A couple of months back, early December it must have been, my son and I went over to visit with some friends. It was a Saturday night and we had a casual dinner and hung out for a few hours. My husband was away, and so was my best friend’s son who also happens to be one of my son’s best friends. Christine’s husband was home, but after dinner he hit the couch to watch a football game or something. We sat out on the patio and shot the breeze, as we often do. Work, the kids, we’re never short on conversation. But as we looked through the glass doors into her kitchen, we began to marvel at an unfamiliar phenomenon. My son and Christine’s daughter, who insist they “can’t stand each other” were happily constructing a gingerbread house. In her kitchen. On a Saturday night. I even have photos that we took as we giggled watching them, but I was later sworn to not post on Facebook.
Forget the fact these two bicker like brother and sister. After all, they are the same age and have known each other since second grade. But Christine and I got to talking.
“I can’t believe they’re content to be home with us on Saturday night,” I suddenly said first.
“I know, right?” Christine responded.
We continued to talk about what we would have been doing at their age, years ago on a Saturday night. We agreed, neither of us would be home eating dinner and hanging out with our parents. First we marveled, then we analyzed. Why were they so different from us? We thought about the fact that we both grew up in the North, she in Pennsylvania, me in New York. Maybe it’s where we live. It is kind of remote out in the unincorporated part of the county. A good 30-40 minutes from the closest movie theater or mall. We wondered if it had anything to do with our parents- both of us had divorced parents at their age and she and I are still in happy marriages that lasted longer than our parents. But we just couldn’t put a finger on it.
We resigned ourselves to no real answer but felt pleased that we have “such good kids.” Each of us does tons of stuff with our families. We go as families to our kids’ activities, take our kids with us when we go out to dinner, and see movies as a family with our kids. We rarely get hassle about doing stuff with them. That’s not to say they don’t have friends and that they don’t go out to do things with their peers. But we agreed that our kids spend more time with us on weekends than we did with our parents.
Fast forward to a couple of days ago when I was flipping casually through Facebook and a title from GoodNewsNetwork caught my eye. Teens Today Are Actually Good. It provided 7 trends they say are proof that this is true. When I look at my son and his friends through these seven lenses, I feel pretty confident that this article has some merit.
- Smoking. According to this article smoking has become uncool. I think this might be true. My son hounded my husband to quit smoking more than 10 years ago. My husband wasn’t that much older than my son is now, when he started smoking. I remember sneaking to smoke my first cigarette with a friend when I was even younger. I can say with 99% confidence, I don’t think my son has ever puffed off a cigarette and I’m pretty sure he never will. That’s more than I can say for me, my husband, and many of our friends who smoked through college.
- Drunk Driving. Driving drunk is less common according to self reports by teens. Asked whether they ever got behind a wheel after drinking, half as many said yes in 2011 than did in 1991. I know this is soft data because it relies on the asked to be truthful, but that would stand true for both surveys. Not only has my son never driven drunk, he doesn’t drink. He also doesn’t go to parties where there is alcohol, like we did when we were teenagers. I’m not sure how old I was when I had my first drink, but I do know there were plenty of parties where kids were drinking when I was in high school. But my son doesn’t drink, and neither do his friends. Heck, he wasn’t even eligible for his license on his first legal day of being 16 because he goofed off and was in no rush to get his permit. He waited about 4 months after his birthday to go through the steps and get the permit. Now he’s 16 and doesn’t have a license quite yet. He doesn’t drink and he doesn’t drive.
- Drugs, Pregnancy, and Abortion. Rates for drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, and abortion are all down amongst teenagers, according to the article. My son doesn’t do drugs and hasn’t gotten anyone pregnant. Mind you, we never did these things either. My husband and I have dated since I was 16 and he was 18, and our son was our only pregnancy. He was planned, almost 3 years after we were married.
- Diplomas. High school graduation rates have gone up according to this article. I’m not sure about the purity of the data. It came from the National Center for Educational Statistics, but schools and districts are doing all sorts of things to eliminate students and data that negatively impact the graduation rates. That’s a post for another day perhaps. But NCES reports a 7% drop out rate in 2012, down from 12% in 1990. My son is being raised in a family that will not accept dropping out of high school as an option, so much so that I don’t think the notion of not graduating high school has ever entered his mind. Various things are being done to keep kids in high school, like not permitting them to get drivers licenses unless they are enrolled in school. Also, the GED is getting harder, and policymakers are pushing all students to go to some post secondary education. This makes a diploma a necessity.
- Volunteer. The author of this article also reports that today’s teenagers are volunteering more. It may be because they are “better kids” or it may be because they need the hours to graduate or obtain certain scholarships. I know my kid volunteers his time quite a bit through scouts. I did too when I was his age, through Key Club and Student Council. But he has stuck with Boy Scouts longer than many and plans to obtain the rank of Eagle Scout. Volunteer hours for school will be a cinch to document, I just hope the spirit of volunteerism will remain with him.
I know this post is largely a summary of another article, which can be read in its entirety at the link provided below. But my point is similar. “Kids today” aren’t as bad as we often think they are. People like to complain they act entitled and they don’t play outside enough, they are glued to their electronics and don’t read anymore. But I don’t agree. I think today’s lessons are pretty much the same as any generation’s. They just look different. Okay, advances in technology may provide some new challenges, but they also bring an awareness and an unfiltered world to our kids from which we were essentially sheltered. They know not just of the local kid with a terminal illness, but the suffering all over the world. They see diversity not just in their communities but across the continents.
Yes, some kids still try cigarettes, experiment with drugs, and drink underage. But I do think these activities are on the decline. The surgeon general’s warning has been around long enough that smoking cigarettes just seems dumb, and it's uncool as the article suggested. Even drugs seem more dangerous. Combinations of home-cooked synthetic substances made from who knows what and sold in skeevy gas stations.There will always be those who stray from what’s right, those who may lack guidance in their lives or deal with trauma in negative ways. But I think today’s kids aren’t so bad.
And they may not play outside as much as we did, and ultimately that may not be so good. But they still play sports, go to dances, and hang out at the beach. My sister and I watch a ton of TV as kids, and my son watches almost none. We still rode our bikes, played soccer, and softball, field hockey and gymnastics. Our kids may spend a little too much time on their phones and computers, but they're also learning and doing great things on them. And if I'm to be honest, my son's cell phone allows me to communicate with him way more when he's not with me than I did when I was away from my parents at his age. They had to have blind faith- we have GPS, text messaging, and stalking apps to know where our kids are at all times. Some of the problems they have as kids and teens are created by our unwillingness to let them be independent and to learn how to take healthy risks without the proverbial bubble wrap. Things today aren't that much different.
Today's kids are doing just fine. The way grown-ups handle them and react to them, well that may be another story. After all, I’m pretty sure over-the-hill adults in every generation have always said, “These kids today…”
Teens Today Are Actually Good by Kristy Cooper http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/teenstodayareactuallygood/
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