In 43 BCE Cicero wrote, "Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents." We're still saying it, of course, but nothing has really changed. Are today's kids getting an undeserved bad rep?
What rep are they being given? They are to be pitied as expected to be the first generation, in a long time, to be worse off than their parents. What do they have to look forward to but debt, unemployment and communal living.
This post was edited by O-uknow at March 4, 2017 11:50 PM MST
Every generation laments the new generation's decadence and bad behavior and views themselves to have been perfectly behaved angels when they were young. People have been doing it for hundreds (and thousands!) of years and they will continue to do so. I'm sure I'll complain about the "kids these days" when I'm an old curmudgeon as well.
Sorry, Nevan. You can't be a curmudgeon. Plingsby owns that title for this site, although we haven't seen him for a few days. I found it interesting that peple have been complaining about kids since Cicero's time and you can bet it was happening long before that.
Not all parents fulfil parent duties, not all merit obedience. Kids today are like kids of every generation. Some are descent, well mannered and enjoyable to be with. Others are very much the opposite.
Children are just whatever the adults make them. I find children to be well behaved and cooperative. I watch other people take charge of the same children and they turn into little monsters. It is obvious to me that the adults train them to be the way they are, but I am not able to train the adults.
Example: I could take my son to a store and he would stay close to me all the time. But if his mother was present, BAM! he was gone! Pretty soon we would hear an announcement over the PA system asking his parents to come to the office. His mother thought that was a wonderful trick.
I DO have a special concern for youth...not in Cicero's terms, because the generations all seem to settle down.
Except, sometime around 1980 the hikikomori started to show up, first documented in Japan, many millions, then England and just more and more all over. Happens in their teens, they feel like losers, retreat to their bedroom and just never come out...some are now in their fifties.
I don't think the world has ever seen anything like that among so many of its young, and my concern is that the older generations are somehow letting them down.
This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at March 5, 2017 12:05 AM MST
O-uknow 