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Youth bashing
“The kids these days are just rude.”
“They show no respect to their elders.
“The kids back in my day didn’t say and do things like that.”
Blah, blah, blah.
Plato said things like this, Confucius said things like this, the conservatives of just about every day say things like this. Now, just because we all say this doesn’t mean it’s not true. But “youth bashing” is an interesting thing.
Richard P. Eibach, an assistant professor of psychology at Yale, has found that exaggerated beliefs in social decline are widespread – largely because people tend to mistake changes in themselves for changes in the external world. “Our automatic assumption is something real has changed,” Mr. Eibach said. “It takes extra thought to realize that something about your own perspective or the information you’re receiving may have changed.”
I’d have to say that, yes, we don’t really see how rude, etc., youth can be until we grow out of it. But the reaction doesn’t need to be youth bashing. It needs to be a recognition that kids have something to learn and a decision to teach them.
Test or no test, Mr. Arnett worries that “youth bashing” has become so common that accomplishments tend to be forgotten, like the fact that young people today have a closer relationship with their parents than existed between children and their parents in the 1960s (”They really understand things from their parents’ perspective,” Mr. Arnett said), or that they popularized the alternative spring break in which a student opts to spend a vacation helping people in a third world country instead of chugging 40s in Cancún.
If you teach kids, or are in any kind of position where you interact with them (minister, coach, parent, etc.), then the surest way to neutralize your persuasive ability with them is to tell them that Kids In Your Day Were So Much More Respectful. It might be true, but hush your mouth about it and show them how to be. Conservatives love to talk about the Good Old Days. Let’s remember our own youthful sins, forgive our kids, and teach them.
back to top30 Comments to “Youth bashing”
When I was a kid, I always promised myself that I would never, ever, ever begin a sentence with “When I was your age…”
Now, it seems like every other sentence I say starts out that way.
Something to think about at the start of the first school-day of the week.
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When my brother was a teen, he and my dad would often get into it over my brother’s rock music. My dad would always say the same thing. “Turn that junk down. That’s not music. You can’t understand a word they say.” One day a few years ago my brother walked into a room where his son had his rap music playing rather loudly. What did my brother say? “Turn that junk down. That’s not music. You can’t understand a word they say.” He didn’t understand why we all laughed at him.
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I teach high school students. I see more disrespect than I remember having 30 some years ago. Yes, we had nick-names for the teachers, but we always referred to them as Mr, Mrs or Miss. My students either use a nick-name or just the last name. Since I teach Spanish, I try to get them to be more polite (since my experience with Hispanics is more respect for elders than Americans tend to have). My students cannot go see another teacher without using the title before the last name. Most of them comply right away. Others take a little more reminding.
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There has clearly been a loss of civility in our society, which I think stems from our dropping of formalities, such as using people’s titles and surnames. I’m just at an age when I remember everybody referring to my parents as Mr. and Mrs. A.
As for kids, they are probably a bit more bold than they used to be, but their opinion of adults is no different from that of the kids from any generation. They just don’t keep it to themselves the way that kids did in some eras.
I agree that there it is useless to tell them anything about “our day” or, for that matter about their day. There’s nothing more pathetic than a middle aged person informing kids about their own generation.
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But Peter, can’t some of that disrespectful use of adults’ names be laid at the feet of those well-meaning adults themselves? Maybe HSK is right and the only thing that’s really changed is my perceptions as I age, but I’m amazed at how many middle-aged teachers, neighbors, and church leaders introduce themselves to children and teens with their first names (”Call me Kathy,” or as I heard over the weekend, “Call me Mr. Gary”).
In my junior high years (late 70s), we had exactly one teacher in the entire school who instructed students to use her first name, and she was the hippy art teacher. Now, it is much more common.
I realize that the mere use of “Mr.,” “Miss,” or “Mrs.” doesn’t indicate a heart attitude of respect, but I do wonder whether abandoning traditional forms of address contributes. When adults are so busy attempting to “relate,” I suspect they forget their role as authorities.
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Kyle A,
I agree with all you say except the last line. Well, and that too. But I have found that given a chance, kids are fascinated with hearing stories from “The Greatest Generation.” A parent saying, “Back in my day . . . ” falls on deaf ears, but an octagenarian saying, “I was in the Bataan Death march . . .” or “I felt the heat from Bikini Atoll . . . ” gets kids’ attention.
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I think a lot of this call me by first name stuff is started as baby boomer youth worship. I remember resisting being called ma’am or Miss by children because it made me feel old.
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One regional difference I might add: in the South, it is often a sign of respect to add “Miss” before the first name of an older woman, even if you’re an adult, especially in smaller churches and towns. Women old enough to be my grandmother regularly are spoken to this way.
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As kids, we always called an adult lady “Miss (Whatshername). Especially teachers. Otherwise, Mrs. was always pronounced “miseries”.
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“When I was a kid,”
“5 miles barefoot in the snow,”
“uphill”
“both ways”
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“…and we LIKED it.”
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All I know is, we were visiting some friends of ours at their parent’s house. We’re all adults with kids and the parents are in their 60 or 70s.
We were playing “Scattergories” and cutting up pretty good, laughing, etc. Their mom tried to make a phone call and the dad said “Y’all hush now while momma is on the phone”. I couldn’t believe I’d been scolded like I was a teenager. We all laughed.
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I’m sure with every generation in the history of the world adults have complained about the disrespect of children getting worse.
But anyone who says that children today are more well-behaved than in the past has their head in the sand. We’ve lost one or two generations of children from two-parent homes, and as a result things are going downhill much more quickly.
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BTW, I wouldn’t say it’s “youth bashing.” It’s often the fault of the parents who refuse to stick it out “til death do we part” and model good behavior that causes most of these problems.
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I suffer from the same thing that many of us do, in that being called Mr Make It Man makes me uncomfortable. I don’t feel that mature…
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I often wonder what I’m going to tell my kid to make him feel grateful for how good he has it. “We had to wait for that school bus sometimes fifteen or twnety minutes. In all kinds of weather, except when it was cold or rainy, then we had to wait in the house…with the TV off. A TV, which by the way only had four channels and no remote. We had to get up and walk, sometimes barefoot, all the way across the room and change the channel our selves.”
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Wow, kbells. Four channels?! We only got two, and one of them was PBS.
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When I was a teenager, I lived in a community where, for reasons I don’t know, everyone called everyone by their first name. Four-year-olds called our 82-year-old pastor “Curtis.” My siblings and I were the only ones in the church required to use last names, which was rather embarrassing to me at 15 with a desire to be an adult. (It was awkward too. No one used last names, so I didn’t even know what people’s last names were. So I had to go up to Mildred, for instance, and without calling her by name, say, “Um, excuse me, could you tell me what your last name is” before I could talk to her or about her.) At home, I’d say “Mrs. Smith,” and Mom would say, “Who?” and I’d have to say “Nancy Smith.” I think our parents were right in demanding us to show respect, but it would have been easier all around just to ask us to say “Miss Mildred” and “Pastor Curtis.”
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One thing that I think a lot of today’s parents miss is that they have an obligation to expect children to respect and obey. It simply is not fair to a child to let the child make decisions on whether to obey, and possibly end up at odds in split-second life-and-death matters. Even dog books say this: Take the pressure off the dog by being in charge yourself. If you’re the leader, the dog doesn’t have the stress of trying to lead. We’ve put that stress on a whole generation of children. And in life-or-death decisions, that means death when a child doesn’t know how to obey.
My foster kids gave me a chance to teach this one time. The smoke detector went off; I knew it wasn’t a fire, just something on the stove. But I thought it was a good chance to teach about the importance of obedience–they hadn’t been with me long, and hadn’t learned it yet. So I said firmly, “Go to the front door” and I went to the stove, and moved the troublesome pan off its burner. I turned around and saw two kids in the kitchen doorway behind me. I yelled, “Go to the front door now!” They obeyed, and then I went and explained the situation. At that point they cried, scared. But if it had been a real fire, and they had obeyed me by going to the door, I could have told them from the kitchen, “Go outside!” If it had been a real fire, their following me to the kitchen would have endangered them. That’s the real difference between obedience and disobedience, and why teaching obedience isn’t some sort of “power trip” for the parents to expect obedience, but parents’ duty as much as it is the children’s duty to obey.
I have parents all the time tell me it feels unpleasant or mean to tell a child what to do. Do it anyway–it’s your job. Meanwhile, their children are miserable, whining about everything, negotiating the few tasks their parents do ask of them, unpleasant to be around (and thus sometimes friendless), while obedient children cheerfully obey and cheerfully let their parents make the major decisions of life. Yes, even the best parents have children who sometimes disobey–but children and parents are in better relationship with each other, and both live easier and happier lives, when the major decision-making is parental and only gradually handed over to children, as they mature enough to handle it.
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Look at the drugs, sex, abortion, murders, and mass murder in school, the language used in public in front of the parents, crime by people under 21.
Are things different, you bet they are. Parents don’t stay married, people don’t respect their marriage vows, everyone wants more than they can afford. Both parents work to give their kids WHAT? WHAT was the real reason the mom went to work, if the parents are married and living together. The answer is, MORE, MORE, MORE!
Kids don’t respect what they see at home, and lose respect for themselves, they don’t know WHY they feel so bad, but they DO.
CHRIST is the only answer in this world, HE’s always been the answer.
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I’ll be the the contrary voice here. I find my students to be as if not more respectful than my generation. The real difference, however, is the approach many take toward the future, responsibility, and societal needs. Behaviour varies from class to class and school to school. My present school in a mixed neighbourhood with the majority of the students immigrants or in public housing behave far better than my previous middle school in the country which was mostly white middle class and some trailer parks. My present class however is more immature than any class I’ve taught at the grade seven level.
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Respect has little to do with what of three given names you call someone and more to do with what other names you call them
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I want to put in a quick word of defense of young people. I see so many of them with complicated lives. I see them working hard in restaurants and other places. I think there are many fine young people.
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I coached HS aged kids for a number of years, and work with age group at church. I absolutely disagree that those sets of kids are less respectful or more rude than any time in my memory – and they are better than my peers were in the 70s.
Granted, those sets of kids were top level atheletes and kids motivated to attend church activities, but I think kids have a greater range of behavior than before and the worst get the most attention.
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God is faithful in many circumstances.
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24-We see this respectful climate in our public high school with the boys and girls swim teams. No one is excluded. All can join. The coach recruited my son his second year here as a junior. He was at first afraid to take off his shirt. The swimmers all cheer each other on no matter who the swimmer is all through every meet. The enthusiasm brings me so much joy that I cry at times while other parents cheer. My son has mild scoliosis and has only swum two years. He got last place all last year and felt awkward every meet. This year, he grew an inch, took the summer off, and by fall his times were improving as if he had been swimming all summer long. He started placing third and even second recently. Last meet his lane won the 400 yd. relay and actually beat their own team’s state champion swimmer’s lane. The crowd was incredible in its support. I NEVER hear booing or anything negative from parents towards the coaches, etc., like some parents toward the referees at the basketball games, where my daughter hardly ever plays. In swimming, everyone works hard and it pays off. The presence of supporting parents in this discipline has been one of the most inspiring experiences I have had.
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And really, if kids are less respectful now than we were, then what does that say about us? What kind of a job did we do in raising them? The salt of the earth?
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My own mother’s teaching (both by word and example) was that I should show common courtesy to everyone regardless of position, but that there was no need to show special respect to certain people by virtue of positions they held unless they earned the respect by their behavior. I would guess that that is a fairly widespread attitude today, and not only in youth.
As the only children (other than my own) I work with are quite young (5-8 years old), I have limited exposure to the kind of problems mentioned by some people. (Most often, I’m called neither by my first nor last name, but “Teacher” or, occasionally, “Al’s Mom”). In the rural Midwest I have found that most people, of all ages, are generally more polite to each other than in the very crowded towns and cities back East. If young people are disrespectful, though, I think they got lots of “teaching by example” from older generations.
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REG: See post #14. Thanks for echoing my thoughts.
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However, if all you do is point out what is wrong, you add to peoples’ despair and actually FEED the abortion mindset/culture.
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