National service isn't the answer. AIBU?

[D3LAN3Y]

The conversation keeps cropping up time and time again. Should national service make a come back?
I have some relatives (generally older) who seem to think the younger generation could really use something like National Service to "sort themselves out" because they seem to think too many are rude/work shy/lazy/disrespectful etc.
I think it's a load of shit. I have two kids. Most of the teenagers I know happen to be good kids. I don't think they are a lost generation and anyone who works in retail already have done a form of national service in my eyes.

The tories have tabled an idea of a voluntary idea of national service but surely if they are pushing the idea to sort out "troubled youth" it wouldn't hit the audience it intended?

YABU - National service would help
YANBU - ITS A JOKE.

www.lbc.co.uk/news/penny-mordaunt-national-service/

I'm not sure how the decisions that my own and several other generation have made that have led to poor opportunities and a difficult future can be blamed on the young.

i say no because we don’t need another workhouse

They've run out of ideas and it appeals to their voter base ' in my day blah blah blah' ' whilst forgetting that they didn't actually fight in the war and the young in their day were either hippies experimenting with psychedelics and free love or punks who believed in anarchy

My cousins in Germany loved it. There, you can do a year in the army or a year volunteering. One ended up in an army skiing unit, one ended up doing the army raido service and one chose to volunteer in a hospital which enabled her to go on to study the degree she wanted to study. My other cousins didn't want to do it but now wish they had.

In the UK we basically already have national voluntary service, just only for those who can afford a gap year or unpaid internships.
If organised right it is a fab idea. Even if unpaid you could offer bed and board and loads of ppl would do it.

He's volunteering with an organisation helping with literacy in schools.

Many countries that we look up to in terms of their child rearing have national service.
It’s not always military.
But, the reason is works is the same reason their child rearing seems to work, they have a completely different mind set to us.
They are much more concerned with how they can be an active and positively contributing member of society. They don’t expect society to solely cater to them.

Hilarious - and, how, pray would you imagine we could compel these pillars of society to participate in your forced labour scheme?

So poverty tourism and a nice little ego boost for him.
Volunteering is great. Stuff like this is not.

So poverty tourism and a nice little ego boost for him.
Volunteering is great. Stuff like this is not.

Ummm ... different perspective on life? The chance to broaden his mind by being exposed to a different culture at the same time as gaining work experience and learning how fantastic the People of Peru are?! ..... of course Peruvians can teach themselves but that's not the point! I gained so much learning French from a French young person who taught me for a year as a teenager....it just is a good thing

🙄
Yes, it it's extreme form, it COULD be these things. But maybe, just maybe, the young person doing the actual teaching isn't a colonialist moron and has, you know, an open and enquiring, respectful mind?!

Ageist generalisation.

He speaks English, Spanish and French. He isn't teaching anyone to speak English, I'm not sure where you got that from.
As far as I know, he's working in Spanish. He's volunteering on a literacy programme. The children he's working with I doubt have televisions.
But, hey! What do I know. I'm sure really that the reports he sends back are faked and he's really doing the Ed Sheeran thing and getting himself photographed holding poor brown babies.

Now behave yourself.

Absolutely not. The funny thing is that the boomers who peddle this shit never had to do it themselves. See also criticism of millenials, you fucking raised them!

I'd rather people like him in my sphere than people who think like you (edited here for typo) tbf.

What do your children do for others?

(Of any country - I like to think the ones I'm teaching /bringing up aren't quite so closed minded as to think only Peruvians should volunteer in Peru)

And you know nothing about this child. What life he's had, or will have. Or why he's decided to do it. But for whatever reason he's doing it, he didn't have to. He could have hung around on his scooter down the side of Asda terrifying the elderly. Is that the contribution you like teenagers to make? Is that chip on your shoulder weighing you down that you go that low?

In my native country we had a compulsory National service until 1995.
When young boy reached 19 years age, he had to go to service for 2 years .
It’s true that it turn boys into men. I think it’s needed very much.
it taught youngsters to be more responsible, independent and reliable.

My dad loved his National Service, he was all jabbed up to go to Korea but ended up not going. He had 2 years continuing to learn his trade, learned to drive & said he was glad he got chance to do it. Maybe it could be an option for young people who haven't found employment or training & ones who are in danger of ending up in prison, teach them a trade & give them education.

Why would you think that?
You can search me if you like. English teacher, anti-ageist, bit if style and beauty, lots of telling SpaG police off for humiliating people. Etc.

You know there's a vast chasm of middle ground between Peru and terrorism grannies right?
People who are willfully ignorant about the damage these schemes do have absolutely no business trying to take the moral high ground. Educate yourself. You're not doing young people (or peruvians) any favors by letting them believe they're doing a good deed.
General rule, if you wouldn't or couldn't do it here, don't do it elsewhere.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/nov/14/orphans-cambodia-aids-holidays-madonna

Interesting article regarding volunteering in other countries.

The volunteering abroad thing makes me uncomfortable too.
If a young person wants to volunteer to help with children’s literacy, their local schools and special need schools would appreciate the help.
Poverty tourism gives me the ick.