Every generation has hardships … some more than others

None had it tougher than the generation who built modern Australia. We should reflect upon our collective good fortune.

None had it tougher than the generation who built modern Australia – those born in the 1890s, writes Bernard Salt. Picture: National Museum of Australia

Every week there seems to be a contribution to the generational divide. “Our generation had it toughest” is a popular theme. I wonder what drives such thinking.

Every generation has its hardships. But none had it tougher than the generation who built modern Australia – those born in the 1890s. In their twenties, and with some still in their teens, many signed up for World War I. More than 60,000 men out of a population of five million died in the name of the British Empire. Many who lived through the war, and the subsequent Spanish flu pandemic, had to deal with the quiet hell of what we would now call post-traumatic stress disorder. But they survived (albeit some barely), they married, and they had children in the 1920s thinking, no doubt, that the worst of times was over.

Not so. The Great Depression arrived in the 1930s when many from this generation had young children, and unemployment peaked above 30 per cent. But again they survived, only to make it through to the 1940s, when World War II took their sons.

After the war, and by then well into their 50s, the children of the pre-Federation era would have experienced moments of joy as their (many) grandchildren, the Baby Boomers, arrived. But a long retirement was not for this generation because their life expectancy was less than 65. Often, they died at work.

This generation, then, had the misfortune of straddling two world wars, a global pandemic and the Great Depression. And what is more remarkable is that there is no surviving popular trope of this lot complaining about their misfortune. Indeed, I suspect many regarded themselves as lucky. Here is a confronting observation: Australia’s greatest generation did what they saw as their duty… and they didn’t complain.

A world view such as this may have been shaped in part by a communal faith that was far stronger then than it is now. This was the noble (or deluded, depending on your world view) idea that sacrifice in this life is an investment in eternal salvation in the next life. And while this kind of thinking is hard for us to understand, I am sure it made sense to frightened Diggers cowering in the trenches thinking about, praying for, survival.

Fast forward to today. According to the International Monetary Fund, Australia ranks ninth in GDP per capita out of 195 countries globally, up from 20th in 1980. We are a rich country whose problems aren’t so much measured by survival as by matters such as the distribution of our wealth and prosperity.

And so while observations about the challenges at different stages of the life cycle are necessary to direct resources into the right areas, it might also be useful to balance this world view with a collective appreciation of our good fortune. There has been no “world” war for 80 years, no Great Depression for nearly a century. We hadn’t experienced a recession for almost 30 years prior to the pandemic. We travel globally. We have access to universal healthcare. We expect to live comfortably in retirement for decades. So it’s appropriate that we occasionally reflect upon our collective good fortune – and the sacrifices and the stoicism of those who made modern Australia.