The problem with today's youth

[civplayah]

I'm not making an excuse of old age- I am still youth.

I'm just saying that a lot of others' habits are corrupted.

 

[warpus]

I blame video games and mtv

 

[Hygro]

Obviously, you're not a high school student.

I would have laughed just as hard, but then would have spent 3 paragraphs trying to tell you how ridiculous* one cigarette smoking 8 year old somehow represented your generation. You are biased by the anecdotes on which you focus.



*but I would have spelled it "rediculous"

 

[Flying Pig]

This thread is a sad exercise of "Kids today, when I was their age...", when the posters don't even have the excuse of old age. It represents an unreasoned, illogical and ill-informed fear of the unknown and a tendency towards cynicism in place of actual knowledge.

I'm not worried. I know myself and my mates were probably worse than a lot of them today. However for the love of God you cannot make generalisations about a group and expect them to mean anything.

 

[civplayah]

Okay, so why are you all responding if your only purpose is to prove me wrong?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

You don't know any better yet

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Okay, so why are you all responding if your only purpose is to prove me wrong?

Cos itd be boring if everyone agreed and thered be no debate and the thread would die

 

[Hygro]

Okay, so why are you all responding if your only purpose is to prove me wrong?

Sigged I've been lol'ing irl for more than 60 seconds.

 

[civplayah]

You know, I wasn't even joking.

Although, that's the first time I've been sigged! Thanks!

 

[MjM]

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."-Socrates or maybe Plato who knows

Kids have always been this way it seems. Until they become adults, then they never did anything wrong, right? It's all the next generation's problem! Seems like humankind has been using the copout for a while!

 

[Hygro]

IU civplayah

Basically, yes, you are right it's very disconcerting there are smoking 8 year olds. It's not such a big deal that a kindergartner knows about sex--I was familiar with it by the first grade, no big deal. And yes there are problems with parenting. They don't extend to the whole generation. And people are motivated to post when they disagree with what you say--that's how OT discussion usually works. It's just the standard operating procedure.

 

[Xanikk999]

I wouldn't lump all kids of today with that moron. I was never a smoker because i saw no reason to start and become addicted. Even in highschool i didnt submit to peer pressure. I did not care to be accepted by some idiots.

 

[Shylock]

One kid acting up means the entire generation is horrible?

 

[civplayah]

I keep saying this- I've seen more kids than him engage in such activities. He was just an example.

 

[Communisto]

Well, to be fair, our generation is horrible.

but that doesn't mean every one before ours wasn't as well.

 

[Cheetah]

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."-Socrates or maybe Plato who knows

Yes, we have all heard that.

But looking at the context - i.e. the society in which Socrates (or Platon?) lived - could one not also see that there may actually have been something in it? At the time Athens was mired in wars and eventually lost the Peloponnesian war. They never regained their former prosperity, and indeed, the Greek golden age for all of Greece seems to come to an end around the time.

When people are complaining about the morals and standards of their children, could it not be seen as actually having some substance? And maybe more so, if the decay goes so fast that teenagers are complaining about younger children?

Of course, this is just something that has struck me, and if someone can show me that people complained about their children during, say, the Athenian Golden Age, the Gilded Age, the Roaring Twenties or perhaps the 50's and 60's?

I'm almost sure I'm gonna be proven wrong, but it would be nice if someone could back it up for me, instead of just declaring that I'm wrong.

 

[Arakhor]

Every generation complains about their children, just like every child complains about their parents.

 

[Traitorfish]

Kids today! Shaving their head, smoking cannabis, listening to their loud, awful music...

...No, wait, that was my parents. Can I have another go?

 

[Cheetah]

No, but seriously. Can anyone show me some newspaper stories, or some writings, or reports or anything, that people of the day actually did write in or write about the terrible youths of the day?

 

[Disgustipated]

LOL at OP. Kids were smoking back in my day too. Kids smoke cigarettes back in the 40's too. This is nothing new. I can care less if the kid kills himself with tobacco. It's when you have kids killing and raping I start to get concerned about society. Smoking is a non-issue for me.