To clarify, it is awful for society but a tragedy for those young people.
It is hard to see how we can decelerate this decline because each generation of a large minority is experiencing increasing harm growing up in dysfunctional families and communities. My husband grew up on a notoriously poor council estate in Hull and moved at 16 to one that for him was an upgrade but which is actually more notorious outside of Hull, he went to a shit school which he left at 16. However while his parents weren’t perfect, they were decent and his grandparents were even better: both parents worked hard, got out of bed in the morning before their kids who had (carb) breakfast before school etc. and came home for cooked lunch and tea. If news got back that they’d “been up to no good” and annoyed Mrs X two streets away then there were swift consequences.
Most of his friends from the same background did okay. They got jobs eventually, - there was the first wave of very high unemployment when they left school and lots of factory closures. On his long street only one family had nobody in work. Now there will only be a handful in work and unemployment is a lot lower. Kids are feral on the streets, adults with children shout, scream, swear and drink alcohol and smoke weed openly all hours of the day and there is constant low level antisocial behaviour from all ages like playing loud music in the garden at all hours. Children are growing up in chaos; on the one hand neglected but on the other lazily “indulged” in that raising them properly involves effort and a measure of self control and sacrifice. Kids don’t want to go to bed? It’s a battle to get them there? You tried it only recently and it took over a hour before they were settled on bed? Fuck that, let them stay up all hours.
A friend who works with complex families says it’s so hard to maintain any conversation on the children’s needs because the parents are so needy themselves and inadequate. They track back repeatedly to their own problems and everyone and every agency’s failure to understand to help them. They do indeed have real problems but can’t seem to focus even on making small practical changes to improve their children’s wellbeing and safety eg. setting an alarm on their phone to get out of bed to support their children in getting to school.
These families often have a lot of children, there are doubtless many reasons including a lack of other sources of purpose or achievement. I don’t know where to start with turning things around.
It does baffle me that so many people are more worried about immigration than they are about this.