Spitting Into the Wind

Before leaving work this afternoon I had a very emotional conversation about teenage attitudes and how they're on a downward spiral. The sad thing is there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. It's getting worse.

On a Current Affair show last night on TV the presenter spoke to a parent who had 100 teenage gatecrashers absolutely trash his home. He was very emotional when he talked about how he worked hard his whole life to get where he was and in one night it had been destroyed. The worse thing was the attitude of the kids involved. Nobody knew anything! Every wall in this fellow's house had holes all over the gyprock. Watching it made me feel sorry for him, and at the same time I understood where he was coming from. A security guard who was interviewed said that teen attitudes have progressively gotten worse, and he could see no improvements, and expected this sort of thing to be more common in the future.

I've had run-ins with teenagers on several occasions and they just give you a mouthful of lip, knowing there's nothing you can do about it. A local woman pushed a kid here a couple of years ago, and the family of the kid put an AVO on her that went through court for over a year. Although she shouldn't have done it I can understand where she was coming from, because I've wanted to belt the same kid myself.

Another time a 15-year-old punched Alex (11) in the head and he had a lump like an egg on his forehead. I confronted the boy, saying that Alex was only a kid, and he said "So am I". I told him I could act like a kid too, but had to walk away in frustration because I couldn't touch him. Instead, I went to see his parents.

I'm just wondering if it will get better. I've been waiting for the body-piercing "fad" to wear off too, but it seems also to be getting worse. It's taken me 40+ years to understand the generation gap. Life was certainly different when I was a kid, and I remember my parents saying the same thing.

At home I have a problem with teenage attitudes, and Alex isn't even a teenager yet. I wonder if it's my own fault I have two smart-mouth kids who yell at me and refuse to do as I ask. I've over-indulged them, bought them what they want, and act like a taxi service for them, driving them here, there and everywhere. It seems that every day I'm paying out money for something.

As an example, today Carly had a school excursion that involved a movie about Global Warming, and then they were to have lunch and were allowed to go shopping. Unfortunately, some of the Year 11 boys behaved so badly in the theatre, throwing popcorn everywhere and carrying on, that the whole group was taken straight back to school after the movie. They didn't get lunch in Wagga or to go shopping.