Would you consider yourself better off than your Grandmother if, despite your indoor toilet, etc, if your children were starving to death?
No but they're not, that's the point.
My children have had far more opportunities than my grandparents had.
Back in those days even the children had to work hard, and there was not a lot of chance of self improvement.
It's more than material things that make it better, it's the wider experience, and ability to try different foods from the other side of the planet and experience " the other" and explore and learn about other spiritual things.
Also the attitudes have changed for the better. ( unmarried mothers, children born outside marriage, divorce, living together etc etc) it's much better now.
Years ago, it wasn't like that
We, in the UK now have much more opportunities to explore and have much more say in what we do, back then you were virtually tied to your employer and could even be sold into service. ( perhaps the class thing was more noticeable in the country)
Back in my grandmothers day, they never had the opportunity to really explore or read about Christian religion, it was something you were expected to do once a week ,to put your best clothes on and attend church on a Sunday and you sat and listened as was expected of you.
If the men had to get the harvest in, the women went on their behalf.
In my grandmothers day, the working classes were nothing......... Except skivvies and underlings etc ( all things bright and beautiful the hymn captures it in the line ......"and ordered their estate"/ social position etc etc you were poor because that's how you were born to be... To serve your betters!)
If you aspired to improve yourself you would have been seen as "getting above your station in life".
I think my grandmothers life was quite hard, full of hard work, and not much in the way of inspiration.
Even reading was difficult in the winter, because by the time you had done a days hard graft, fed your family, cleared up, darned clothes it was too dark to read much by candlelight.
It's no good going on about starving children in Africa or elsewhere because it isn't comparing like with like.
You would need to look at their generations and their grandmothers.
It may well be that their grandmother might have had to drink dirty water from a river, but the current generation might have a well with clean water.
Or that in their grandmothers day there was no oxfam, or Christian aid or water aid or Red Cross or the things they might now have access too.
It might be their grandmothers generation was inflicted with rickets or blindness or even smallpox, help of any sort might not have been possible then, not having the modern ability to raise aid and get it to where it's needed.
It's all relative.
If you compare same with same, I think you would find it has improved, but unfortunately wars and conflicts often destroy progress in many places.
Even looking at my mother through her 20-30s she couldn't buy something without her husbands permission.
She couldn't have a loan, couldn't be independant and have a mortgage, she had to get a man to approve.
She couldn't even open a bank account without a man saying she was a responsible person.
No one took women seriously, you couldn't start up in business, without a man being in charge.
Yes things have got better!
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