The Youth of Today

Many girls in the UK are growing up too fast. We see it every day. I understand the pressure that magazines and publications can bring to the table; The constant picking away at every defect, at every part of us that makes us human, flawed, is making an unhealthy and unhappy youth of today. In a recent survey children in Britain were found to be the saddest in Europe.

What I want to know is why though, is it simply because they feel that they are not perfect enough? Because there are plenty of children who are confident enough to be happy in their own skin. Is it because adults talk down to them? No, I think that the children are sad because they feel stereotyped. There are the good ones and the bad ones. This is totally and utterly stupid. Young people can’t offer to do a kindly task for a struggling old lady without being eyed with suspicion. They can’t walk together in groups more than four without people giving them a wide birth. I know that this could be seen as a generalisation, but it does happen, more frequently than it should.

Even their exam grades, after all the hard work they have done and the time and effort they have put in are discounted by the older generations. “Their exams were harder”, they say as if all their countries youth somehow are getting an easy ride. And the press, the tabloids and even in some cases, the papers taken, for better phrasing, more seriously by the middle classes show a lack of understanding; on occassion they will show a different view, but mostly they will trawl out the same old stories of gun crime and knife crime and violence, causing their readers to tut and complain about ‘the youth of today’. I wish, that more of them, and I give credit to those who already have, would step back and look at the children of today, not just those that grace the front pages, but at the ones whose actions are not exciting enough for the front pages and look. Step back and see how involved they are in charitable causes, the amazing achievments many have made to lift themselves out of poverty, the work they do for their communities, for their parents, for their schools and ultimately for their peers, and congratulate them for turning out the way they have in a world suffering from so much consumerism and fear.