Leave Your Kids Better Off…

Ha! I’m not really sure if my kids realize it, but everyone of them is in a w-a-y better situation financially then their parents ever were. This is what you want to see, this is how things ought to be! We pour into our kids, try to do things that will improve their quality of life. If you’re really fortunate, you can also leave them a legacy, a home, a business, an inheritance.

I have to say this because there’s a lot of hype right now about how “this generation are the first ones to experience less prosperity and a lower quality of life than their parents.” While it’s possible some aspects of that are true on a macro scale, it is definitely not true on a more personal, family level.

I’m chuckling here, but we don’t come from great, squandered wealth! You go back through my husband’s and my ancestry and it’s actually a miracle either or us are even here. Our ancestors were mostly impoverished refugees, fleeing their countries of origin with nothing more than they could carry.

My children have no idea how “wealthy” they are. I mean, if we’re grading on a scale that is, they have more access to resources, opportunity, and freedom than any of their predecessors ever did. I just say that because the world does not ever say it, because the narrative thrives on scarcity and trying to tell you how deprived you are so they can sell you something.

So yes, there are a bazillion problems with the current system, with the economy, with the struggle to buy a home, with the cost of goods and services, with fraud, waste, and abuse, with government corruption, however, none of my kids are standing on a dock somewhere with a small bag of possessions about to enter the New World, unable to even speak the language.

I like to think they also escaped some of the trauma of war, of fascism, of the extreme poverty of the reservation. When you do a little genealogy in our family tree you get a pretty diverse picture of some really strong people and their assorted struggles to be free. Then you got those wounds, the generational trauma that gets unwittingly passed down. My grandma was murdered. My great grandma killed herself. My sister overdosed. There is addiction, alcoholism, violence, homelessness, and despair woven through much of our family history.

I like to think my kids have a better life than those who came before them, in part because we worked hard to break some cycles, and in part because our ancestors made the decision to come to America, (except for those who were already here on reservations and taught me why we should never rely on the government to provide for your needs.)

So this all seems like common sense to me. Absolutely, we want our children to thrive, to have more than we ever did. I regret not having more to give them, more to leave for them! It’s absolutely foreign to me to believe otherwise.

Apparently this is no longer just how things are, no longer just common sense?! Enter the, “we’re spending our grandchildren’s inheritance,” people! No seriously, what the heck is that?? I saw that bumper sticker on a motor home the other day and my inner karen just reared up ready to go to war. If you spend enough time on social media, you soon start to notice that mindset is not quite an aberration. It’s more prevalent than I first realized! A whole lot of people are saying things like, we’re not giving our kids a dime, they can just work for it like we had to. People actually bragging about using all their money to set up a trust fund for abandoned rhinos! My stupid kids spend too much money on coffee and avocado toast.

I’ll spare you the more gritty details, just suffice it to say there’s some really selfish people in the world who seem to perceive their own offspring, even their own grandchildren, as some sort of threat, competition that must be kept in their place and kept out of the social strata.

Wut?!

I’m chuckling here, while my brain is refusing to acknowledge this horror I am seeing, another part of me knows perfectly well this is a real thing out in the world. My own parents kind of have that same cultural mindset in a myriad of ways. What can I say, something just went all awry in the 1960’s. If I ever figure it out, I’ll share it with you.

Shoot, never mind parents, we got a couple of women in this state who have now been sitting in office since the 1980’s. Pretty sure Patty Murray has been in Congress since the 1990’s. I have children who have never known anything else. Why in the world would someone think that they deserve a lifetime appointment in government?

Heaven forbid I ever suggest putting anyone out to pasture, since I am about ready for the pasture myself, but there really is something to be said for making a way for the next generation, maybe even mentoring them, funding them, allowing them to have a voice and place in the world they are going to inherit?

That notion that, “this generation are the first ones to experience less prosperity and a lower quality of life than their parents,” is kind of true in the sense that the focus of the world kind of shifted and not for the better. It’s way past time for us to flip a U-turn, get out of this ditch, and start doing things that make more sense.

***I’m laughing about the idea of being put out to pasture. Pastures are glorious, there are deer, horses running free, cows, wildflowers. Not sure why being “put out to pasture” became such a negative, but I give it four stars.

#blogging #culture #humor #insanitybytes22 #kids #life #opinion #pastures #politics

Sheep enclosures in Yorkshire, UK

#Deforestation alters the Amazon’s #climate (precipitation & CO2 removal) with far-reaching consequences for the global climate system. From 1985-2020 there was a significant drop in #forest cover from 89% to 79%, while #pastures increased from 4% to 15%: doi.org/10.1038/s414... #landuse #cattle

How climate change and defores...

The breathtaking mountains and vibrant pastures.

#mountains #pastures

A #Food Reckoning Is Coming
Our #diets are awful for planet. We can’t simply abandon food.
Challenge is: what we #eat, how we produce it, and forests and ecosystems we clear to make room for more #farms to make more food. And that’s mostly a land story about relentless spread of #crops and #pastures that cover 2 of every 5 acres of land on Earth, obliterating wild landscapes that soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. We have no idea how or when that story will end.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2025/06/climate-food-land-problem/683005/

#Armenia has 2.1 million hectares of #agriculturalLand, 72% of the country's land area. Most of this, however, is mountain #pastures, and #cultivableLand is 480,000 hectares (452,900 hectares #arableLand, 27,300 hectares in #orchards and #vineyards), or 16% of the country's area. In 2006, 46% of the work force was employed in agriculture (up from 26% in 1991), and agriculture contributed 21% of the country's GDP. In 1991 Armenia imported about 65 percent of its food.

#Alignment has a #Cost
Sometimes, it is called a #SwitchingCost to #Pastures that promise #Heart and #Mind working together not against each other.
#Alignment with Narghiza Ergashova

#KnowledgeDrain when #TalentFlees to greener #Pastures
#Talent is #Capital with Narghiza Ergashova