AIBU to think that children and teenagers were not better behaved in the (mythical rose tinted) good old days?

[Schwabischeweihnachtskanne]

If they were, why can we see badly behaved children and defiant teens throughout literature:

Emma - not a spoilt teenager who thought she knew it all?

Romeo and Juliet - the story of teenagers not affected by their hormones?

Agnes Grey - no unpleasant teens in the Bloomfield family?

Max and Moritz - good boys who always listened to their elders?

The lion and Albert - a poem about a well behaved boy doing as his parents said for fear of a clip around the ear?

Obviously literature isn't fact, but if the entitled brat/ naughty child/ selfish teen were really a recent phenomenon then the type wouldn't appear in literature going back centuries...

Or do people perhaps believe that children and adolescents were uniquely respectful and law abiding in their own youth or that of their children and things have deteriorated from the heady examples set for us by the teenage mods of the 1960s ... :o

Not denying aspects of childhood and society have changed over time of course, and that while some if the changes have been for the good others have not, but MN seems peppered with comments on how children / teens used to be, in one way or another, better (better behaved, more respectful) at some vague point in the past (due, it is often implied, to mollycoddling ).

AIBU to think this is just sloppy cliche and rose tinted nostalgia, and that kids have always been naughty (sometimes), teens have always been stroppy and defiant (sometimes - and almost certainly even before the term teenager came into use) and every single generation since the dawn of time has believed that society is going to the dogs, as proved by the dreadful behaviour of Young People These Days?

I thought this thread had died so hadn't checked it...

but I just wanted to say that at my private girls secondary school in the 1990s children certainly didn't all respect teachers just because they were older and because they were teachers, nor did they respect the uniform (which was strict, extensive and hideous, beloved only of a certain type of parent mine )!

In fact I have very vivid memories of pushing the uniform code as far as I could, with more and more non uniform items the older I got, and of lying on the table reading during the lessons (in I ended up getting a first class degree in) because the teacher we had for what is now year 7 was so feeble I decided to ignore her (ah the arrogance of an 11 year old...) and of deliberately taking the maths teacher literally when he sent me out of the class room (for asking the class maths star to explain the topic to me as the teacher's explanation had been clear as mud to me) and going and sitting in the playground waving in through the window...

Even at primary when we figured out one old fashioned male teacher slapped boys on the back of the legs for talking in class a group of us girls interpreted that as licence to do exactly as we wanted in class and drove him crazy chatting, being made to stand at the front, continuing chatting, being sent out, clowining outside the classroom, and eventually being brought back in again. We only behaved like that in the class of the teacher who still used corporal punishment on boys - never crossed our minds in the classes of any of the other teachers.

All harmless stuff of course, but I was an almost straight A student at "nice" schools - if I was behaving like that in the 80s I am sure some of my contemporaries in some other schools were behaving every bit as badly as the worst behaved pupils today :o

*that should be 1980s mainly, and early 1990s - I just made myself younger :o

I haven't got the hang of the touch pad on my new laptop and it has eaten parts of some of my sentences... I should have dictated it to my pre-teen to touch type for me to avoid embarrassment or proof read .

Know how you feel I have to consult my teen when I have tablet problems. Of course I get the look that means oh fgs Mother you mean you actually don't know!

There have always been defiant children and teenagers. But in the recent past strangers would tell defiant children off. That has changed, so I think it does have an effect on defiant children's behavior.

My cousins left school at 14/15. So school could benignly neglect them, as they "learnt on the job".
At my school only a small percentage were expected to get the equivalent of 5GCSEs so those who didn't want to learn were ignored to a large extent. Teachers also ignored worse things going on with their pupils (from child prostitution, neglect and domestic violence etc.). Pupils frequently left having got pregnant. One boy was in hospital for 18 month due to a stabbing. None of this even made the local papers.
There does seem to be easier access to drugs but a bit harder to alcohol (everyone had been in the pub by 18), and when I left school glue was becoming a big problem.
But hitting children was common, and corporal punishment in schools was allowed until after I left.
SN children went to "special schools" often staffed by those untrained in special needs. I heard awful stories from friends who trained as teachers but could then only get jobs as basically TAs in special schools.
And then there were Borstals and Young Offender institutions etc.
Of course in my Mums generation there was national service and maybe a war to get yourself killed in.

YANBU and the stats bear you out - youth crime and violence has been declining since the 70s.

And things are more unacceptable now - there was a lot of sexual harassment and abuse going on in schools & youth settings that was considered 'normal' back in the 70s and 80s. We think that teenage boys now are of the porn / trolling generation but they were nasty 25 years ago as well.

My mum went to a convent in the 50s and two girls in her class were pregnant at 14. She remembers going to the cinema on her own when she was 11 and being followed around by a man trying to touch her and her younger sister. She laughs it off and would never have thought of reporting it to an adult. (Sorry not a specific youth example but just an example of the past not being a golden age).

Don't agree with ops post at all

We would have never spoke to our mother the way my ds speaks to me or some of his friends

I would of got a clip round the ear

These days people run to the daily mail of there kids get a 5 minute detention no wonder why children think they don't have to listen to anyone

teenagers these days are often told there rights but not there respobilty

That's why they think they can turn up at school with blue hair or goad a old man then act surprise when he twist there arm

They no they can't be touched even if there are in the wrong so they act accordingly

I even heard raising a voice to a child is abuse these days

mothermayi been reading the Daily Mail, have you?

The figures on youth crime and violence don't lie.

As for 'getting a clip round the ear' for speaking a certain way - where do you draw the line? Do we teach our children that they must accept everything their parents say as gospel, even if the parent is manifestly wrong and unjust? At what point do we teach our children that they need to be assertive and stand up for themselves, and that this is not 'disrespectful'? (God, I hate that word. It smacks of adult entitlement.)

I want my DDs to be able to question what they are told - politely, assertively, but question it nevertheless, if it is dodgy. And I do not want them 'clipped round the earhole' by anyone for it.

Police do not respond to things young people do, that they would have in the past

Because they have better things to do, like, er, solving real crimes? Used to be when a man hit his wife, it was called 'a domestic' and the police did nothing. I'd rather they took that sort of thing seriously than that they harassed teenagers for being teenagers. Used to be rape within marriage was legal - now it isn't. The police have a lot more to do these days because a lot of very bad things are now - properly - considered to be crimes.

Also this: .

That's why they think they can turn up at school with blue hair or goad a old man then act surprise when he twist there arm

What's blue hair got to do with goading? I had blue hair in school, I worked there, nobody cared.

My point is that things young people did did used to be logged by the police. They are not now. So the stats are meaningless

From my rough school there were plenty of teenagers who could be really quite scarey. And plenty of teens nowadays who have lovely manners.

When I was a teen my Uncle moaned about how in his day a policeman would "give you a clip around the ear if he saw you doing something you shouldn't".

Of course we also did things that MN would think was incredibly dangerous, like run errands for elderly neighbours - I posted a lot of letters for total strangers.

i think it was easier back in the day. in the 70"s teen took advantage of my mum.. he was a "delivery boy" and he ripped her off. now my mum was not well(big C) so my big brother sorted it, the "delivery boy " never did it again.
fast forward to about 10 yrs ago...... we are being the target of the local thugs(hate crime cos dd disabled) police are involved. HA are involved but NO ONE sorts it...... till my ds does....nothing changes

I turned 18 in the late 70s. My parents said I could have a house party but I didn't want one as I had seen so many houses trashed by my peers. Roll on 30 years and my DDs have had 16th, 18th, 21st and many other parties in our house and the worst damage has been eyeliner trodden into the carpet. So from my POV things are better now.

But a good friend had her home wrecked when my DD1s best mate had a secret party. The kids drank every bottle in the house (and there were a lot of bottles) broke windows, and one guest took a 5Kg bag of rice and walked the length and height of her home sprinkling it into every nook and cranny. 6 years on and they are still finding rice everytime they vacumm. On another night my NDNs came back from a party to find the photocopier cracked from bum copies and the shed on fire.

The moral of my stories is - nothing ever changes. Some teenagers have great parties, some have train wrecks. And the worst carpet stain in our house is one caused by DHs 50+ mate spilling Rioja whilst attempting to cover up his forbidden fag!

practy lots of things older people do are also not logged by the police these days. Because the police have more serious stuff to attend to. You really have a down on teenagers, don't you?

Not at all. And I agree about older people. I am simply questioning the reliance on stats.

This is Shakespeare, A Winter's Tale:

“I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting”

I love it.

I am not really talking about men getting unmarried women pregnant, stealing or fighting. It is the very low level stuff. When I was young strangers would tell kids and teenagers off for lots of things including putting feet on the seat on a bus, being too rowdy, swearing and dropping litter. Kids will always do these things. The big difference is that if their parents don't see it, then strangers rarely now tell children off. That does mean children get away with more, and I am sure encourages some to keep on doing it. So it is not the kids that have changed, it is the response of adults.

I don't remember drugs being as readily available when I was growing up, as they are now. That does make a difference to a lot of kids behaviour.
Apart from that, I think we were far worse, when I was a teenager. When my kids think they are being rebels, I act all 😱 and thank my lucky stars that they really don't have a clue!!

Didn't Plato say "Children of today have no respect for authority and are tyrants" round about 500BC??

My uncle wasn't very well behaved back in the forties and fifties. My grandparents were well respected strict people and my dad was a model son but my uncle was hyperactive, extremely clever but liked to make home made bombs and put one under a bridge which luckily only blew out a few bricks..was handy with a cross now,undetachieved at school and slipped school. He was a bit of a drifter throughout life excellent musical instrument player and book binder but had quite a sad life..

Skipped not slipped