This piece really chimes with me Ragged. The WHY of how this has happened?.... the 'Therapeutic Culture' aspect of late 20th c. 'Progress' is going to be a big part of the answer I think. But this is a vast subject and way too big for a comment thread so I'll just indulge myself with a look down my personal memory lane:
-by 18 me and my mates had hitch-hiked to every corner of England....sleeping rough...under a van, in a police cell, on the grass central reservation of a dual carriageway! roof of a tower block...and other places.
- before I took up my first post as a college lecturer, I had been a shop assistant, bus conductor, a van driver (twice), a lorry driver (3 times) an insurance clerk, a mail order clerk in a Bernard Matthews turkey processing plant, a caravan repairer, a barman (3 times) and others things maybe.
It's not just changing policies, I don't think, because this is happening everywhere. Access to communications perhaps? Everyone has a video device in their pocket and can they talk to their mum at any the time? Video games? Too many other choices to give you your kicks? I do think the loss of freedom between 7 and 13 is pretty crucial.
Agree with all that. I wasn't thinking in terms of politics and policies.... more in terms of seismic social forces (like the ones you list .. and others).
There's a gendered aspect to this, but I do recognize that free living (be home by sunset, nobody home when you came home), playing with your friends in construction sites (not really safe but we didn't care) or just hanging out all weekend. I'm late gen-X and I wonder why the people who got so much freedom as kids are so protective of their own kids?
That's the bit that confuses me too. I've seen interviews asking parents that exact question. They always say "it was safer then" — but it was not. It absolutely was not.
Such a good article - so true. My life was a bit like yours Ragged - did so many different things in different countries - no mobile phone, no credit card, no internet to check things out in advance and very little money. Just got on a train or a bus and hoped for the best. I'd had about 50 different jobs in England and abroad before I qualified as a lawyer. My children didn't believe me until I listed them all for them, starting with my illegal paper round aged 12 (you had to be 13 - someone snitched on me and so I lied my way into my next job) and they fell about laughing when they realised I was telling the truth. It was incomprehensible to them.
My best friend at school left halfway through the lower sixth to become a nurse in a London hospital - no point in bothering with A levels was her attitude - she wanted to be a nurse and had her offer to train, so that was it. Even though I did go to university, it was a very unusual route for a school leaver then - according to google only 8% at the time.
I think young people get trapped now. They have no chance to take their foot off the pedal and explore life and work out who they are. I don't think it's an accident that they are put under pressure to pass exams, take more exams, take out loans, get on the treadmill, don't look up, don't think, don't stop. No wonder they are all taking anti-depressants or self medicating in other ways and are mentally fragile. Big Brother needs a dependant, compliant, non-assertive populace chained into the System - farmed for their labour and their taxes. It wouldn't suit TPTB to have independent critical thinkers standing on their own two feet and so the education system has become like a prison system crushing out every last bit of individuality and it wouldn't do for young people to be let out early - at 16. No, much better to increase the time spent in 'education' to 21 or 23 or 25......then shoulder to the wheel for a life that is unaffordable for ever. Most of the young people I know do such dreary sounding jobs as well - in tech sales or recruitment or marketing or IT - jobs you really don't need a degree to do. They don't seem to know how to rebel, they're so conformist - they've been conditioned into it and future generations will be trapped and brainwashed by the state 'education' system into increasingly narrow lives with no understanding that it can be any other way.
The answer is: don't send your child to a state school - home educate so they can develop their minds and talents and live free.
You are right that they have no chance to take their foot off the pedal and "work out who they are".
I had a paper round at 13. The News Shopper. A local free paper. I had what seemed like 1000s to deliver and I had to walk a couple of miles to get to my delivery zone. It was crazy!
For me, it's my wife who won't believe my stories. No photos to prove it!
This piece really chimes with me Ragged. The WHY of how this has happened?.... the 'Therapeutic Culture' aspect of late 20th c. 'Progress' is going to be a big part of the answer I think. But this is a vast subject and way too big for a comment thread so I'll just indulge myself with a look down my personal memory lane:
-by 18 me and my mates had hitch-hiked to every corner of England....sleeping rough...under a van, in a police cell, on the grass central reservation of a dual carriageway! roof of a tower block...and other places.
- before I took up my first post as a college lecturer, I had been a shop assistant, bus conductor, a van driver (twice), a lorry driver (3 times) an insurance clerk, a mail order clerk in a Bernard Matthews turkey processing plant, a caravan repairer, a barman (3 times) and others things maybe.
Good memories all.
It's not just changing policies, I don't think, because this is happening everywhere. Access to communications perhaps? Everyone has a video device in their pocket and can they talk to their mum at any the time? Video games? Too many other choices to give you your kicks? I do think the loss of freedom between 7 and 13 is pretty crucial.
Agree with all that. I wasn't thinking in terms of politics and policies.... more in terms of seismic social forces (like the ones you list .. and others).
There's a gendered aspect to this, but I do recognize that free living (be home by sunset, nobody home when you came home), playing with your friends in construction sites (not really safe but we didn't care) or just hanging out all weekend. I'm late gen-X and I wonder why the people who got so much freedom as kids are so protective of their own kids?
That's the bit that confuses me too. I've seen interviews asking parents that exact question. They always say "it was safer then" — but it was not. It absolutely was not.
Such a good article - so true. My life was a bit like yours Ragged - did so many different things in different countries - no mobile phone, no credit card, no internet to check things out in advance and very little money. Just got on a train or a bus and hoped for the best. I'd had about 50 different jobs in England and abroad before I qualified as a lawyer. My children didn't believe me until I listed them all for them, starting with my illegal paper round aged 12 (you had to be 13 - someone snitched on me and so I lied my way into my next job) and they fell about laughing when they realised I was telling the truth. It was incomprehensible to them.
My best friend at school left halfway through the lower sixth to become a nurse in a London hospital - no point in bothering with A levels was her attitude - she wanted to be a nurse and had her offer to train, so that was it. Even though I did go to university, it was a very unusual route for a school leaver then - according to google only 8% at the time.
I think young people get trapped now. They have no chance to take their foot off the pedal and explore life and work out who they are. I don't think it's an accident that they are put under pressure to pass exams, take more exams, take out loans, get on the treadmill, don't look up, don't think, don't stop. No wonder they are all taking anti-depressants or self medicating in other ways and are mentally fragile. Big Brother needs a dependant, compliant, non-assertive populace chained into the System - farmed for their labour and their taxes. It wouldn't suit TPTB to have independent critical thinkers standing on their own two feet and so the education system has become like a prison system crushing out every last bit of individuality and it wouldn't do for young people to be let out early - at 16. No, much better to increase the time spent in 'education' to 21 or 23 or 25......then shoulder to the wheel for a life that is unaffordable for ever. Most of the young people I know do such dreary sounding jobs as well - in tech sales or recruitment or marketing or IT - jobs you really don't need a degree to do. They don't seem to know how to rebel, they're so conformist - they've been conditioned into it and future generations will be trapped and brainwashed by the state 'education' system into increasingly narrow lives with no understanding that it can be any other way.
The answer is: don't send your child to a state school - home educate so they can develop their minds and talents and live free.
You are right that they have no chance to take their foot off the pedal and "work out who they are".
I had a paper round at 13. The News Shopper. A local free paper. I had what seemed like 1000s to deliver and I had to walk a couple of miles to get to my delivery zone. It was crazy!
For me, it's my wife who won't believe my stories. No photos to prove it!