An interesting anecdote!

Main difference seems to be the age of 'entitlement'. From Politicians, teachers, nurses, unionist, illegal and legal immigrants, druggies and overpaid public servants. Few 70 years ago believed the world owed them a living. Now many if not most do.

Why are we unhappy? Technology has made life easier and has made us want more, both for those who work and those who don’t. The media and advertising tells us we are unhappy if we don’t send X dollars on Y. The food industry sells us increasing amounts of labor saving food that too often are bad for us and affect our moods.

For those who work to buy what is considered normal for a family, including a house, both parents have to work. Parents are too tired to talk to their children and are relieved that technology ie computers and social media can be used as babysitters. As taxation increases to pay for the increasing number of governments dependents many are working longer hours to get a basic wage.

The age of entitlement has become a problem due to increasing dependence on handouts for many people caused by well intentioned policies. It is my right and I deserve” attitudes have become more entrenched and unhappiness if “I” don’t get I has increased.

When the single mother's benefit came in, a well respected pediatrician made the comment that it would lead to more dependence on hand outs and on the government. With more money from more children, for a few mothers it became a way of life. You did not have to either give up your child or get married to survive. Marriage is hard but being single and dependent on the government is also hard.

Then the government decided to save money by cutting down benefits given to charities and giving increased dollars to individuals instead it relieved the shame of dependence. The head of the Salvation Army said at the time there are some people who no matter how much money you give them will always need charity.

We need to look after the poor and those who deserve to be looked after but attitudes need to change if we are to return to old fashioned family values..

Yes it was tough, but then in other ways it was damn good. I was lucky, dad came back from the war. We had 4 years in Townsville, then dad got a good job in Bathurst.

He & I lived in a tin shed, building the house, while mum stayed with family in Sydney. A tin shed would be considered rough today, but about half the people in our road were in sheds, building houses as money & building material supply permitted. Living in a tin shed is not too bad, when everyone else is. It just becomes the norm.

It was the same for all of us. Not many kids went past intermediate. My senior fifth year class had only 16 kids, & we all needed top results to win a scholarship. I was successful enough to win a General Motors cadetship. Full time engineering at Sydney Uni, & working at the Pagewood plant during uni holidays. All bar 2 of us made it to Uni or teachers college.

In some ways it was a better life. The extreme joy when the last of the tiles & weather board became available, & we could finish the house was really something. I had a bedroom at last. Then after a 2 year wait, we finally got water tanks, & we could stop using well water. I had to be careful to get the frogs out of the bucket of water. Mum would never have drunk it if she had known about the frogs in the well.

Things were expensive. I got my first watch for my 16Th birthday. It cost 16 pounds, almost a week's wages, so it was a pretty big deal. I treasured that watch. Most of us in the school football teams played barefoot, parents could not afford boots. Then someone in town donated 6 tennis rackets to the school, so all the kids who wanted to, could play. It certainly made us appreciate what we had, & treat people's property with respect.

Yep, I do think it was a better life.

MUM, as well as baby sitting contributed to a range of "good works", CWA , Red Cross etc- now all on a fee for service.

70 years ago in fact only twenty years ago Local councillors paid their own expences.They did not take any handouts from the councils they served.
When Ron Walker was Lord Mayor of Melbourne,He was given an allowance.
He returned it and spent it on Town Hall receptions.
Up until that time even overseas trips were paid by the various Councillors out of their own pocket.Honorable Gentlemen!
Today Melbourne has Robert Doyle who cannot be considered Honorable.
He pockets a remuneration and gets his overseas trips paid for by the ratepayers.
Google, Robert Doyle,Then Mayor Nettlefold ,Coles just see how bad things have become.

Sons and Lovers, (D.H. Lawrence) in the flesh...and a town full of Ladie Chatterleis Lovers....that was the gossip, and that was life!

Cessnock in those days was bloody hard work for most, plus a good dose of summer heat, freezing cold winters and multitudinous flies.

My father ran a business with branches across the Lower Hunter Valley Coalfields, including in Cessnock. My very smart mother insisted on living in Newcastle due to proximity to sand, surf, education and better hospitals... but still the routine of Monday washing, Tuesday ironing and 7 kids rings true.

The world is a very much larger place these days, but apart from the creature comforts, is it really much better?

I now live out of town, venturing in to the shops weekly and enjoying small things much more than while I was an employee.

Modern life is not called the Rat Race for nothing!

Our elite were not so hopelessly dim
And the rest of us limited our gullibility largely within the parameters of our religious beliefs
Now we no love longer have religious beliefs but have instead defied a limited number of ideologies plucked from the corpse of our Christian past - mutant and deformed
A society vacillating between being ditsy bored emtionally sensitive dandies or whip waving s&m leather wearing dandies

It's too embarrassing for words

Q, if everything is so wonderful then why is everybody so UN-happy?

in 1788 the gap between rich & poor began narrowing, in 1972 the gap between rich & poor began widening again.

By every measure the land of OZ is getting poorer, sicker, sadder & angrier.