Are the Kids Alright?

You hear it all the time don’t you; “when I was younger the kids never acted like they do now, they’re definitely getting worse” & “in my day they would have never got away with that”. I used to think yeah yeah, shut up going on will you. Of course it was perfect in YOUR day! But to be honest, I don’t know if it’s because I have gotten older in the last few years or whether the truth will just always out, but I’m starting to agree with them.

Especially when I hear stories of my Mum walking home from town at 10pm at night on her own, dressed up from being out & thinking nothing of it. & yet when I walk home from the pub now at the same time of night, or even past a big group of kids congregated outside the local store, I feel nervous that they are going to mount an attack as they stare & heckle from the shadow of their hood!

I mean fair enough you could argue that it just wasn’t as media orientated or covered by the media so vastly in the past, & I am unfortunately going by the picture my elder friends & family have painted. But to be honest, I get quite scared at the thought that if I defend myself against these ruffian pack-like mini warlords roaming the “hood” then I will be in more trouble than them!

I was the golden child as a boy; though I was mischievous I was still in essence a good child, & knew right from wrong. That is until I reached puberty of course. At aged 12 I think the dream shattered for my parents (poor souls) as I became the beast within. Though I was naughty, to this day I stand to it that my group of friends & myself we’re never as positively intimidating as the youth that walk today.

We would never pay respect to someone who didn’t deserve it, & especially not just because they were old – respect would always have to be earned. But civility to them was always assumed. We would never purposely run amok threatening & intimidating the neighbourhood.

Just the other day a group of 10/11 year olds on bikes were daring my Mother to run them down blocking her from driving Past (yes driving past) whilst on their pushbikes & shouting at her all hoodied up & not even caring about a little respect of other people this ended in damage to someone else’s car & a fire being set at the hospital where my Mother worked & all the firemen could say is “thank heavens the children didn’t get hurt” well excuse me but it seems to me they may have deserved a little injury for behaving like thugs! Oh well, who am I to say!

As I said previously, I was naughty teenager, I fooled the Off- licenses & bought alcohol & cigarettes underage, got too drunk every night, smoked pot & cigarettes, told my parents where to go regularly & said I was sleeping at a mates when I was really down the woods, & was a little git.

But I DID know the difference between wrong & right, & knew I was being bad & as I grew up I had a lot of apologising to do.

I’m not a violent man, & was never a violent child/teenager, but I did respect that if I did wrong that I would be punished with a smack or the slipper if I was really bad. Maybe we are too soft on these Children? What do you think?