Boundaries, 7 Up, 70 Up, and me.

A crowded urban space with people going about their lives.

I’ve followed the 7 Up series for years, and ITV has now released 70 Up. I pay close attention to it because I’m part of a longitudinal study myself. Unlike 7 Up, which selected a small group of children based on the programmes specific criteria, the study I’m involved in follows every child born during one week of one particular year - the week I was born. All parents of children born that week were approached seeking permission to be included, creating a far broader and more representative cohort.

Over time, people have naturally dropped out, moved away, or passed on, so the sample has reduced. Even so, several thousand participants still contribute. The study tracks health, education, social, and psychological trends across the lifespan, and the data is intended to inform national policy.

Watching 70 Up it would be easy to make assumptions about the different life chances available for those from more affluent backgrounds and those not. However, there are few similarities between the personalities and drive and ambition for any conclusion to be made. You can see how quiet and doubtful the 14 years olds were and this was across the board. Those born into money seemed to know which school they would be attending – and university – and even the career details seem fairly set out. I wonder if this level of planning is helpful as it frees you up from uncertainty, or whether it creates fear of not reaching the expectation. It seems that little can be understood from the programme because the sample is so small.

Privilege wasn’t a guarantee but not having money also did not stop some entering University – having a particular career focus did seem to help. Two boys’ stories start with them living in a boarding school and when you look into their eyes they seem to have such pain – but both had successful careers, marriages and family homes and maintained a friendship with each other, and the women in these and other families are seemingly the firm base, but this is a highly edited programme.

I think the conclusion I have made is that there is no guarantee – except opportunities for women were fewer unless they were privileged – we can’t say that they were unhappy much like we can’t say that those starting life with money were happy.

Life doesn’t feel entirely real anymore.

My echo chamber shapes what I see and think; it feeds me whatever perspective I lean toward, and if I shift my views, it instantly supplies more of the same, embedding the new angle before I’ve even had time to sit with it. It’s becoming harder to pause, to ponder, to let ideas form in their own time. You have to wade through layers of repetition before you stumble across anything genuinely new.

I keep thinking about how much structure shapes our happiness. There was that study years ago, the jam study, showing that when people were faced with twenty‑odd jars of jam, they froze. Hardly anyone bought anything. But when the choice was narrowed to six jars, suddenly people felt able to decide. It’s the same principle people used to explain why Aldi and Lidl were thriving along with the prices of course.

Self‑Determination Theory has been saying for decades that we don’t actually thrive in limitless freedom, instead we thrive when there’s clear structure, predictable expectations, and we know healthy boundaries help us feel safe enough to act. Early positive psychology found that routine, defined roles often support wellbeing more than wide‑open choice ever does. I remember reading that sociologists argued that too much freedom becomes its own burden.

I suppose that’s why I’m noticing the lack of boundaries in my own life. I’m not any happier than I was when I was employed; I’m just anxious about different things. Money feels uncertain, even though I know it will come because it always has. I’ve trained and built experience that lets me freelance, and I am pursuing that. But without the scaffolding of a work week, I’m aware of how easily life can blur. I wonder how I’ll cope with even less structure when I retire. Maybe it really is just about having a few anchor points dotted through the week.

I met up with a long‑time friend recently. She’s turning 70 soon and she is healthy, fit, and not age‑defined in the way previous generations were. We’re all becoming strangely homogenous or is that delightfully homogenous? I’m not sure anymore. She has put structure in her week and watching her, I could see her becoming the woman she was always meant to be, but perhaps she needed these extra years, and the boundaries that come with them to grow into that grace.

Maybe that’s what I’m thinking - that life feels more real and more manageable, when it has structure. Too much choice, too much openness, and everything starts to get hazy. A few boundaries and suddenly there’s something to push against, perhaps it is also something to hold onto, which ultimately lets us become ourselves.