Kids these days have it too easy they don't know the value of hard work. I had my babies. I didn't take drugs to dull the pain. And women went back out to work in the fields the next day. Well, you get the picture.
Memory cuts out all of the bad stuff that happened, and magnifies everything good.
The past is painted in colors of glory. School days were brighter, marriage was easier, kids behaved and life was gentler. All of those things get washed down and painted in muted colors. The other big cause for despair is to take the condition in which we presently find ourselves and then claim that life is always going to be this way. Things will never change, we say to ourselves.