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Originally Posted by Spirit_Phoenix
so letties never been young and never enjoyed life and is confused why ppl would respond like that...i guess i should respond in a "teenager-like" fashion urgh
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Your response to Lettie confuses me. I can't see anywhere where she indicates that she doesn't enjoy life now let alone when she was a teenager. She did comment upon a teenager who seems hardly to be
experiencing life let alone enjoying it.
I find it amusing when teenagers assume that us old uns have no idea what it's like to be their age. One day (when you get to be as old as us) you'll suddenly realise that you really aren't all that different. Have you seen the ad on TV, on the subject of pensions and preparing for retirement, where a woman (with a scouse accent) says "talk to me Dad, I'm only 17. I think I always will be." Inside every old fogey there's a teenager wondering where all the time went.
Of course we knew how to have fun, did crazy things, worried our parents to death when we got home late (didn't have mobile phones in those days to get in touch with them) rode motorbikes with the wind in our hair (before it became compulsory to wear crash helmets and before we realised how stupid it was). But I think we had respect for authority which in some (not all) young people today seems to be sadly lacking.
I don't think any of us would criticise anyone young or old for wanting to enjoy life. It's the attitude to others and lack of respect which many of us find rather sad. When I was a child it went without saying that you got up on a bus if an adult was standing and offered them your seat. I rarely see that nowadays. There seems to be an attitude of "I've paid for it. I'm sitting on it." But children pay half fair. It is only courtesy to offer that seat to an older person.
Chappy, I don't think it's a case of having a "downer" on all young people - from reading the initial post of the thread I got the impression that the author was speaking from personal experience and not generalising but talking about specific instances of young people he had tried to work with but who didn't seem to want to actually work.
I agree with you that there are good and bad in all ages as well as all races. The question has been posed - what suggestions do you have for dealing with the problems? Those who make the headlines in the papers are the ones we hear about - the bad experiences (schoolchildren throwing furniture at teachers) are the things we will remember - problems which need to be solved. How do you young people suggest we solve it? Or do you find it acceptable and feel that we should just let such people behave any way they wish?
You will be the ones living in the future, long after we are gone. It will be your world. What would you like it to be like? If I were a teenager today I'd like to think my future would be a positive one, not a potentially lawless society. I'd like to think that everyone would want the dignity of working to support themselves and their families. I'd like to see a bright, hopeful future for my children, but I often wonder if it's an impossible dream.
My cousin in America sent me details of how many shootings had taken place in US schools over the last few years (not shootings by crazed gunmen but by pupils at those schools) and it makes very depressing reading and yet JohnW lives in a part of America where things like this do not happen. It shouldn't happen anywhere. That's the point.