WTF is wrong with kids today?

[n1ce_hat]

i hate seeing 9 year olds smoke.

it sickens me.

[Spyvie]

Kids today don’t know how good they have it with their x stations and game boxes and 24hr loony tunes on the boob tube. When I was a young man if you wanted to play a little asteroids you needed some QUARTERS. There weren’t no surfing the net either, heck no, surfing was something Moondoggy did on Gilligan’s Island. Bout the closest we could come to browsing the web was changing the channels on the B&W TV real fast with a rusty pair of pliers. And all the TV stations all went off the air after midnight, about the only thing you could browse after 1am was a test pattern on the tube or the cobwebs on the ceiling.

 

Back in my day we respected our elders, when my aunt Edna told me to rub her bunions, darn it I rubbed them good. And when we acted up in public we were subject to random whoopings by anonymous adults, you just didn’t go round mouthin off like they do now. Heck, I had to get every morning and milk the goats and feed the pigeons before I’d even had my bowl of gruel. We had to walk 14 miles to school every day, uphill both ways, and if we were even 1min late we were subject to another beating by the school marm while the rest of the teachers cheered her on. Then we were forced to sit in the corner wearing a pointy hat for the rest of the day but we were still expected to get a B or better on the day’s schoolwork. After school all us kids had to play with was rocks and sticks and a piece of rope, and we needed the rope to hold our hand me down britches up.

 

I miss the old days

[red930]

Anything you wanted needed to be earned...

 

That's precisely what it is. Setting goals for yourself and busting your butt to get 'em is the way to go. Nowadays, everything is taken for granted. I've had a job since I was...well, very young (12, maybe?). I put myself through high school (military) and through college. It's been a lot of work, but, in the long run, I think I'll be better off than all the kids driving their parent's BMWs. Maybe I'll get a car in grad school...Maybe.

 

If you get everything handed to you on a silver platter, I really think you're missing out. Working/pushing yourself towards something (whatever it is) is really rewarding, plus you develop values, self respect and a greater understanding.

 

//cranks the Iron Maiden back up

 

hold on...

 

ok, so I was eatin' dinner with my girlfriend at this Japanese restaurant. One of those that they do all that fancy cooking in front of you. The families that we're eating next to have a total of 4 extremely misbehaved kids. Go figure. They couldn't be any older than 8 or so. The only thing that their parents could do to shut them up was feed them food (which most of them got bored with) or give them back all of their shiny Nintendo DS'. Three kids in a row. The fourth must have been too young to use one. Man, looking at them, I suddenly had a lot more insight to why so many kids have ADD and ADHD. Their parents resort to using video games to control them. What the hell? That seems backwards to me...

Video games should be a privilege for kids, something to be earned.

 

//reallly cranks up the Iron Maiden

[Evil_inc]

I do not have a job this summer because no employer will take me due to my extreamly odd schedual. And I wanted build a new pc by the end of the summer. So I do odd jobs around the house for a little "spending money" which I just keep in a sock (i kid you not) because I dont want to be jumped even though I'm 6'3" and 200+ lbs. And I also do any graphic design thing I can get my hands on (ie. sets for plays, what happy is holding here, what photobucket is doing, and advertisment signs for the side of the road) because that is one thing that I have fun doing and might be my future employment. My gf whines to her parents all the time, and when I am invited over to her house I tell her not to whine and of course her parents love me now.

[Onsightsmith]

When I was a kid; (I'm 42 so I know the ol days)

 

1 I got my butt beat at least once a week, sometimes for lil stuf

2 I was respectful to everyone

3 I said no sir and yes mam

4 My TV was limited because I was to busy playing outside

5 Myself and all the kids I hung with, not one was obese, quite fit really...

6 No one took drugs cuz they were depresed or hyper

7 I had rules and I better stick to them or else line 1

8 A fight meant you were gonna kick someones butt with your fist, not a gun

9 Video games were pong and tempest

10 If you wanted to buy something, you better get to work

 

 

The kids I come into contact with all need thier butt's whipped everyday for at least 6 months just to make up for lost time. They are direspectful snotty lil good for nothing pants hung low tattoed and pierced drug addicted smoking drinking graffiti slinging good for nothing worthless pieces of human flesh. I shudder at the thought of these imbeciles running the country when I retire!

 

I'm not gonna say that I was a perfect kid, but I knew my place in the world and I grew up with values, morals and a true knowledge of respect. I would like to think that I turned out to be a person who contributes to society, not destroy it like some kids today love to do, not saying all kids.

 

The only kid I know (personally) that might turn out ok is my 13 year old nephew. I told him at the beginning of the school year that if he got 3.8 grade point or better I would build him a computer. Low and behold the lil turd got a 3.85 for the year. He worked his butt off and I was glad to give him his computer last month. He learned the value of hard work and that there is no such thing as instant gratification.

 

The wife and I also decided not to have kids for fear that they would turn out like the wretched refuse I see around this town.

 

I'm done...............

[ReelFiles]

I understand the bit about rules, being rules and them applying to everyone, but if people (not just kids) can't skate or bike in an empty parking lot, where can they go? On all of Long Island I know of maybe two or three half-way decent skate parks and one pretty good one. I also don't see many youth activity centers, so I don't mind the kids playing hockey at the local CVS or Walmart. As long as nobody is harmed, it doesn't matter to me.

[JiveTurkey]

see the true problem with kids today is parent are too afraid to beat em.

The brutal truth there caught me off guard and I about choked laughing.

 

And as far as parking lots and areas banned from kids playing / hanging out, I'd say only part of that is people unnecessarily busting kids' balls. The sad truth is that along with everything else that's been mentioned, we're a society bringing thousands of frivolous lawsuits each year. So probably some small part of that comes from good, honest people (who don't care if a kid rides a bike or skateboard around the parking lot) scared to death of lawsuits. So perhaps there's a lot of adults that could grow up too!

[zkissane]

I think parents should learn how to play good poker. Poker teaches you that sometimes decisions are correct even if they don't work out for you this time, and that being aggressive and taking a big risk for a big reward is almost always better than playing it safe while you slowly bleed your chips away.

 

 

Being a calling station is generally as bad of an idea in real life as it is at the poker table. By repeatedly giving in to their kids' whimsical demands out of guilt or to "keep them quiet", parents establish themselves as calling stations.

[watsonte]

Just a reality check for those of you posting in the thread. The oldest individual posting in this thread was 59 and the youngest 16 ironically enough (check ages if you want to know the irony). The average age 26 years young. I myself am only twenty and honestly 26 is not too far from the age group that one might consider to be todays youth. You have to understand that this type of discussion has and always will take place because we continue to misunderstand what is actually going on with society. Yes things are fairly messed up but at the same time you have to understand that these "kids," this youth I am always hearing about in the forum is whats keeping this forum going and is the youth that is learning from us as a whole. Someone is teaching them something that seems to be making a lot of people unhappy. What it is I dont know, but I dont try to understand it. Its interesting to see how quick we are to point out the ignorance and stupidity of young people today...Perhaps this is why we have begun to expect and accept less and why these "kids" are not up to par. Maybe some of you have addressed what I have just written, I cant read all the posts and remember everything everyone said so so if I bring up points already made.

 

Personally if you couldnt tell I dont think much about the status of the youth of today or tomorrow or next Tuesday or whenever....

[Burleyboy]

4 dudes named David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, and Neil Young said it pretty well over 30 years ago.

The song was called "Teach Your Children Well"

 

"You who are on the road

Must have a code that you can live by

And so become yourself

Because the past is just a good bye.

 

Teach your children well,

Their father's hell did slowly go by,

And feed them on your dreams

The one they picks, the one you'll know by.

 

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,

So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.

 

And you, of tender years,

Can't know the fears that your elders grew by,

And so please help them with your youth,

They seek the truth before they can die.

 

Teach your parents well,

Their children's hell will slowly go by,

And feed them on your dreams

The one they picks, the one you'll know by.

 

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,

So just look at them and sigh and know they love you"

 

I don't think it's so easy to be a "kid" these days.

Technology and instant communication slammin' into your head all the time.

Few role models of any value and wave after wave of corrupt political leaders and businessmen.

 

While I would love to be 16 again I am truely not sure how I would cope with it all if I did not have so many life experiences behind me.

I hope I wouldn't be one of those atholes that HG would like to take a stick to, but who knows unless we walk in another's shoes.

 

Knowing many on this forum I can tell you it's made up of about 60% "straight-arrow" and 40% "reformed fugups".

It's never too late to change your ways. Hope everyone gets their chance.

You can never change anyone else, you can only change yourself.

Ah man, it's such a different world today. I honestly feel sorry for my Daughter and young people today. Everything is so in their face, that they end up missing out on so much. When I talk to young people, they all are into whatever their thing is, but I don't see any excitement or adventure in their eyes. Where's the mystery in anything anymore?

Those days were some wonderful free times, not even explainable to later generations.

I'm really not trying to knock anyones generation, after all, you have the benefit of being young, and from what I've read from a lot of you on this site, you'll be alright.

Count me as one of the semi-reformed fugups.

[ReelFiles]

10 years ago I was a mallrat, today I am a father, age can be relative.

[Angry_Games]

edited from a longer bit I've decided to hold onto until some other time

 

I can't stand the youth of today, and the fact that I'm a part of it. I think the thing that gets to me the most is younger kids (like 7-14ish) talking back to you. It catches me off guard so much, because I guess I just don't think that they'll be so arrogant because I and all the people I knew weren't that bad.

 

heh

 

when I was 7-17, we got our asses beat pretty good by the older kids if we ran our mouths off

 

but then again...all we got was our asses beat...in a real fight...and the guys who were beating your butt knew when enough was enough, and knew (it seems more like 1950's movies than anything but it's true) that you were 5-10 years younger so not to kill you...and nobody brought guns or knives to fights, or even bats...we just showed up and had a scrap.

 

After school fights were sort of a norm (I tended to avoid them as much as possible but i had a REALLY smart mouth and couldn't help myself most of the time), but that is all they were is fist fights. No one let them get out of hand, whether it was the kids fighting or the kids standing in a circle screaming at you to kick his butt hehe.

 

Another very important aspect then was a trait that guys like me had...and if you ever saw the movie Friday with Ice Cube, you'd know this trait also...

 

You had to get your butt beat once in a while...you knew you had to take a beating. And you did. You didn't like it, but you didn't go home and get a gun, or knife, or bat. The worst you did was go get your older brother (who after about 3 times finally told me if I was gonna run my smart mouth then I was gonna have to take the butt-beating that came with is as a consequence, which didn't curb my mouth, but it did teach me that I was gonna have to fight because of it, and that means take a lot of butt beatin's "like a man" because of it).

 

Kids today have no concept of this. I don't condone violence or fighting at all. I've always maintained that it is the absolute dumbest way to solve any problem...but that's me talking as an adult (who got his butt beat a lot haha).

 

As a kid, you just understood certain 'rules' of being a kid. I didn't hang with the crowd of 'toughs' who were always looking for a fight. But sometimes you had to fight them. We didn't look to pick on the younger kids or kids who were absolutely no match for us in a fight (the dorky little nerds that always got their books slammed out of their hand while walking down the hall).

 

And see, we didn't really have "bullies" either...because a bully would get his friggin butt WHIPPED badly...and when I say badly, I mean he would get tossed around by even OLDER AND BIGGER kids (ie our junior-high bullies would be bullies for like a month or two, and word would get up to the high school kids who would go take care of it by really putting a pretty stern beating down on the junior high bully, and that would be that). So bullies might have been scary to one of us that was getting bullied for a day, a week, a month...possibly a couple months or even maybe 6...but eventually it would go away because the bully...he can't help himself and he ends up bullying some kid who has a brother in the Marine Corps or on the high school football team etc and that was his butt after that.

 

But even when the bullies took a severe beating (i can't remember any though that had to go to the hospital for anything worse than a broken nose or busted tooth etc), they didn't don the trench coats and come back with shotties and shoot up the joint...they didn't plot death revenge against the older high school kids who taught him that bullying is only as fun as beating up the kids who are younger than you but not much fun when it happens to you.

 

Bullies accepted that they were gonna get their asses kicked, and like the rest of us, realized that the only way to not get their asses kicked was to stop bullying, or be incredibly selective on who they bullied and how far they actually bullied them...which goes against being a bully so they ended up (usually bullies are pretty dumb anyway) beating up yet again another kid they should have left alone and yet again the jv basketball squad came down from high school and whipped his sorry butt and left him out in the desert across the Snake River Canyon with only his underwear...a couple times of beating PLUS humiliation (some bullies were that dumb)...usually after that, the bully was a sad shell of a bully...which means he was no longer a bully (but still not a ^%@#$ coward who had to come back and shoot someone).

 

 

My grandfather, before he died in 1980 when I was just 7 years old, used to tell my brother and I stories of the same stuff I'm telling you. I don't remember most of it (hardly any really), but my brother was listening to me and momma talk about this thread and we got on that subject (which is why I am talking about it now) and he was asking me if i remembered any of those stories grandpa used to tell us.

 

My grandpa...he had to fight his own battles and accept an butt whipping once in a while himself. Lucky for him and my brother, they were both pretty tough when they were kids. Me, I was a skinny little wuss-boy but having an older brother and a best friend that was 4 years older than me who lived like 9' from me lol...that made me at least tough enough.

 

These are part of the "values" that used to get passed down.

 

Sure our parents and grandparents probably whipped us for doing bad things....whipped us a little too much or too hard sometimes...but honestly, I am not really against whipping your kids.