Does Life Today Require More Executive Function Than the Past?

[JumpyTheFrog]

Do you think life today requires more executive function and administrative skills than it did in the past? For example, my husband needed a preauthorization for a prescription. It took two weeks of follow-up calls before he finally got the medicine. I do most of the administrative stuff in our house and he was frustrated with how many calls and how much times was spent on hold just to get people to do their jobs.

I have above average executive function and administrative skills, but I'm currently annoyed at how many things I've had or need to take care of in the realm of making doctor appointments, finding goalies for my soccer teams, choosing health insurance for next year, end of year tax planning, updating my computer, phone, and tablet, etc, etc. I have to think that people less skilled in this area and/or people who work full-time out of the house must be drowning.

I'm not really looking for advice, just more for commiseration. What ever happened to the 20 hour week some economists predicted a few generations ago?

[Terabith]

I can't really compare it to the past, but I don't really understand how households with both adults working full time or single parent households make everything work.  I mean, my kids are teenagers in full time school, but I manage to stay pretty busy taking care of household business.  I do have a fair amount of down time, but my personal sweet spot is working part time.  It's so hard to figure out how to get all the administrative tasks done if all the adults are scheduled 40 hours a week.  

[Slache]

Yes, absolutely. I am like you and also have had to help others and it is frustrating. I am really trying to instill this in my kids because too many people cannot function in optimal ways in our society, and they tend to suffer because of it.

[kbutton]

Yes and no/maybe/might be a different kind of EF

I think life has become far more abstract in what kind of EF is required at minimum, and a lot of it requires us to pay attention to things others impose on us (another form, another online account and password, another thing on the calendar, and on and on) while doing more tasks that are literally out of sight, out of mind. We also value some kinds of concrete work far less than we used to, even when it's stuff we still do (keeping a perfect house, gardening). There are good and bad things about lowering expectations and pressure about some things, but it also comes with a loss of value for them (or turning them into a hobby vs. a means of sustenance or saving money) and a shift to being good at something less concrete or possibly harder/more scattered (being "present," schlepping kids to every activity under the sun, sourcing everything we used to make or grow less expensively, etc.). 

 

[1234]

I definitely notice a huge difference in medical care today versus when I was a young adult. I still have to step in and help my 22 year old ds almost every flipping month with his prescriptions because insurance tries to wiggle out of it and the pharmacy continually gets confused by them. Oldest is slowly figuring out how to take it all over but every now and then I still have to step in.

Youngest is 20 and I have to help them get specialty appointments because there are many more hoops to jump through today. Youngest is autistic so there is another layer, but insurance and doctors have made it almost impossible for them to do it alone at times. 

[Sneezyone]

32 minutes ago, Terabith said:

I can't really compare it to the past, but I don't really understand how households with both adults working full time or single parent households make everything work.  I mean, my kids are teenagers in full time school, but I manage to stay pretty busy taking care of household business.  I do have a fair amount of down time, but my personal sweet spot is working part time.  It's so hard to figure out how to get all the administrative tasks done if all the adults are scheduled 40 hours a week.  

People make it work but it is *HARD* and it usually requires kids to grow up much faster than they should. 

When I worked full time on the career-track and had a spouse who was mostly unavailable for all things household-related, it was too much so I switched to homeschool/part-time work. I have DELIBERATELY included these kinds of tasks in their upbringing as a result tho. They're not ready to leave without having *some* ability to manage healthcare and auto-care and insurance tasks ****IN ADDITION TO**** schoolwork. DD(17) just attended her first solo dentist appt. yesterday (she drove herself from school and paid, I just wrote a note authorizing treatment and reimbursed DD). She was VERY proud of herself and I cannot tell you how much relief I feel.

I do not want to be managing their lives in this way into their 20s.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Sneezyone

[livetoread]

I don't know about the past, but I do think it is possible that it's harder now just because there is so much out there that's complicated. Used to be you'd shop for and buy a TV, and that was it for entertainment. Now there is TV, cable, internet, and phone and you have to figure out how they all work, how they all work together, what the best deal is every year, and what to do when one part isn't working. You have to make phone calls and follow up with more phone calls because people don't follow through. We have more stuff that breaks, and we have more options on how to fix them. And again, other people don't follow through, so that's more work. I just put in hours over the course of several months trying to get a refund owed me from a car dealership. Phone calls, showing up in person, etc. just because they were making things difficult. Super annoying. You can't just try and get something done and expect it to happen on the first try. I just assume anything is going to take several calls and me following up because they don't. I have a kid who struggles with executive function plus anxiety and for her to even try the first time is hard, let alone the persistence needed to actually see it through from start to finish. Adulting is tough for her.

[Arcadia]

If compared to my childhood days, there are more procedures now as things moved online. When DS16 started dual enrollment 2.5 years ago, I could walk in to the admin office with the paperwork and his course approval was settled in less than 30mins including waiting in line. Now we have to use the online Adobe sign forms, check the status for approval and also if any additional documentation is required. The turnaround is longer than 24 hours and sometimes the admin miss the form.

2FA (two factor authentication) was not a thing when I was a kid. I had my first pager and cellphone in 1991, and people did not expect an immediate call back then. 

My previous work is heavy on executive functioning skills so being a SAHM was much more relaxing. Insurance haggling is done by my husband. 

[JumpyTheFrog]

Just calling the doctor's office is a pain because I have to listen to: 

1. If this is a life threatening emergency blah blah blah.
2. Our address is blah blah blah.
3. Vaccinating against Covid is something we take seriously. For more information blah blah blah.
4. For Family Medicine press x.
5. Thank you for calling XYZ Family Medicine. Our fax number is blah blah blah.
6. We take Covid vaccinations seriously...
7. To schedule an appointment press x.

Something like all that just to possibly wait on hold to schedule an appointment! This is because MyChart only lists some of the open appointments. I had to call to schedule for February because MyChart doesn't show that far in the future.

[73349]

I think contributing factors include pulls at our attention (NO I don't want to buy Direct TV; STOP CALLING ME while I'm trying to check on something with my health insurance) and the less immediate nature of some of the demands (place online order now for curbside grocery pickup tomorrow for food I want to eat the next day instead of just walking outside and grabbing the first edible plant or walking down the block and buying something from a stand).

[Shoeless]

I do think it requires more EF skills than years ago. I have decent EF skills, but not the ninja EF skills that some of y'all have. This is why I lean toward "simple living" as much as possible. I don't have the bandwidth for many modern complications and hoop-jumping.

I have no idea how families with 2 working parents do it. 

[Terabith]

16 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

People make it work but it is *HARD* and it usually requires kids to grow up much faster than they should. 

When I worked full time on the career-track and had a spouse who was mostly unavailable for all things household-related, it was too much so I switched to homeschool/part-time work. I have DELIBERATELY included these kinds of tasks in their upbringing as a result tho. They're not ready to leave without having *some* ability to manage healthcare and auto-care and insurance tasks. DD(17) just attended her first solo dentist appt. yesterday (she drove herself from school and paid, I just wrote a note authorizing treatment and reimbursed DD). She was VERY proud of herself and I cannot tell you how much relief I feel.

I do not want to be managing their lives in this way into their 20s.

Yeah, this is a source of concern to me, because both of my children struggle with these types of tasks.  I mean, I have been deliberately trying to train them in them since they were about five, to varying degrees, but oldest just flat refuses to make phone calls of any sort, and youngest has zero working memory and so anything that requires remembering something is incredibly hard.  We're working on systems to work around it, and she does okay with things that happen on a daily or weekly basis, but less regular events are super hard.  They both have really severe anxiety, and it's only been in the last couple of years that youngest will do things like order for herself at a restaurant, so advocating for herself against medical gatekeepers just....she can't do it.  

It's just hard.  I don't want to be doing this in their 20's, and I'm trying, but man....it's really hard.  And it's so danged depressing that oldest's executive functioning and willingness to talk to strangers and overall functioning is so much less at 18 (today) than it was at 13.  

Really, really depressing.  

[Sneezyone]

8 minutes ago, Terabith said:

Yeah, this is a source of concern to me, because both of my children struggle with these types of tasks.  I mean, I have been deliberately trying to train them in them since they were about five, to varying degrees, but oldest just flat refuses to make phone calls of any sort, and youngest has zero working memory and so anything that requires remembering something is incredibly hard.  We're working on systems to work around it, and she does okay with things that happen on a daily or weekly basis, but less regular events are super hard.  They both have really severe anxiety, and it's only been in the last couple of years that youngest will do things like order for herself at a restaurant, so advocating for herself against medical gatekeepers just....she can't do it.  

It's just hard.  I don't want to be doing this in their 20's, and I'm trying, but man....it's really hard.  And it's so danged depressing that oldest's executive functioning and willingness to talk to strangers and overall functioning is so much less at 18 (today) than it was at 13.  

Really, really depressing.  

You're describing my oldest. No substitute for time where she was concerned and COVID definitely set her back. Therapy wasn't available. One year ago she was in a puddle of tears re: calling to make an appt. Yesterday was her maiden flight at the dentist. She also managed all the admin tasks for her cashier job. She did need me for the official docs - SS card, etc. IT IS REALLY, REALLY HARD *AND* DEPRESSING, even for regular kids. Just keep going, Mama. Scaffolding can work over  time. We introduced calendar/scheduling discussions this year at dinner time. They both have phones so they save things there. That also helped.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Sneezyone

[Miss Tick]

1 hour ago, JumpyTheFrog said:

What ever happened to the 20 hour week some economists predicted a few generations ago?

I just listened to a 20 minute Planet Money podcast about this, Nice Work Week, If You Can Get It. The Great Depression and FDR stalled out the ever-decreasing work week. Unintended consequences, mostly.

[fraidycat]

Yes, I believe that way more executive function skills are required now than in any time in the past. We now have a zillion inboxes where requests and demands for our time come in - as opposed to snail mail, a phone call, or in person conversation - there's texts, calls, emails (x Number of addresses you have), social media inboxes or "walls" (x Number of Social media accounts), a zillion and one apps, usernames, and passwords to remember or keep track of, and the list doesn't seem to ever stop growing.

Reaching someone on the phone for ANY type of service these days is dang near impossible unless you have lots of time, patience, and persistence. And the short term memory function to not get too distracted between attempts.

[Pawz4me]

Yes, I think life requires a lot more EF skills now than it did when I was a kid.

It can be exhausting even for those of us with very good EF skills.

[Farrar]

YES.

I mean, I could equivocate and explain, but seriously, I can't believe this is even in much doubt.

[Carrie12345]

It’s the near-24/7 access that gets me.
Remember waiting for the television or radio to get to the school closing list? I don’t even have a kid in school anymore and I get a text, email, voicemail, and every FB page and local friend announcing a closure or delay in the wee hours. Sometimes also all of those contacts the night before, letting everyone know to be aware that there COULD be a delay or cancelation.

My parents worked set hours, even if their schedules sometimes changed.  Dh has been “on vacation” this week, but had to reclaim 3 days so far because he’s put in so many hours on the phone.

Even through volunteer organizations there’s no sense of getting things done during a weekly meeting. I’ve been volunteering since I was little. As an adult, I’m basically quit.  The incessant demands for my attention/input/help/thoughts at any time, on any day,  any of the million methods of communication these days did me in. I have a family and a house and a right to some time to myself!  
(And people still think I’m rude to not give my phone number out freely.)

We have to deal with spam email, spam phone calls, spam texts, AND STILL have junk mail. How is that possible???

We have access to endless recipes, premade foods, restaurant foods, etc., and I don’t know a single person who finds it easy to decide what’s for dinner.  I do not remember my mother ever hemming and hawing over what we should eat.

Youth sports.
The difference between mine and my kids’ was insane. During my kids’ baseball season, the rest of my life was a dumpster fire.

And I don’t work!

[Ausmumof3]

Yeah.  I think mostly that raising kids and running a house is a job and society and pay structures no longer reflect that so everyone who doesn’t earn enough to outsource is majorly stretched.

[ScoutTN]

Yes, definitely!

[Rosie_0801]

My mother pretty much needed to know what her mother knew, who pretty much needed to know what her mother knew.

My kid needs to know stuff that I barely know exists, let alone how to use it, and that's before we add in any of my admin related ptsd stuff. 

 

The way computer programs limit a phone operator's ability to actually solve problems drives me bonkers too. Everyone can know what the problem is, but that means nothing when the program isn't written to accept the correction. Is anyone even allowed to have initiative any more? 

[Acadie]

Hella more! 

What I'm discovering is my days are infinitely better if I spend 5-10 minutes in the morning envisioning and imagining (in writing) the life I want: what do I want to make of this day, and how would I like to feel? How do I imagine showing up for myself and my family and my creative work?  

Because my to-do list on its own kills me. There are so many steps and obstructions and needs for follow-through that if I don't feel creative inspiration and heart undergirding it all I drown in the stupid details. And most of it will simply not happen in my house if not for me identifying and either scheduling, delegating or doing it.

I'd say my EF was adequate when I was a student and only responsible for myself, seriously challenged by motherhood, and blasted to smithereens by the simultaneity of perimenopause, the pandemic, and resulting teen needs. If something doesn't matter to my heart and soul it gets tossed pretty quickly. But I have discovered connections between things I care deeply about, like my obsession with politics, my fiction writing, and the world my daughters will inherit.

Who knows, maybe handling all this crap will help us sort out what really matters. And by us I mean collectively, nationally, globally.

 

 

Edited November 18, 2021 by Acadie

[lewelma]

Things are cheaper because the customers do the admin that used to be done by the company. So we have sacrificed our time to have a higher standard of living. 

[Sneezyone]

5 minutes ago, lewelma said:

Things are cheaper because the customers do the admin that used to be done by the company. So we have sacrificed our time to have a higher standard of living. 

I repeat this to my kids CONSTANTLY. Time or money. You can pay with one or the other but there is always a cost.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Sneezyone

[Shoeless]

I almost broke down in tears over email a few weeks ago.  I couldn't find an email I needed, and was bouncing between 3 accounts trying to find it.

I got 12 robocalls on my cell phone the other day.

I don't want to have to keep changing my email address and phone number when the spam gets out of hand.

Do y'all remember when security advice was to never, ever write your password down because someone could steal it? Now there is a function built into my web browser that saves passwords so I never have to remember them to log in.  That seems less safe than writing passwords down.  If my computer gets stolen, a thief would have all my log on info. 

I decided I will keep a notebook of passwords because I figure the odds of a thief breaking into my house and saying "Grab the spiral notebook; it looks valuable!" are pretty close to zero.

[SKL]

Not really?

The first things that come to mind are when I was a kid, in a household with up to 8 people, we had 1 bathroom, 1 phone, and 1 car.  The 8 people had a minimum of 4 different places to be (outside of the home) every weekday.  Banks and grocery stores had hours and if you missed those hours, you were out of luck.  No Amazon.com, no same-day or next-day delivery.  No way to check the kids' grades other than report cards.  There were no ATMs, answering machines, texts, emails, no way to reach your loved ones if they didn't show up when you expected them.  Checkbooks were balanced and budgets were written in pencil with no automatic cross check.  If you didn't pay your bills on time, your utilities could be shut off with no warning or grace period.  And food had to be cooked at home to be affordable.  I think all of that required quite a bit of planning and execution for a successful life.

(FTR both of my parents worked full-time outside the home.)

Even driving was a lot harder then.  Just getting a car to start and stay running in all kinds of weather, not to mention stick shifts etc.  Checking the oil and changing it yourself.  Jumping a battery.  Pumping the brakes on ice.  Just basic stuff that even I had to know as a teen.  And no cell phone to save you when you drove into a ditch on a lonely country road.

Edited November 19, 2021 by SKL

[Sneezyone]

4 minutes ago, SKL said:

Not really?

The first things that come to mind are when I was a kid, in a household with up to 8 people, we had 1 bathroom, 1 phone, and 1 car.  The 8 people had a minimum of 4 different places to be (outside of the home) every weekday.  Banks and grocery stores had hours and if you missed those hours, you were out of luck.  No Amazon.com, no same-day or next-day delivery.  No way to check the kids' grades other than report cards.  There were no ATMs, answering machines, texts, emails, no way to reach your loved one if they didn't show up when you expected them.  Checkbooks were balanced and budgets were written in pencil with no automatic cross check.  If you didn't pay your bills on time, your utilities could be shut off with no warning or grace period.  And food had to be cooked at home to be affordable.  I think all of that required quite a bit of planning and execution for a successful life.

Good God, how old are you?!?! I had access to all of these things (born 1976) and graduated high school in AR!

Edited November 18, 2021 by Sneezyone

[SKL]

Not saying it isn't hard now too.  But I think we do this to ourselves.  We add in all the nice-to-haves that we think we can handle, and then when the unexpected happens, we can't keep all the balls in the air.

I do it too.  Just saying ... if I had to live my life with the technology my mom had 50 years ago, I would be in a much bigger mess.  No, I'd probably be in the booby hatch.  (I suppose booby hatch is a politically incorrect term now, but it's what my mom would have said.)

[SKL]

1 minute ago, Sneezyone said:

Good God, how old are you?!?! I had access to all of these things (born 1976) and graduated high school in AR!

LOL you make me sound super ancient.  I am 10 years older than you.

[Kalmia]

I recently began a 20 hour per week job after being. stay at home mom for 20 years. I literally can not imagine how families with two parents full-time in the workforce can keep up with all the stupid requirements of modern life. Most tasks need to be done during business hours--which are the very same hours people are stuck at work. Healthy food takes a long time to prepare. Kids are supervised more than in the past, so that necessitates organizing after-school care. Etc.

Schools. Homeschooling spoiled us. We ignore 80% of the stuff the school would want us to do. We are an anti-organized sport family, so those hundreds of hours are still our own, but I have friends and cousins who spend weeks and weeks and weeks doing intense sports with travel tournaments and having to be on the sidelines every weekend morning, even on MOTHER'S DAY of all days. This is time my parents would use to clean and shop and garden and cook and mend. Sports were just a minor after school commitment for my friends back in high school, and parents never attended practices and most of them didn't attend many games--it was just a fun activity for the kids together not anything more.

I had been noticing before COVID that it took three tries to get ANYTHING accomplished that involves an organization or a service provider, no matter how small. Now with COVID, that is much worse. Especially in terms of appliances or home renovation/repair.

My daughter is applying to college. I filled out all my own college applications on paper and attached my essay, also on paper. It was simple and straightforward. Now we are watching YouTube videos about how to puzzle out parts of the common app. Hours wasted. When my son was briefly in college, instead of a clear, paper syllabus with the (many fewer) assignments for the semester, there was an online assignment nightmare that was different for each class with multiple pages to visit to figure out what the assignments were  and when they were due. He could not navigate this. He could have easily managed the old way of a syllabus with 3-4 papers or 3-4 tests per semester per class. Now there are small daily assignments in college as well as papers and tests, as if it were high school. At the end before he dropped out, I tried to reconstruct how many assignments he had missed and for 5 classes it took me 4 hours just to wade through the confusing platform, figure out which assignments were done, where the other assignments were hiding, etc. I graduated magna cum laude from a top small liberal arts college, and I believe if I was faced with this platform for finding assignments and these type of assignments, I would have floundered. SO MUCH of education now is about how good your executive function is, how you can keep track of work, how you handle endless small check-in type assignments, how you meet hundreds of small deadlines and SO LITTLE of it rewards intellectual thought, creativity, or synthesis of material. 

Having moved between states twice in a three year period, I had 400 move-related items on my to-do list, and people move frequently now than they did when I was young.

Computers seem to have slowed everything down. We still use a paper receipt pad to do our sales at the gallery, so quick, literally 3-5 minutes if it is check or cash--up to 7-10 for a credit card (but more if the dumb machine acts up). When I was young we'd swipe the card through a mechanical machine that took an impression of the card numbers and the transaction was done as far as the customer was concerned. Now, I go to the store and the computerized register glitches or is slow or the person is new and can't quite figure out how to enter things, and it takes at least 15 minutes per transaction! In terms of the personal computer, email boxes eventually fill up if you don't delete all the ads and spam, it takes time to start up the computer, open websites, upload photos. Computers need occasional repair, etc. Somehow I get locked out of my accounts frequently, and they often don't recognize my answers to the security questions even though I have written them down and type them in exactly, and then I have to go through a time-wasting process of getting recovery number texts and entering those numbers and changing passwords to get back into my own account. 

At my doctor's you have to answer the same COVID questions three times (outside the door, inside the door, and at the reception desk)! The trip to the primary care doctor is just a gatekeeping operation, whereas primary care doctors used to actually treat things. Now you are referred to a specialist (even for something as small as removing a little white milia on the eyelid--4 hours round trip to the dermatologist to get that removed and it only took 2 minutes to do). Doctors will refill long-term prescriptions only for 30 days even though one can get them for 90 and skip trips to the pharmacy. 

9-11 began the need for multiple layers of proof of identity--so that getting a driver's license or registering a car now involves sheaths of official documents and the attack (and that shoe-bomber) also made for long security procedures at airports. Identity thieves came on the scene and now we have to change our passwords all the time and shred our mail.

Some things that once, long ago, were easy to do at home like changing from regular tires to snow tires are now hard because the pneumatic device they use to tighten the lug nuts makes them impossible to take off for many people, and they have to be perfectly aligned for the computerized braking system to work properly. Of course, better brakes are wonderful, but even good technological advances take up more of our time.

My son, who has ASD and executive function issues, would just give up on modern life if I wasn't around to guide him. I expect once I retire, I will do my best to avoid activities that put a drain my minimal EF skills, but there are some (like signing up for Medicare and supplement, etc.) that are requirements and hopefully I will still be able to navigate them when I am elderly. 

Edited November 18, 2021 by Kalmia

[Sneezyone]

32 minutes ago, SKL said:

LOL you make me sound super ancient.  I am 10 years older than you.

Yes, well, there was a MASSIVE shift while I have been alive. GenX truly is a transitional demo. My brother is 10 years older than me and had a markedly different experience. His kids are 21+ tho. Granted, In AR we had dial-up AOL and it was SLOOOOOWWW but we had it. I imagined you being my age but this makes so much more sense! I'm not confused or dismayed by my kids at all. They're a natural evolution. My brother finds kids like DD/DS perplexing.

Edited November 19, 2021 by Sneezyone

[SKL]

5 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

Yes, well, there was a MASSIVE shift while I have been alive. GenX truly is a transitional demo. My brother is 10 years older than me and had a markedly different experience. His kids are 21+ tho. Granted, IN AR we had dial-up AOL audit was SLOOOOOWWW but we had it.

My brother (close to my age) was one of the original computer nerds; in the early 1980s, he had some kind of programming job using an Osborne portable computer in our basement.  He didn't own the computer, his boss let him bring it home.  Here's a photo:

https://www.businessinsider.com/the-first-laptop-2011-6

I also had some summer computer programing and keyboarding classes in the summers of 1981-1983, as part of the school gifted program.

Even if people had computers in their homes at that time, there was really no functionality as far as streamlining personal finances etc. 

And the world wide web came into existence in 1991, when I was almost done with grad school.

 

[Sneezyone]

17 minutes ago, SKL said:

My brother (close to my age) was one of the original computer nerds; in the early 1980s, he had some kind of programming job using an Osborne portable computer in our basement.  He didn't own the computer, his boss let him bring it home.  Here's a photo:

https://www.businessinsider.com/the-first-laptop-2011-6

I also had some summer computer programing and keyboarding classes in the summers of 1981-1983, as part of the school gifted program.

Even if people had computers in their homes at that time, there was really no functionality as far as streamlining personal finances etc. 

And the world wide web came into existence in 1991, when I was almost done with grad school.

 

This really puts things in perspective. I graduated HS in 1994 and we had the internet (and dark web chat rooms) available from every computer center on campus. My kids are truly digital natives, no transition necessary. They complain ALL THE TIME about my dinosaur ways and I'm only forty-freaking-five! It's been a massive change.

Edited November 19, 2021 by Sneezyone

[marbel]

30 minutes ago, SKL said:

No Amazon.com, no same-day or next-day delivery. 

I was thinking about this the other day; I remember having to fill out an order form from a catalog, mail it with a check, wait for the check to clear and the merchant to ship the goods.  (I was born in 1956.) IIRC Dover Books was one of the last of the business I dealt with to move to online ordering.  ETA: I think I recall being excited when I could call Lands End and place an order and pay with a credit card. 

Overall I think Amazon has done some damage as people have the expectation that everything can be done immediately. People are much more impatient now - obviously that is not completely Amazon's fault, but I think they have contributed. People also want things cheap and do not seem as wiling to pay for quality. 

Things definitely seem more complicated now. When I was a young working adult with my own health insurance, we actually had insurance that covered catastrophic only; I paid for my doctor visits out of pocket, and it was affordable on my middle-class salary.  Now, figuring out copays and out of pocket maximums and in- or out-of-network providers, ugh. So much more complicated. When one of my kids was sick it was nearly a full-time job for me, figuring out the doctors and appointments and prescriptions. 

 

Edited November 19, 2021 by marbel

[SKL]

4 minutes ago, marbel said:

Things definitely seem more complicated now. When I was a young working adult with my own health insurance, we actually had insurance that covered catastrophic only; I paid for my doctor visits out of pocket, and it was affordable on my middle-class salary.  Now, figuring out copays and out of pocket maximums and in- or out-of-network providers, ugh. So much more complicated. When one of my kids was sick it was nearly a full-time job for me, figuring out the doctors and appointments and prescriptions. 

 

I agree that insurance stuff can make things too complex, but back when my sibs needed surgeries etc., my mom had to educate herself about all the health issues and resolutions without internet.  She procured some outdated medical books from a relative who had been to podiatry school.  It's hard for me to imagine sending my kid into an OR to have eye surgery without having done a ton of up-to-date research.

Every time I wonder about something, I can tap a few keys on my laptop and there's my answer.  Today, while driving, my kids asked me who signs birth certificates when babies are born.  (My kids were adopted from overseas, so I haven't had this situation.)  I said I really didn't know, so she immediately looked it up on her iphone.  This is what goes on all day, every day with young people.

[Frances]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

Not really?

The first things that come to mind are when I was a kid, in a household with up to 8 people, we had 1 bathroom, 1 phone, and 1 car.  The 8 people had a minimum of 4 different places to be (outside of the home) every weekday.  Banks and grocery stores had hours and if you missed those hours, you were out of luck.  No Amazon.com, no same-day or next-day delivery.  No way to check the kids' grades other than report cards.  There were no ATMs, answering machines, texts, emails, no way to reach your loved ones if they didn't show up when you expected them.  Checkbooks were balanced and budgets were written in pencil with no automatic cross check.  If you didn't pay your bills on time, your utilities could be shut off with no warning or grace period.  And food had to be cooked at home to be affordable.  I think all of that required quite a bit of planning and execution for a successful life.

We’re the same age and I completely disagree with you. I think things are much more complicated now, life is full of far more choices and decisions and requires more executive functioning. Then again, I grew up in a small town. No utilities were going to be shut off without a warning or grace period. The schools had busses for everything, so kids didn’t need cars and parents didn’t need to drive them to any practices, games, rehearsals, etc, let alone school. Since people generally knew each other, not having all the modern ways to communicate wasn’t much of an issue because you could pretty easily find someone to help or a phone to use if needed.

The one semester my son was in middle school I never used the online portal to check his grades. He knew they were his responsibility, but that we were there to assist whenever and however he needed. My parents didn’t micromanage our school work, and my sister and I did the same with our kids. 

Many of the other things you mention don’t really matter to me. Just like our parents, we cook the majority of meals at home by choice. I generally limit Amazon orders to once per year and don’t really need next day or same day delivery for anything. I don’t like stuff, so try to limit the accumulation of it.

Online banking is nice, I will give you that. Even though my small hometown bank is still independent and going strong and a wonderful community resource, I didn’t actually like doing my banking with people who knew me. At least not as a kid and teen. And there were ATMs by the time I went to college which were very convenient. I still generally track our spending on paper though. It’s not complicated and has always worked well. I’ve never found any of the automatic bank or credit card tracking  or other tracking or budgeting tools useful or necessary.

My parents didn’t have to manage multiple retirement accounts (they had pensions), do open enrollment each year for work benefits (there were no choices), make decisions about phone, cable, internet, etc. plans (either they didn’t exist or there were no choices) and deal with the constant changes. And you used to be able to actually talk to a good customer service person without first going through an extensive menu. It is so rare today to have decent customer service. Plus, things like major appliances were so much better built and lasted so much longer that you weren’t constantly having to research how to fix or replace something.

 

Edited November 19, 2021 by Frances

[KatieJ]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

LOL you make me sound super ancient.  I am 10 years older than you.

And I am 10 years older than you. I could add to your list!

 

[KatieJ]

 We recently sold our home of 25 years and moved back to where we were born …bought a new house.

Bbrand new house, old house was sold and cleared…we had money in investments, but chose to leave them for now and go with the low interest mortgage. No other debt. Piece of cake right? 

I spent hours on a daily basis for a month doing paperwork for the mortgage, transferring insurance agents, new Medicare plan,  Drivers license change, new license plates, new Drs office, new bank account,  etc…it’s absolutely exhausting how much is required to accomplish all this. I gave out the same paperwork to at least three different places when we were applying for the mortgage…I would have thought they could share nicely.

We were living with our daughter during this transmission and our granddaughter said, this really should be much easier! 
 

I just agreed. 
 

[Frances]

1 hour ago, Sneezyone said:

This really puts things in perspective. I graduated HS in 1994 and we had the internet (and dark web chat rooms) available from every computer center on campus. My kids are truly digital natives, no transition necessary. They complain ALL THE TIME about my dinosaur ways and I'm only forty-freaking-five! It's been a massive change.

I’m ten years older than you. During high school, I went to a computer camp at a state land grant university where we used punch cards to program. Our middle school had a deck writer where we played Oregon Trail. But I did take the first programming class ever taught at my high school by the middle school math teacher. We used some of the early Macs. And through a local tech college, I took a night enrichment class in computer graphics. My husband went to a similarly small IA high school and not only took computer programming, but had a part time job as a programmer for a business started by his high school math and physics teachers.
 

In undergrad, I took several programming classes (uses terminals connected to a mainframe shared by a few small colleges)and we had dedicated word processors (Kaypros), but no one had personal computers like the ones we used for programming in high school. During grad school, my university was one of the test sites for the internet (as was my SILs), so we used to email each other. They were also supplied tons of free stuff by Apple, so we had pretty much unlimited access to both Macs and terminals connected to the mainframes, depending on the need. Unfortunately, none of my college or grad years were late enough to avoid pretty much all research materials being physical. Having research resources at your fingertips is still pretty amazing to me.

I think the biggest blur for me is remembering the early internet years when it went beyond mail and chat boards, as it was my early parenting years and also when we were RAs in an on-campus married family housing complex, so our social lives were very busy.

 

[Bootsie]

I am not sure that it takes more executive functioning; to me it is more that all of the ways of simplifying things has made things take longer.  It is amazing how much time I spend on hold or do not get a phone call returned.  We had someone about a gate/fence repair in February who gave us a quote.  We have called about getting the work done and will get a voicemail saying "our work hours are between 9am and 4pm; leave a message and..." It doesn't matter if I call at 10:00am, 11:05 am, 2:37pm I will get voicemail (so I don't just happen to call during lunch time every time).  When I get a call back we start all over again--who are you, what is your address, what do you want done, oh we gave you a quote, well I will have Nikki call you back this afternoon.  Then I say "oh you said that last week and I haven't heard from Niiki, please make sure she has the correct number."  I get "Oh, that's not like her..."  The amount of time the company has spent answering my calls, repeating addresses, etc. the work on my fence could have been done several times.  

Or, the answering service that asks all of the questions of your name, account number, address, and you are on hold for 20 minutes and the customer service person who comes on says "Who am I speaking to?  What is your account number?"  WHY was I asked all of those things by a robot to just be asked again?  Then the customer service rep is not equipped to handle a real problem--the rep is simply trained to say "Oh I am sorry but we are so happy to have you as a customer."  It was so much easier when someone at a switchboard answered and directed your call to a real person--and I think took much less time.

[Lucy the Valiant]

Yes, way more complicated. 

And if you care for someone with a disability, the complexity increases by orders of magnitude. 

*ETA: I re-read that, and it sounds like a complaint. I don't mean the person with the disability is more complex (though that is sometimes true); I mean dealing with the extra doctors & appointments & therapies & other siblings' feelings & paperwork. And - in this season of thanks - I have to also say that I am truly GRATEFUL for the access my dearly-loved-one has to all of those complicated appointments. They are exhausting. But in simpler times, I would not have this loved one. I recognize that, with gratitutde.

Edited November 19, 2021 by Lucy the Valiant

[kbutton]

2 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

Yes, well, there was a MASSIVE shift while I have been alive. GenX truly is a transitional demo. My brother is 10 years older than me and had a markedly different experience. His kids are 21+ tho. Granted, In AR we had dial-up AOL and it was SLOOOOOWWW but we had it. 

Xennial? I was born the same year, and I feel like GenX are those who were the "big kids" that got to do things that disappeared before I was that age (and I had a close relative that age that I watched navigate all that), but my growing up wasn't quite millennial either. 

1 hour ago, Sneezyone said:

This really puts things in perspective. I graduated HS in 1994 and we had the internet (and dark web chat rooms) available from every computer center on campus. My kids are truly digital natives, no transition necessary. They complain ALL THE TIME about my dinosaur ways and I'm only forty-freaking-five! It's been a massive change.

Some of the dinosaur ways are easier, lol! I don't want five apps to do poorly what I used to be able to do well with one robust program. 🙂

I didn't have internet until I went to college in the fall of 1994. I think it was available but uncommon for most people; people used the internet for work, not so much for pleasure. Interestingly, my parents had cable internet in their rural town before we had it where I live now. They have had fiber optics forever (their town got it early while it was being developed). We had a weird mashup of things that were surprisingly unavailable while other things were weirdly available that you wouldn't think would be. 

[Serenade]

I definitely thing life requires greater executive function skills than in the past. 

[Teaching3bears]

Thank you for your post!  I thought I was the only one.

Do wealthy people hire assistants to help them do things like fill out online forms and wait on hold on 1-800 numbers?  I wish I had an assistant because there is stuff that is just not getting done and then I could just spend more time doing real things.  It’s okay if you have just a couple of these things to do a week but when you have 20-50 it gets very overwhelming.  

 

[SKL]

I get the feeling that some of us just didn't realize how much our folks had to figure out when we were young.

Having to wait on hold etc. is nothing new, and it's better than getting a busy signal and having to call back a dozen times.

When we were kids, we were taught telephone etiquette in primary school.  One rule was that you had to let the phone ring 8-10 times before hanging up.  Imagine today's kids having the patience to keep calling and waiting for it to ring 10 times, or getting busy signals, before they finally got a few minutes to talk to whoever.  (And for a personal call, it must be between certain hours of the evening, excluding the family's dinner time which you were supposed to know [MaryJo's family eats at 5:30, Kelly's family eats at 6 ....], and the call must be limited to 10 or 15 minutes since it would be inconsiderate to hog the family phone.)

My folks were business owners when I was little, and I distinctly remember them talking about social security contributions, ordering various kinds of inventory, paying blue cross / blue shield, etc.  There was coordination of benefits when both parents worked.  And plenty of out-of-pocket payments and installment payments (my mom paid $5/month for my brother's delivery until he was 12yo).  In fact, in those days, if you got food stamps, you didn't just get them, you had to buy them.  You paid $XX and received $XXX in food stamps depending on how much they decided you could afford / needed.

It may be that some people had fewer retirement considerations due to not changing jobs as much, or working for companies that didn't offer pensions.  It may be that it just wasn't something discussed because it was a future concern.  I am 55 and I'm pretty sure my kids have never heard me talk about retirement funds, though I have plenty going on in that department.  Older folks whom I've helped with taxes have comparable complexity going back decades.

We didn't have school buses, and kids close in age went to various different schools.  When I started KG, my sibs and I were attending 3 different elementary schools, only 2 of which were within walking distance, and we left for school after my mom got on the bus to go to work.  (My dad had the car at his factory job downtown.)  My sister was in half day preschool and had to walk to the babysitter's house after.  I'm sure my mom made it look easy to us, but looking back, that's a lot of planning and coordination going on.

And this doesn't even consider the half day that was spent at work, learning, training, troubleshooting, dealing with idiots, etc.

[teachermom2834]

The elimination of the receptionist position as people try to handle their own incoming calls/questions/appointments is part of this problem. My hair stylist requires many texts to get a response from her. I gave up and colored my hair with a box and went to Great Clips for a cheap cut. Made me long for the day I could just call a salon and a receptionist would book an appointment for me.

Same with stuff we need done around the house. Trades people figure they have cell phones now and will just handle their own calls and appointments. But they are busy actually doing their work! We have to call and call and get lucky to catch someone when they aren’t busy. People still need receptionists even though they think they don’t. OR- they could actually listen to voicemails and return calls and that doesn’t appear to be a thing at all anymore. So yeah, having to make ten calls for everything is problematic.

Edited November 19, 2021 by teachermom2834

[Frances]

On 11/18/2021 at 3:37 PM, SKL said:

Not saying it isn't hard now too.  But I think we do this to ourselves.  We add in all the nice-to-haves that we think we can handle, and then when the unexpected happens, we can't keep all the balls in the air.

I’m trying to think of an example of this in my life where I added a nice to have that later creates issues. All of the things that I mentioned that cause me stress and are more of a pain to deal with than when I was growing up are pretty much basics. I mean by choice we don’t have cable and I don’t have a smart phone. I have to have internet for my work and one functioning car (that I regularly go months without driving) and functioning appliances and a heating system are pretty much necessities. I’m not sure what I could eliminate that would make things simpler.

Edited November 20, 2021 by Frances

[SKL]

21 minutes ago, Frances said:

I’m trying to think of an example of this in my life where I added a nice to have that later creates issues. All of the things that I mentioned that cause me stress and are more of a pain to deal with than when I was growing up are pretty much basics. I mean by choice we don’t have cable and I don’t have a smart phone. I have to internet for my work and one functioning car (that I regularly go months without driving) and functioning appliances and a heating system are pretty much necessities. I’m not sure what I could eliminate that would make things simpler.

Well I'm not talking about you personally, but for example in the OP, finding soccer goalies and updating tablets are on the to-do list because of nice-to-haves like being a soccer coach and owning a tablet.

And like I said, I definitely do this too.  I'm not criticizing.  I'm just saying that it would be possible for people like me to do less if we were really willing to do less.  I think folks in my parents' generation were generally committing to fewer "nice-to-haves" than we do today.

Another factor may be that folks had their kids younger, so that their kids were grown / much less needy by the time they had to deal with stuff like pensions, age-related health issues, etc.

But I guess the confusion is - I'm not saying our lives should feel simpler, but that our parents' lives were never simple either.

Off to deal with various complexities in my own life now ....

Edited November 19, 2021 by SKL

[Sneezyone]

24 minutes ago, Teaching3bears said:

Thank you for your post!  I thought I was the only one.

Do wealthy people hire assistants to help them do things like fill out online forms and wait on hold on 1-800 numbers?  I wish I had an assistant because there is stuff that is just not getting done and then I could just spend more time doing real things.  It’s okay if you have just a couple of these things to do a week but when you have 20-50 it gets very overwhelming.  

 

The rich do!! Those that are merely comfy do not.

[Sneezyone]

23 minutes ago, teachermom2834 said:

The elimination of the receptionist position as people try to handle their own incoming calls/questions/appointments is part of this problem. My hair stylist requires many texts to get a response from her. I gave up and colored my hair with a box and went to Great Clips for a cheap cut. Made me long for the day I could just call a salon and a receptionist would book an appointment for me.

Same with stuff we need done around the house. Trades people figure they have cell phones now and will just handle their own calls and appointments. But they are busy actually doing their work! We have to call and call and get lucky to catch someone when they aren’t busy. People still need receptionists even though they think they don’t. OR- they could actually listen to voicemails and return calls and that doesn’t appear to be a thing at all anymore. So yeah, having to make ten calls for everything is problematic.

YEP. We devalued low-level tasks and have automated them in ways that save money for employers but cost us time: self-check at grocery stores…yep. Offshoring customer service calls…yep. So many things. Money or time. You can’t have both.

Edited November 19, 2021 by Sneezyone