Kids these days. You've seen them, the way they dress, the crap they listen to, and don't even talk to me about how disobedient they are. Back in my day music was proper, movies had class and we bloody well knew what funny was. And by golly children respected their elders. These days nothing makes any sense, "Black Eyed Peas", what kind of name for a band is that? And I don't particularly know, or care to know, what a "Jersey Shore" is but it can't be anything good.
Who would of guessed today's generation of youngsters would be the worst thing to come along in the last several eons. Before 1990 every child knew their place, spoke when spoken to and did all their chores. Ate their greens too, or so I've heard. If the modern youth are what the future holds for the world then I fear for civilization and civility. Thank goodness the generations that preceded the little punks managed to keep the world in a stable and pleasant state for as long as they did.
My mother recalled to me once, how my grandfather had made a similar observation regarding the shape of things, in particular the entertainment during what was then the early 1970's. What are now considered indisputable classics were utter nonsense in his eyes. For the likes of Monty Python, now the epitome of comedy, perhaps we can sympathize to a certain degree, of course my grandfather also made a point to criticize the horrendous music of the day, a lively troupe of hip young gentlemen who called themselves The Beatles.
Surely my grandfather was an anomaly of the time, a rare individual indeed. After all, who in their right mind would be bold enough, dare I say tasteless enough, to not enjoy the hilarious comedy stylings of John Cleese and company, or dance excitedly to Can't Buy Me Love? However, perhaps his brand of old school perspective wasn't so uncommon, it was less than a decade earlier when the rise of a long haired groovy bunch of people called The Hippie caused a rather righteous stir. Not an exception then, my grandfather, but surely the first of his kind, the 1960's erupting in a cultural revolution, parents being confused and revolted by the tastes and actions of their children. Certainly, before the time of the Hippie, there had never been any of these rebels. Without cause, at least.
Despite my sarcasm, there is some level of truth to the words above. Before the 1950's most of the Western world's youth were preoccupied with World War Two and before that it was common place to work and marry young. It would be exaggeration to say teenagers of those bygone days were working full time and dealing with their twelve children immediately after growing out of their diapers, but not much by today's standards. As best we can tell from history and the completely unbiased words of our grandparents, kids pre-World War Two enjoyed the music of their parents and spent what little free time they had (the time between walking twenty miles to school in the snow with no shoes and getting paid tuppence for the seventeen hour shift in the coal mine) working hard and being polite.
Not that dressing in bright colours and watching TV shows with swear words is the only way to upset one's parents, it's simply a less traditional way, or it was fifty years ago. Questioning religious beliefs, bold new career choice, or even marrying for love instead of any tangible benefit have all been effective techniques for inducing loud and irritable variations of "kids these days!" for thousands of years. Kids these days may walk and talk differently, they may laugh at what would once have been considered wildly offensive or thrash their heads to noise that gets labeled music in name only. Kids these days are louder and more stark with their differences, more common due only to the continuing rise in population, and more obvious thanks to the medias ability to coat the world instantly, but I doubt their intent is any different to the youth of generations previous.
"The world is passing through troublous times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress." -Peter the Hermit, 1274 A.D (source)
The more things change...
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