Live Long and Prosper

Statistically, a child born today is more likely to reach 100 than someone who is already 96 years old. And this is happening at a time when government resources are increasingly stretched and retirement ages are creeping upwards, when the populations of the developed nations are aging and the borders are increasingly closed to younger people from poorer countries.

As parents the one thing we can do for our children, to prepare them for this dystopian future, is give them the skills they need to survive and, hopefully, prosper. And chief of those skills, in a world dominated by the ideology we call capitalism, is a proper understanding of how to manage money: because the alternative is that money will manage them.

Health

Predictions are notoriously difficult to get right, especially ones about the future, but the trends towards people living longer and getting less government support seem fairly secure – although, of course, if there's less government support for the aged they may not live as long on average. Nonetheless, it seems reasonable to suggest that as long as our children have access to the latest medical advances then they may live longer and healthier lives than we will. Personally I think that this seems like a desirable outcome.

Unfortunately as government finances come under the strain of aging populations it's entirely likely that access to the latest treatments will be rationed, and that retirement ages will continue to creep upwards. This latter trend is both positive and negative: for most of us, however much we protest, work is a positive thing as Mihály Csíkszentmihályi's research into flow has revealed: it gives us purpose, meaning and social interaction; all of which are beneficial to our health. However, as we age we become more vulnerable to stress and uncertainty, and working longer because we have no choice, rather than as a preferred life option, can be damaging.