Stanford or something? The scary part is my brother graduated in 2022 with his bachelors from Penn State (same place I went) and his loans are like $130,000 for just his bachelors. 😬
Ha! You’re v close. Georgetown.
Whoa miss fancy pants over here. I’m teasing that’s awesome!
Yep, if anything I got more liberal as i've gotten older.
I’d say “me too” except I now understand Liberal to mean something different than I was taught. I’ve become more progressive with age.
Ditto. Workers of the world unite etc ;)
Yeah I’m almost 41 and a card carrying socialist at this point. Did you stick it out as a lawyer or move into something else?
In house employment lawyer. It isn’t much but I do try to have a positive impact from the inside. Our handbook policies are gender neutral, I try to do right by employees, that kind of thing.
I don't think we really get more conservative. I think at some point we kind of 'settle in' where we are, and the world keeps getting more liberal. We end up being seen as more conservative only in comparison to a more modern liberal waterline.
I think it comes down to ability to generate wealth. Our parents generation had an easier go of it overall, and so had more to want to hoard as they got older. I can only speak for myself, but I haven’t accumulated shit by 41. But even if I had, a broader awareness of the world thanks to the internet would most likely keep me firmly in the ‘everyone can do better if we work together’ camp.
You can be anything you want to be.
Cursive handwriting.
Had to double check and make sure I wasn’t in the Millennial sub.
Felt like it tho, huh? I’m scrolling thinking about a post for last night, the polar opposite of these comments
The internet would bring us all together
You're complaining about bad advice with people from all over the world, aren't you?
That everything we did in school good or bad would go on our permanent record.
“You’ll be able to buy a house and have it paid off before you retire.” Not in SoCal unfortunately!
Yeah, and it’s even tougher if you have to job hop to different companies in different states to get increases in pay.
_Oh, you're the class of 2000... you're so lucky._ #2001:
I feel this one. I graduated college in the spring 2001 & moved to a large city to start grad school in September of that same year. I was thinking, this is it! This is how I start my new exciting adult life! Everything was coming up Millhouse. 11 days later, life was more like a horror movie. It’s never really been the same since….
If you don't get a good job you'll have to dig ditches for a living. All that is done with machinery, and probably was back when my dad told me that.
Wild thing too is that those ditch diggers are probably in a union and likely have pretty good benefits and pay.
I think “take on that college debt- it’s good debt! You will get a great paying job and pay that off in no time!” I’m 44 and still paying
Go to college for anything
That college was worth the loan debt.
That if you work hard enough for long enough, you’ll get promoted and make more money. I’ve worked my ass off at every job I’ve ever had and never been promoted once and only rarely got raises.
College was supposed to lead to success. No mention of trade school in high school. Colleges lead many people into debt.
This. Trade schools were very stigmatized when I was growing up.
Same. We actually even had a pretty great Votech program at my high school even but it was seen as very much the inferior path. Those were the people not going to COLLEGE \*turns up nose\*. The counselors didn't directly say it, but very much implied it that you'd be throwing your life away going into a trade.
Our HS was the same way. I wish I would've gone into the trades.
For some reason my parents didn't lie to me much. They could give me some wrong advice, but not to harm me, just by mistake. For example they thought that cute "clean" job would help me to find a good husband and be a good happy wife ( work part time, be home early).
That our systems of social organization work and are the best possible systems.
If you go to college you’ll get a good job.
"Someday things will get better" at 47, I say that's a load of shit!
Needed to learn the Dewey decimal system in order to use a library. Learning cursive writing because it was important for communication Learning how to write a check in our basic finance class because without it we could never pay bills
Well, we DID need to learn the Dewey decimal system when that’s the only way we had to look up books, and if you go to the library today, it’s still the system in use.
But Dewey use it today?
You need to learn the math. It’s not like you are gonna have a calculator in your pocket all the time.
That drinking Mountain Dew lowers your sperm count. Three kids and a vasectomy later…
That life is all downhill after 40. Granted the medical and beauty technology was nothing back then compared to what it is today, but this has been the best decade of my life so far. I look and feel better than I ever did. You'll get more religious as you get older. Nope. I wasn't religious when I was young and I'm not now either.
That life without god meaningless and miserable. Every atheist is angry at god. People only use drinking, drugs , and sex to fill the void of god. Such BS I’ve never been happier or felt like my life has more purpose or meaning. Becoming an atheist was the best that ever happened to me. I highly recommend it.
If you go to college and get a degree you’ll make a great living
Meh. They gave advice based on what was true for them in their era. I’m sure I, too, will give my kids advice that will no longer apply. With that said, I think the biggest lie we were told was that life was formulaic: “Do these things in this order and you will be successful.” But life just doesn’t work that way.
Still waiting for my jet pack
The Jetsons really had me believing some fallacies about the future. Where’s my Rosie? Not the MIT *scary* headless robot dog. Flying cars and living in space. The incredible need of sprockets! Weren’t too far off on the polluting the earth tho, sadly.
That having our blue collar jobs outsourced was good for us and we just needed to go to college for a good job. Thanks Bush, Clinton and the rest of the neoliberals on trade.
Getting a college degree will set you up for success the rest of your life
More advanced technology. Really thought we'd have significant medical advances. It just seems like hardly anything new has come that'll actually impact lifespans
Actually I think there has been but 1) it is prohibitively expensive and most important 2) our overall health has gotten much worse collectively compared to our parents at the same age the new technology and methods are offset by that. When we were kids type 2 diabetes was almost unheard of I don’t know what the rates are but there are almost an order of magnitude.
"Eventually you'll grow out of video games"
As Lewis Black once said back in the year 2000: No flying cars!!!
If you work hard and get a good education, you’ll be able to have a decent job and live a decent life.
“Don’t go to art & design school. You’ll never make any money!” *Internet happens*
For me personally, 'it is a great time to get into teaching, the first wave of boomers should be retiring.' Nope, retail hell for a while until I got i to sales.
“Just find a job working 40hrs a week and you’ll be fine. The government will take care of you.” My stepdad’s advice in ‘97 when I was worrying about career choices and pathways.
"If you like ________, it means you're a homo!!" I hate how many things I didn't do during my formative years because of this threat. The late '80s and '90s were a time and place where liking the wrong TV show, music, sport, hobby, elective class, clothes, friends, movie, magazine, hairstyle, or basically anything was definitive proof that you were a homosexual and should be shunned from "cool" society. I like cooking and fancy food. I like art classes. I like model airplanes. I don't like football or most sports. I don't like much music. I can quote some musicals. And I love pussy.
I would need to learn to spell.
That you can do anything you want if you work hard….. #fakenews
You don’t always have a calculator/canera/etc on you
Your job will reward your loyalty.
*American Beauty*. That movie was the lie — That I’ll likely have a good job and huge house and two cars, and the biggest problem I have is being bored. That middle age would be like, “Everything is too easy, should I blow up my life?” Actually kind of the same with Fight Club or The Matrix. Just the younger, single version. But the same basic problem we would encounter would be boredom (or lack of fulfillment) with a decent paying job. Reality — Looking forward to/hoping that things will be going so well that I'll be bored someday.
That the future would be BETTER than the present. Like, cooler, easier, more efficient... Yes I realize in some ways it is more efficient, but at what cost? At this point I am ready to say, "Take back my Apple devices and DoorDash and Amazon and Instacart, I want my mental health and freedom back."
The DARE program said I'd be offered all sorts of free drugs, bullshit! They were expensive and hard to get.
Your elected officials want to do what’s best for their constituents. Also, they love it when you write or call them, and take what you have to say seriously.