Gen X doesn't care about climate change...

You kid's get off my burnt lawn! The generation whatever surveys are so lame and pointless.

 

It's remarkable how kids reflect the era they grew up in... I mean I bet most of us on here grew up in the era of the space program, when technology was fascinating to us... And then their were the kids who were growing up concerned about the environment in the 80's and 90's. But the kids who came of age in the 2000's... Well the whole war without end to fight 'terrorism', the thumbing the nose at anything eco-conscious and the dream of ever-bigger SUVs... Yikes! These kids are gonna be a nightmare when they rise to political power.

 

Ignorance and lack of historical perspective is a bigger nightmare:

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers." Plato 337 BC

 

gen z will fix everything.

 

Kids are products of their parents and environment, regardless what generation they from.
I'm concerned for the world but 'global warming', not so much...


iPhone ? (sucks)

 

Yes ebenke, but it's more than just parents who define how kids end up... I'm startled at what 8 years of W Bush as our 'leader' did to all the impressionable kids. What that era has done to their heads is unprecedented. I mean W. Bush may be gone, but he taught the young ones all about his inability for empathy, his inability to admit a mistake, his desire to serve the wealth of friends rather than the commonwealth of the public and worst of all his bring it on attitude towards violence... What a mess these kids have to get their heads out of. As a person who has spent the last 20 years protecting the environment, I've never seen a time in my life when there has been a greater extreme/lack of concern for the health of the very planet that makes our life possible.

 

Relax folks,

When we were young, the older folks thought we were going to hell in a hand basket. Perhaps they were right. Just I learned that the best way to get a kid to do something is to falsely accuse them of doing it. The rational is, "Well if I'm going to be accused of the crime, I might as well get some of the pleasure."

So I don't worry about it any more as they'll have to live with the consequences of their decisions just as we did (and those this side of the grass) continue to do.

All we can do is offer them what little 'lessons learned' with hopefully a bit a humor and grace. Forgiveness and 'well you'll do better next time . . . can I help?' works pretty well.

Bob Wilson

 

It's all BS.

Kids today are fine. Sure you hear the odd news story about wrong uns but 99% of them are great. I used to do school runs for regular customers and apart from about two, most of the kids of all ages were fine, polite and well behaved.

I remember what people used to say about my generation when I was growing up and I don't think we've (my generation of the late 1980's) turned out that badly. Older folk have always worried about the younger generation.

I think kids today are more grounded than the dreamers of the 1960's/70's. The kids of this era were so wanting to change the world but they're the ones in power now and look at the mess we're in! But hey, that's just my opinion.

 

Good, they are disenthralled.
"As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our <planet>." by Lincoln, Abraham.

 

"born between 1961 and 1981"
These are not kids.
The current adolescent generation has been sufficiently brainwashed by "Its An Inconvenient Truth"
Not in the UK though,where a judge ruled it as inaccurate and not to be shown in schools without an alternate viewpoint.

 

While I normally agree with you grumps, I cannot on this one.

I teach kids, and have for 15 years. They are not fine. And it has nothing to do with any one particular issue. Kids today simply are not equipped to enter adulthood. We live in a world where we have to run ads on tv telling kids to go outside and play. I have never seen as many teenagers NOT wanting to get a driver's license as I do today. Why? Because they don't want to have the responsibility that comes with independence. There is little idea of responsibility in any fashion for a lot of kids. I teach some kids in the middle school who are basically one step above needing someone to wipe their butt. Beyond that, they're incapable of holding on to a piece of paper for more than a class period. There's a whole bunch of reasons for this I won't go into because this is sort of off topic, but kids today are not fine. To use a term from George Carlin, the "pussification" of kids today is going to haunt us for decades if not centuries. Maybe it's different in the UK.

 

kids on the whole are probably okay, but there is definately an undercurrent of violence that i didn't witness in the 60's.

 

My wife taught teenagers at an alternative high school for 13 years*. During that time she found that they have become less mature, more entitled, more self-absorbed and lack aspiration. But, worst of all, in the area she taught most of them now seem to like country music.

Normally there's a bad class every few years, but there are complaints K through 12 and even into college.

* She starts a new job next week, hooray, now with adults of all ages who are there because they need or want to learn.

 

And which generation was it that taught them all about these rights instead of responsibilities?

 

Weren't there riots and vietnam in the 60s?
US crime rate at lowest point in decades. Why America is safer now. - CSMonitor.com

 

It's not just you;

Murder rate at lowest level for nearly 30 years - UK - News - Evening Standard

 

I'm a grandparent, but I still haven't forgotten all of the stuff that my grandparents used to tell us when I was a tadpole.
Every generation thinks that every succeeding generation is spoiled, shiftless, lazy, and bereft of morals. Generally speaking, they're both right and wrong.
I'm not the person I was in my 20s, and my memory is still competent enough to gauge my kids actions and behavior against what mine was at their age, and the comparison is quite favorable despite my somewhat biased outlook.
Sure, they're spoiled knuckleheads. Almost as bad as we were in our twenties.

During my last decade in the military I had the privilege of helping to mentor "kids" in their late teens and early twenties, and you know what? If you're looking for bad? You'll certainly find it. If you're looking for 'good' then you'll find that too. Most of the observations that we make of "this generation" are sullied by unreasonable expectations that we have for them and by an unfaithful look at how we were when we were in our twenties.
We generally act and think like folks do when they are our age.
A twenty-something kid isn't going to think and act like a fifty-something year old kid.

For example, during the 80's, the military waged its own "war on drugs." Prior to that point, there were real and stark problems with drug use and even gang problems. Now? Not so much. Everybody...E0 to O10 is subject to mandated testing, and if you get caught...you're out. Same with alcohol, only you get 1 freebie, and then you're out. Same with physical reediness. We had sailors on my first boat who had BMIs in the thirties.
Now? If you don't meet physical fitness norms? You're out after three testing cycles. Same with advancement. Same with financial health. Don't pay your bills and you're going to get some adverse attention.
All of these programs were implemented with the goal of fostering individual responsibility, and you know what? Most people respond favorably.
The average service member, whether or not they're in a combat theater, are 19-20 years old. They're almost exclusively drug free, very hard working, responsible adults whose goals include furthering their education, family, and health.
In other words....they're responsible adults.

No...
They don't look like us...or act like we do.
Probably closer (if maybe a little bit better) that we did when we were in our late teens and early twenties.

YMMV!

 

Do you all realize the article is about Generation X ?
Whose ages range from 31 years to 51 years old.

 

Where did you live?