Kids these days! Are they worse? Better?

[Magpie]

I've noticed in a lot of threads, people talking about "kids today" and "parents today", with the argument basically being that the whole world is going to heck in a handbasket.

The thing is, I remember hearing this same kind of grumbling from my mom's generation, about me and my friends.

So I got to wondering how other generations were viewed by their elders.

And this is what I found:

From "Kids These Days: Facts and Fictions about Today's Youth" by Karen Sternheimer.

As long as there have been youths, there have been people complaining about them. According to one observer in 1818, "parents have no command over their children." Nearly 200 years later, a 1999 CBS News/New York Times poll found that 91 percent of adults say teens today need more supervision, and 86 percent said that parents watch their kids today less than when they were teens. A mid-nineteenth century issue of Presbyterian Magazine complained that kids were, "given up to idleness, knowing no restraint... familiar with drunkenness, profaneness, and all the captivating focus of youthful dissipation."

Throughout the twentieth century, young people were considered the harbingers of trouble. As the labor of children and adolescents was needed less for a functioning household or economy, animosity grew. A 1912 Ladies' Home Journal article complained that "ninety-three of every one hundred children (are)... unfitted for even the simplest tasks of life." A few years later the Roaring Twenties was a time of economic growth, leading to increased leisure time for young people. A 1921 issue of Century Magazine described kids as "running wild" and contended that "no age... has had on its hands such a problem of reckless and rebellious youth." Elders were concerned that religion had lost its strong hold on regulating behavior, especially behavior pertaining to sex.

In 1929, Robert and Helen Lynd published Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture, and their respondents had much to say about perceived changes in youthful mores. Much as today, adults felt that kids were growing up too fast. "Children of twelve or fourteen today act just like grownups," and observer told the Lynds. A Middletown mother complained that "girls are far more aggressive today." Another stated that, "girls aren't so modest nowadays; they dress differently... We can't keep our boys decent when girls dress that way."

Writer Pearl S. Buck noted in a 1935 issue of Harper's Magazine that Depression-era youths, at the time called the Lost Generation but whom we now regard as the Greatest Generation, were "completely selfish... so sophisticated with a sort of pseudo-sophistication which is touching in its shallowness." The future heroes of World War II were described by author Maxine Davis in Lost Generation as a group that "accepts its fate with sheep-like apathy," and she suggested that "youth today... would not fight for states' rights or any rights, because they have no interest in them." Of course a few years later the same youths went on to liberate Western Europe from fascism - but hindsight is 20-20.

What do you think?

Me, I'm thinking the kids are all right, and maybe we should give them and their parents a break.

 

[Kim♥DISNEY]

Me, I'm thinking the kids are all right, and maybe we should give them and their parents a break. [/QUOTE]

 

[Colleen27]

I think the disconnect between older generations' memories of their own youth and their perceptions of modern youth is a constant of human society. There will always be a younger generation enjoying the dramas and excesses and impulsivity of youth, and there will always be an older generation lamenting the deficiencies of "kids these days". Of course, that older generation has long since whitewashed the memories of their own "wild oats" and the shortcomings and shortsightedness of their youth, and the younger generation will do the same in time.

 

[Magpie]

I think the disconnect between older generations' memories of their own youth and their perceptions of modern youth is a constant of human society. There will always be a younger generation enjoying the dramas and excesses and impulsivity of youth, and there will always be an older generation lamenting the deficiencies of "kids these days". Of course, that older generation has long since whitewashed the memories of their own "wild oats" and the shortcomings and shortsightedness of their youth, and the younger generation will do the same in time.

Personally, I think my kids are a huge improvement on me. I was awful. I stole, ran away, got brought home by the cops, lit fires, shoplifted, lied... basically everything EXCEPT drink, do drugs, smoke or have sex (all of which my mum could have forgiven easier, since she did that stuff when she was young).

My kids are so much more sensible, honest and responsible than I ever was when I was their age. And on the whole their friends are the same. And the funny thing is, my mom agrees!

 

[DisGirlAllie]

As a teenager, my only comment is to not generalize every single teenager We're not all the devil but we aren't all angels either

 

[Plannin'Shannon]

I think the disconnect between older generations' memories of their own youth and their perceptions of modern youth is a constant of human society. There will always be a younger generation enjoying the dramas and excesses and impulsivity of youth, and there will always be an older generation lamenting the deficiencies of "kids these days". Of course, that older generation has long since whitewashed the memories of their own "wild oats" and the shortcomings and shortsightedness of their youth, and the younger generation will do the same in time.

 

[Anjelica]

I recently saw this quote (paraphrase here as I don't remember it exactly):

"Those who complain about today's youth forget who raised them"

 

[nuttylawprofessor]

Personally, I think my kids are a huge improvement on me. I was awful. I stole, ran away, got brought home by the cops, lit fires, shoplifted, lied... basically everything EXCEPT drink, do drugs, smoke or have sex (all of which my mum could have forgiven easier, since she did that stuff when she was young).

My kids are so much more sensible, honest and responsible than I ever was when I was their age. And on the whole their friends are the same. And the funny thing is, my mom agrees!

Round parents have square children.

 

[minkydog]

As a teenager, my only comment is to not generalize every single teenager We're not all the devil but we aren't all angels either

And I agree with you. I still have 2 teenagers at home and even though they can vex me in the worst kind of way,I know that they are good kids. Their friends are good kids. My house is a gathering place for teens, so I see them pretty much every day. And I would have to say that today's teens are NOT going to hell in a handbasket, at least from my perspective. And I don't think I"m off the mark. These kids will rise to the occasion just like we did. Doesn't anybody remember the 60s? Free love, drugs, flower power? Those same teens are now running the country. And not doing a completely horrible job of it, either.

I think as long as there are kids, they're going to be blamed for everything that goes wrong.

 

[Becky2005]

Me, I'm thinking the kids are all right, and maybe we should give them and their parents a break.

There are definitely differences but the world is different too...however, in the end...most of the kids will grow up to be decent adult citizens that will have kids & then get to complain about "kids these days, they don't know how easy they have it, I had to walk up hill both ways barefoot to school in a blizzard"

 

[bicker]

Thanks for posting this. I've said something similar in myriad threads here on the DIS. It's something we all need to keep in mind, before we seek to disparage the next generation.

 

[Christine]

I think, overall, kids are pretty good. Oh, they have their "things" that are different than our "things" so it's seems odd, but basically they seem fine to me.

I think what I notice the change most in is the adults/parents. I think parenting has changed radically and not always for the better. I think there is a much larger group of parents that demand and feel entitled and butt in far too often when it comes to their kids. Back in the day, there were always "those" parents. Now there is more than a few of them.

 

[dejr_8]

I think the problem with today's kids is the parents - the my child is a snowflake syndrome. Then the kid hits the real world and can't behave.

 

[Robinrs]

Since I moved from an urban jungle to a Southern gentler and kinder area, I have varying degrees of kids when I grew up and kids today. There are so many variables, environment, social mores -- all of those things are what makes people people.

My son is 17 and he and his friends are so much nicer, more decent than anything I dealt with growing up. They have sexual morals that were absent back in the 70s when I was in school and have better ideas of where they're going. My generation was a LOT wilder.

The biggest disconnect I find is with work ethic. It seems to be a lost cause. Kids know more and have more access to the world but don't know how to deal with real life and the work world. This is something we have to teach them, earlier not later.

 

[golfgal]

I think for the most part kids are the same today as they were 20, 30, 40 years ago, HOWEVER, I do think that there is a definite difference in how kids treat other people. One easy example is watching some teens cross a street, they take their time, walking slowly with no sense of anyone around them (not just teens but a lot of people) where as 20 years ago, people would hustle across a street not to keep people waiting too long. It is just a shift in attitude from trying to be polite and watching out for those around you to "I'm more important then you" that you see today. It is perpetuated in helicopter parents, Snowflakes, etc. so it seems like kids are worse. Kids get away with this attitude more than they should so it does seem like they are worse.

 

[Magpie]

I think for the most part kids are the same today as they were 20, 30, 40 years ago, HOWEVER, I do think that there is a definite difference in how kids treat other people. One easy example is watching some teens cross a street, they take their time, walking slowly with no sense of anyone around them (not just teens but a lot of people) where as 20 years ago, people would hustle across a street not to keep people waiting too long. It is just a shift in attitude from trying to be polite and watching out for those around you to "I'm more important then you" that you see today. It is perpetuated in helicopter parents, Snowflakes, etc. so it seems like kids are worse. Kids get away with this attitude more than they should so it does seem like they are worse.

But I remember being accused of being self-absorbed and oblivious and rude when I was a teenager in the eighties. I mean, that's what the eighties was all about, right? It was the Me Decade.

And I have some comic books from the sixties that show teens loitering around street corners and smoking and sneering at people. Kids those days, you know. I'm sure THEY never hustled across a street so as not to keep people waiting. They sauntered.

Greasers, hippies, beatniks... were they ever polite? Did they ever watch out for anyone around them? (Hippie teens were probably too stoned...).

I think, stereotypes aside, teens are probably biologically hardwired to be self-absorbed. They're growing, changing, their focus is inward. They're not sauntering across the intersection because they were raised badly, or because they're trying to shove it in your face, they're sauntering because the MOST important thing going on right now is their conversation with their friends and none of the rest of the world exists at that moment.

I remember nearly getting hit by cars a few times as a teen...

 

[cm8]

Children now days act worst than we did growing up. But if some of there parents are some of the same people..................... I see why they behave that way. I know not all children live what they learn and learn what they live but it's no longer "peer" pressure that is making them what they are today, it's the parents,. This generation is the instant gratification generation and they want what they want now and it does not matter what you or I want that matters I applaud the parents that are teaching their children how to be inspiring and uplifting to others instead of being selfish and bullies. And that is just MY OPINION

 

[JessicaR]

Well, if my kids are comparative to me as a teen. My kids are just super spectacular!

I have no issues with kids today and if I did I have a closer look at the parents and all questions are answered.