According to new research, Britain’s children are 24th happiest out of the 29 European Member States and underage sex,drink and drugs are to blame.
It seems that the media are constantly reminding us of a generation that finds it amusing to attack people and record it on their mobile phones, carry knives and guns with them to the shops and inject themselves withpotentially fatal drugs.
Reading these stories made me consider my own childhood.
I by no means came from a privilaged background but I had two parents that loved me, a warm house to sleep in, hot meals cooked for me and clean clothes to wear. I did not get everything that I wanted and had to save weeks of pocket money to buy that toy that “I just had to have”, but we could afford a foreign holiday once a year and a trip to the cinema during school holidays.
My hobby was dancing and I was constantly being ferried from one class to another. I did not have a pushy mother, I think I pushed myself more because I enjoyed it and made a lot of friends that I still keep in contact with. It kept me off the streets and my time occupied.
As I got older, I continued with my dancing but had to add working to the equasion. This managed to pay for the clothes that I wore out on a Friday and Saturday night when I met my friends for drinks and a boogie. I am the first to admit that sometimes I went a little over the top but I was never into drugs or getting myself in such a state that I didn’t know who I was or where I was. It seems that this is where the youth of today has gone wrong.
During my working life I have been around different generations. There is definitly a divide but some are bigger than others. The question is, is there something inbuilt within a generation to make them act in a certain way?
The research conducted at the University of York has dismissed the ide
a that the rise of single parenthood and the spread of family break-up have harmed children. However it has listed poor family relationships, which is measured on whether children talk to their fathers and mothers among factors in the low score.
If we learn skills from our parents that we are then supposed to pass on to our children, where is this going to leave us in the future?
