  The variety of the observational appearance of young isolated neutron stars
must find an explanation in the framework of some unifying approach. Nowadays
it is believed that such scenario must include magnetic field decay, the
possibility of magnetic field emergence on a time scale $\lesssim 10^4$--$10^5$
yrs, significant contribution of non-dipolar fields, and appropriate initial
parameter distributions. We present our results on the initial spin period
distribution, and suggest that inconsistences between distributions derived by
different methods for samples with different average ages can uncover field
decay or/and emerging field. We describe a new method to probe the magnetic
field decay in normal pulsars. The method is a modified pulsar current
approach, where we study pulsar flow along the line of increasing
characteristic age for constant field. Our calculations, performed with this
method, can be fitted with an exponential decay for ages in the range $8\times
10^4$--$3.5 \times 10^5$ yrs with a time scale $\sim 5 \times 10^5$ yrs. We
discuss several issues related to the unifying scenario. At first, we note that
the dichotomy, among local thermally emitting neutron stars, between normal
pulsars and the Magnificent Seven remains unexplained. Then we discuss the role
of high-mass X-ray binaries in the unification of neutron star evolution. We
note, that such systems allow to check evolutionary effects on a time scale
longer than what can be probed with normal pulsars alone. We conclude with a
brief discussion of importance of discovering old neutron stars accreting from
the interstellar medium.
