Wall of text incoming!
[citation][nom]Platypus[/nom]Put him down and sterilize the parents.[/citation]
Did you read the full article? Sterilize the parents? Kid lives with his grandmother. It's hard for a lot of grandparents to be a parent again. Most grandparents instinctively want to spoil their grandchildren, therefore they end up being very lenient when it comes to punishment, as referenced by this little jerk still having access to video games. Out of control kids know it's much easier to threaten little old grannie, which is a shame. Instead of growing up to respect their elders, they turn into little jerks with no respect for anything or anyone.
I feel bad for grandparents who are overwhelmed by their children's children, because the kid's actual parents were incapable of taking care of their own spawn. Now, his parents might have passed away when he was really young, or another outstanding circumstance, or they could just be complete screw-ups in need of sterilization as you suggest.
[citation][nom]buwish[/nom]It's a shame today's kids act like derelicts 24/7. I concur with many, as if I had that list of accolades when I was that age, my parents (i.e. my mom) would have beat my ass. Today's bad parents...I just don't know.[/citation]
"This generation is going to ruin the world!"
Why is this line always resorted to? You know why you didn't hear of these crazy kids 30 or so years ago? Because the news media wasn't the over-sensationalized, over-hyped machine it is today. You can get your news from so many places, the internet, tv, newspaper, radio, cellphone, etc. Most news organizations are trying to one-up each other trying to find the most sensational story they can report, so they can bring in the big ratings.
It's not that some kids years ago, weren't like the kid in the story, it is that it was under or not reported. There have always been wild and crazy kids, who were disrespectful, future criminals. However, you only heard about it from word of mouth, not from the not from the nightly news on TV.
From listening to my step-father who grew up in the 60s, there was a lot more fighting and trouble-making going on than when I was a kid in the 80s/90s, but back then it was not so sensational.
This also hasn't just started happening because we don't beat our kids as much anymore. You don't have to beat your kids to be effective with discipline. I will agree that the kid in the story might need some sense knocked into him, but your average kid does not. I've never once had to lay a hand on my child, yet he's not busting out windows, killing small animals or beating up old ladies.
Sorry, I just will never buy into the hype that kids were so much better a few decades ago. You just didn't have 9.5 million news outlets (exaggeration) shoving every little piece of "news" in your face back then and spoon-feeding you their opinion.
Rose-tinted glasses can be nice to look through, but not really based in reality. People talk about how much nicer people were in the past (40s/50s), yet forget that during those times crimes like rape were by and large blamed on the victim, racism was accepted, and murder rates in the US were pretty close to the same as they are now.
For instance did you know that in 1950 the murder rate (in the US) was 4.6 per 100,000 and in 2005 it was 5.6 per 100,000?
So yeah, I will always have a hard time believing it was so much nicer back in the "good ole' days".
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