I've thought about this a lot. It's so much more than "every generation thinks the next is awful" - that's too glib. By my count we've had 3 consecutive generations disaffected, disillusioned, and alienated. It's as if, figuratively speaking, everyone born after 1970 is a 'latchkey kid' because the parent archetype still hasn’t come home or sobered up yet.

Even still, it's best to teach kids that they have more say than any other individual about their own future, and that anything is possible. If you must teach them that the world is hostile, you must also teach them how to beat it. You wouldn't refrain from teaching them tiger evasion just because the tiger is probably going to get them.