ozzieeagle

Food for thought with your post. One thing that has occurred to me, is that the young Australian adults I see in this generation are possibly the most free of status confines of any generation in any location I've ever seen. That could go with the area we live in though rather than a broad generational statement.

Coincidently there are correlations with my youngest and the two you mention inasmuch as my Youngest Daughter now 24 has played Viola in the Melbourne Youth Strings and the Percy Granger orchestra and is a probably capable of ending up in the Melbourne Symphony orchestra, however, she realises there will never be real money in Music and has switched her attention to earning money and building a career to pay and further her "Hobby" as she puts it.... She does want to study Viola in Vienna though, so she is working on ways to achieve this. Shes switched from Electrical Engineering to Business project studies now and has landed her self a job as a team leader at Dun and Bradstreet.

My 19 yo son is getting gigs as a DJ in some well-known places in Melbourne and getting paid pretty decent money for it as well... I think he is heading overseas permanently if he can. He wants to live or spend as much time as possible in Berlin. He seems to know 100's of people personally, everytime we spend any time in the city with him, he bumps into lots of different people that know him, sometimes for us that gets tedious. My youngest daughter got him a job through her contacts and now he works afternoons for Coles on Line in the inward bound call center, which suits his sleeping patterns and lifestyle. My Daughter was managing the Coles on Line Call center for quite a while nationwide and is now switching companies.

They seem incredibly free my youngest two. By free I mean free of everything that seemed to constrain me at their age.... fear of not having employment, free of social status opinion, free of fear of the future. Their peers seem similar as well.... I do realise that it could be a cause of "Birds of a feather flocking together" Although it could also be a generational trait.

Yehp I think this younger lot are doing really well for themselves. Hopefully it is a trait across most of society around the western world.

Beoz

I wonder if that's because your generation had a lot more focus on finding what some would call stability earlier on in life. Get married, buy a house, have kids, get a stable job.

Today the above goal happens a lot later in life with so much more opportunity to try lots of different things in different parts of the world, changing those traditional goals.

ozzieeagle

I was measuring more against their almost 10 year older siblings. I think there's a very big generational gap. A bit like the gap between the more conformist 50's generation and the free love hippies of the 60's.... I'd say this could be the biggest generational gap since that time.

Gordon Barlow

Yes. Good point. I was "on the road" in the '50s, and never did become a hippie. (Although my son did!)

the troubadour

Possibly because Hippies didn't take off until last half of sixties. If you were 'on the road' in the fifties you were more like a Beatnik of the Beat Generation times......

Gordon Barlow

Sorry, my mistake. I meant to write that I left school in the '50s and was on the road in the '60s... Tchah! See what old age has done to me?

the troubadour

It would be nice to think that generation will possess the collective mind to change the course of society. There have been a few false alarms in recent decades ....so lets see. I doubt it will be as counter cultural as the 60's and 70's, but may be as radical I suppose in ways that suit present times.


We can only hope .....Present orthodoxies of the past few decades really need to be put to sleep once and for all.

the troubadour

It depends when in the sixties. Before 65 still a Beatnik. After 66 if not quite a Hippy, which could be a rather 'broad' term in usage, I mean a look, a mindset or a lifestyle, or a bit of all? Or just a travelling man? I suspect anyone that lived in part at least outside the mainstream could be labelled counter cultural, of which there would have been many. Being a 'Straight' , probably not the desirable term to be known in such times.

Gordon Barlow

That's a very insightful comment. I was what was called a "traveller" in those days - and what a shame it is that that term has a radically different meaning today! Hitched around Scandinavia by myself in '63 and around the Middle East with a girl from a Youth Hostel in '64-65, and drove through eastern Europe with her in a VW Beetle. Worked on and off in different countries, always as an accountant (!), and until 1976 my dream was to go and live in the caves of Crete where the hippies lived. Sigh.

So yes, I've never really thought of it before, but I guess I was influenced by the counter-culture. Life has been conventional for so long now that it's all ancient history! Retired in the Caribbean... Dear God, it's a middle-class cliche, isn't it?

the troubadour

'Sold out to the man' some of the true believers that maintained 'their colours' may well suggest. Although being an accountant would hardly be a ready paid up membership guarantee as part of the counter cultural movement of the approaching times.

the troubadour

Interesting post. Obviously you are more on 'the front line' to note any perceived differences between young than me, but less constraints more at your age? We are of a similar generation and speaking for myself, I felt no constraints. London and Europe where lived between was very free. In fact London was cheap enough to just hang out and pick up work at will. It was another world. Politics was far more in mode and more questions asked. Far easier to navigate than todays sans doubt.
Berlin for example was very much anti authority and

Gordon Barlow

Ah, I didn't ever sell out to The Man - just hired myself out to him for three years at a time; I like to think that's different! I have always been disappointed to hear about youngsters - especially in their twenties - eagerly chasing money. Maybe that's something else I picked up from my '60s generation - a wariness towards the pursuit of money. Although... maybe that attitude arose out of my failure to ever have much of it.

When I was putting together my first bid to join the hippies of Crete, I took time off to teach myself how to play the stock market so as to augment my capital. (I wasn't going to be a poor hippie, thank you - oh no!) I chose Perth to do that - while my wife would learn how to teach the natives how to speak English. Our sojourn coincided with the nickel-mining fiasco of '71 - not the best time to play the stock market at all. So we had to go back to work again and put some more money in the kitty.

Our son was a hippie in eastern Australia for a while, and later in Central America. His older daughter (now 17, in Norway), who lived in a simple tree-house with her parents when I first met her, is showing clear signs of following his example. She and Ozzie's 19-year-old son might make an interesting combination, if they ever got together!

Going back to Ozzie's thread-topic of '90s kids... I don't know any Aussies of that age, but my advice to anybody of that generation would be to do a bit of constructive bumming around before "selling out to The Man". What do you reckon?

the troubadour

Nothing wrong with a spot of prostitution if one is honest about it. A means to an end, of course as long as they never commander the soul, nor eradicate the spirit of free thought and speaking out.
Increasingly hard in a workplace too often ruled by degrees of fear and authoritarian management structure much which could be commented about, but getting away from the subject.


I never realised you were in Perth. The dates you give and mention of nickel, leads me to suspect you are writing about the Poseidon Bubble that is legend from the time. Big money made and big money lost. Life in The Wild West.


Great the hear that the kids are living their own lives in various parts of the world. Only way to succeed in life and not succumb to a serious illness at some stage in life, is to live a life of personal fulfilment and not be dictated by flawed norms or social expectations. Whatever that may be.


Not sure about Aussie kids but live in hope. I get the feeling a number desire an other worldliness than the humdrum expectations other than that of a suburban existence with a lifetime of servitude in order to service inflated house prices, but not sure how many have the 'will power', daring, or whatever it is called to break out.


With far more regulations and rules and pressure on young to conform than our days, which stretched quite a few decades, they are less able to drop out I suspect. We had free education. There was the dole to fall back on for those that needed it. In recent years the government attempted to stop dole payments for those under thirty. It didn't pass but we can see the direction of things and pressures of complete conformity.


I very much agree. A bit of constructive or even non constructive (it can do the head in for some who find it near impossible to readjust to mainstream society ever again, not that I consider it that bad, as long as some way is found and not purely in limbo)


Probably try and be 'the man' if at all possible even if that means a hamburger stall on a beach in Gozo. Or discover a cure for cancer. Just do what suits.

Beoz

Absolutely.

The ones I work with don't seem to be interested in bumming around the world picking up whatever work comes there way.

However they are more than happy to do a once or twice yearly annual trip to where ever.

Skiing in Chile was the latest I heard, already done the US, Europe, Japan mountains.

I guess now that cost of living on many fronts is so much cheaper than it once was, doing it all in one hit over a gap year or 2 doesn't matter any more.

the troubadour

A find the 'hop in' hop out' approach more in tune with what the elders did in previous generations. I do not agree costs are cheaper. Not by a long shot. Probably in part why short durations became the fad.


In times past, it would be a matter of throwing in the job and hitting the road. Often no time frame and only a loose agenda of the path ahead. Very different to modern times. Pre arranged and paid accommodation, apps for every occasion resulting in little need to approach strangers for directions etc.


I think the experience is greatly diminished as a result. But each generation finds their way but if we are comparing to past travellers, can only say I consider myself very lucky to have experienced travel when I did. I'm sure those ten years or more ahead of me experienced it even as a more mystical and richer experience.