Do you envy your daughter?

...... have to say my daughter loves her job.... it helps of course!

Like I said, you’re on your own

Apologies for the thread hijack OP, I know it’s gone off topic. I’ll leave now.

Yes.... she has a career ..... I had a job! I wanted a career but my husband would kick off every time I tried to improve my educational chances
or it interfered with me making his sandwiches for his pack-up. It was always about him .... my daughters husband was quite similar.... she’s just left him and is working twice as hard to pay her mortgage and manage her kids every other week( she child shares with him, week on, week off)... but she’s never looked better and is off the tranquillisers. Yes , I envy her... who wouldn’t she’s free!!

Genomics was your example.

You’re focusing on genomics and labs and haven’t acknowledged anything else I mentioned

No I'm not I addressed your general points incl virtual PAs etc.
Youre making vague statements you wont then discuss or elaborate on..

A range of job titles does not = more jobs or job oportunities, in any field.

I’m very proud of my three daughters but no, I do not envy them. In fact I do not envy anyone at all.

This sounded such an odd question to me, Ealdemodor, then I paused to think, why do I find it an odd question?

I have three daughters, all married, all mothers, all well educated and with lovely husbands. I certainly don't envy them at all. I am extremely proud of them!! But I try not to go on about it. We don't live in each other's pockets and have a kind of radar or sixth sense about when we need each other. I have had some stress at times worrying about one in particular in the past but she has grown into such a loving and hard working mother and is kind to me, so now I feel very lucky.

I don't envy anyone, to be honest. Even though I am almost house-bound and in pain living in sub standard conditions, I am content to get by so long as I have my dogs with me! Somehow envying another person has always seemed a waste of time to me. I remember when we discussed jealousy in school A level English. I could not see the point of it then. Unless someone has stolen the very thing you hold most dear, I cannot imagine the point of envying another. Other people may seem rich and to have a great time but you can never tell if they are happy inside.

I am just so glad my daughters are happy and coping. That things are going well enough for them not to have money problems and that their children are healthy and happy is all I ask. I give thanks to the Lord for this. There are so many people with so many terrible circumstances to endure in this world. I wish I could be useful for them.

Read my post again notanan - I said the range of jobs.

You’re focusing on genomics and labs and haven’t acknowledged anything else I mentioned so I’m going to leave you on your own to agree with yourself that things are dreadful and all hope has gone. I really cba saying any more.

No, I don’t envy my daughter.
She works hard in a job she doesn’t like much, in a hotel. She has a husband and three teenage children, she does the majority of the housework, cooking, shopping etc. My lovely GC are typical teenagers, unwilling to do anything much round the house to help out. SIL also works hard at his job, but happy to leave bulk of other stuff to DD.
She lives in Australia, has never had the benefit of us being able to help out, babysit, collect the GC from school, as we have done for our DS and DIL who live locally. Her in laws have never been very supportive or hands on grandparents.
We chat weekly, but not the same as face to face contact, and being able to have a good heart to heart as I did with my own mum.
So no, I don’t envy her, and wish I could do more to help her.

You can rep for the genomics kits bit thats not exactly what kids who want to do science dream of.
And the rep jobs at any rate tend to go to people closer to retirement with lots of experience and contacts behind them.

Agreed!

You cited genomics
So tell me how a young person today can work their way up?
Used to be able to assist and work up that way, getting funding for post grad study.
Now post docs are "assisting" after self funding their study AND they now have to be in a financial position to be able to move to the "hubs" as there are no longer smaller local labs. Post docs are doing the work post grads used to do.

Contracts are shorter. You cant even sideline into lecturing for security any more as thats not secure.

How does that represent more opportunity not less?

It was your example so explain?

I don't envy my daughters because they both have to go out to work and I was a happy SAHM. I also had much better accommodation when my children were my grandchildren's age. I also had a sensible husband, who pulled his weight around the home, even though he went out to work and I didn't.

We’ll agree to differ. I can only tell you what my experiences are of working in the NHS for 26 years and seeing the developments in other specialities and seeing the kind of opportunities there are for my DC. If you take a look at university courses now and compare them to the 80s when I was at university there have been huge changes. It’s just the way of the world, always has been.

The developments were very exciting and catapulted medical science. But in the process made science jobs redundant. Go visit your biochemistry lab if you work in the NHS. There are no scientists in there any more. And there wont even be labs soon as biochemistry analysis can be done at the bedside (and is in some units)

The last 20yrs was a great time to be in medical science. But it is NOT a great time to be starting out as a scientist!

Youre wrong again. The genomics boom offered oportunities to that have already passed. Again a whole lab of people reduced to a hand held device after the developments during/since ebola.

It is much much much harder to get into genomics now. People used to be able to cut their teeth assisting in smaller labs which have now been centalised.

This are opportunities again that benefited the current middle aged and not the upcoming generation.

Genomics is going the way blood gas analysis went: now used by anyone no big kit or scientists involved at all.

That was only a small list notanan, I said that, but it’s not true to say that young people don’t have optimism or hope, or that the only alternatives they have are to deliveroo drivers or Amazon warehouse workers. I work in the NHS - the range of jobs nowadays compared to years ago is immense and will continue to be so with developments in genomics, AI and so on. My son is studying engineering which has an IT focus - that simply didn’t exist. The workplace changes for every generation.

I don’t think envy is the correct word for me but proud really that my daughter is so independent and wishes to experience life and her choices rather than when I was her age being pushed to get married and have children etc etc. I’ve learnt from that and appreciates I don’t think that. I’m proud of her positive self talk she has to herself.

Most of your list is scenarios like that.

Where every manager once had their own PA/secretary, 20 of them now share a "virtual assistant".
A new job title but NOT new opportunities.

5 people with "new" jobs in a lab that once housed 40 scientists doesnt = more opportunities for young people

Things like the IT boom benefited my generation not my children.

A lot of "new" job titles replace 20 people on "old" job titles.

E.g. in a lot of science labs you now have a "robot technicians" and a handful of non professional grade assistants in labs that once housed 40 biomedical scientists!

This lists just a few content.wisestep.com/jobs-didnt-exist-10-15-30-50-years-ago/

There’s a few alternatives to deliveroo and Amazon

Well yeah deliveroo and amazon warehouses werent an "option" in my day I suppose....

I’m sure that’s the case - but the flip side of that is that other, newer and different careers are open to young people.