What Have We Done Wrong? - Page 3

Neil · 26-10-2006, 10:08

Have a read of this web site jambutty, it shows

Quote:

Originally Posted by jambutty

the actions or lack of actions that the older generations have taken in the past.

And how about a video to go with it.

jambutty · 26-10-2006, 12:45

Good point!

jambutty · 26-10-2006, 15:27

If we were talking about 200 years ago you would have a good point garnida. But we are not. We are talking about the generation that spawned the generation that spawned the current youngsters.

50 years ago we could walk the streets with safety and confident in the knowledge that we wouldn’t be accosted or have our path blocked by crowds of yobbos.

If someone tripped and fell down in the street (even a drunk) people would gather round and help them up.

We could nip out to the local shop for a forgotten bottle of milk or whatever and leave the front door unlocked and the house empty. We KNEW that no one would come-a-calling and rob us blind.

We could let our kids go and play on the swings etc in the local park safe in the knowledge that they would come home more or less on time.

We could put out milk bottles with money in them to pay the milkman and no one came along and pinched it.

Our kids could set off for school clutching their bus fare and dinner money and no one stole it from them.

I could travel to an away football match and stand with the home supporters without fear of being done over. There was banter and fun poking but it was all innocent fun.

Men would hold open the shop door to allow a lady to go through first. Children would give up their seats on a bus to an adult, especially an old one or a woman without being asked to.

A young mum struggling with a pram to get onto a bus would be helped by total strangers.

In short, people were prepared to and did help each other whether we knew them or not. We KNEW how to behave and had RESPECT for others.

The jury is still out on the disputed easier exams today than yesterday shakermaker. All I know is that when I took “A” level maths at Blackburn College several years ago the curriculum was more or less the same as it was in my day for the equivalent of an “O” level. The exams may be just as difficult today as they were yesterday but the knowledge for them has been reduced. And of course multiple choice answers do make an exam easier.

Sadly the current education system is not churning out plumbers, electricians etc like they used to and some tradesmen are in very short supply. I accept that further education colleges do have courses that lead to a trade but do they lead to a job? School leavers were apprenticed to an EMPLOYER and would spend one full day and maybe an evening or two at a college to learn the theory of the trade. At the end of the 3, 4 or 5 years apprenticeship they had a job as a fully skilled whatever. The only bad point of an apprenticeship was that the skilled workers would treat the apprentice as a slave for the first year.

The war years generation, after suffering nearly 7 years of privation, shrugged off the past and settled down to rebuild their lives but they also kept control of the kids and taught them respect and good manners. There were tens of thousands of kids without a father and mum somehow had to manage on her own. But there was family around to help out.

But it was those kids who started to let things slide. They wanted the good things in life and many mums went to work to provide them. The kids became ‘latch key’ kids and were left to their own devices and little parental control. Once you get a rotten apple in a barrel it is only a matter of time before the rest are tainted.

I’m not trying to apportion blame but trying to understand why today’s society is amoral and only out for what it can get for itself.

Of course there are always exceptions and there are many fine upstanding people today who do care but they get fewer with each passing year.

Mancie · 26-10-2006, 16:22

I will take you up on the "kids" of today jambutty.. if you are implying these kids are unwilling to work to earn money you are way offline..this country has got the best wage earnings and solid economic growth in a generation.. it would not be possible if todays "kids" did not pay their way in taxes..young people who work at places like Mc donalds are constantly ridiculed for the job they do and the low wages they get, but at least they pay there own way..(and possibly your pension)

Neil · 26-10-2006, 16:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by jambutty

50 years ago we could walk the streets with safety and confident in the knowledge that we wouldn’t be accosted or have our path blocked by crowds of yobbos.

Not happened to me yet.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jambutty

If someone tripped and fell down in the street (even a drunk) people would gather round and help them up.

That still happens today.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jambutty

We could nip out to the local shop for a forgotten bottle of milk or whatever and leave the front door unlocked and the house empty. We KNEW that no one would come-a-calling and rob us blind.

Only if before 5pm and not Sunday. People had nothing worth stealing then, I think the fact that we all have TV's microwave's PC's etc is why we can't leave the door unlocked.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jambutty

Men would hold open the shop door to allow a lady to go through first.

I often do that as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jambutty

We could let our kids go and play on the swings etc in the local park safe in the knowledge that they would come home more or less on time.

My son does that, if he is going to be late he will phone us and let us know. If we are at all worried about him we can phone him on his mobile.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jambutty

A young mum struggling with a pram to get onto a bus would be helped by total strangers.

I will offer assistance to anyone with a pram, not only young mum's

, if they look like they need it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jambutty

I could travel to an away football match and stand with the home supporters without fear of being done over. There was banter and fun poking but it was all innocent fun.

I must agree with you on that one. It's a shame what has happened to football.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jambutty

The only bad point of an apprenticeship was that the skilled workers would treat the apprentice as a slave for the first year.

Nothing wrong with that, you need someone to make brews and go to the chippy

.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jambutty

There were tens of thousands of kids without a father and mum somehow had to manage on her own. But there was family around to help out.

I think a thin ice warning is needed here so I will keep quiet.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jambutty

Of course there are always exceptions and there are many fine upstanding people today who do care but they get fewer with each passing year.

Thankyou for the complement

jambutty · 26-10-2006, 17:37

If you think that the kids of today are responsible for today’s economic growth then you need to take a reality check Mancie. I’ll grant you that the few who do take a job at McDonalds, Kentucky etc are to be commended but they rarely last very long. Staff turnover in those places is probably the highest in the country due to poor wages and long hours and virtually no job satisfaction.

If this country has got the best wage earnings of all time then tell that to a family man on the minimum wage of £5 odd per hour.

Yobbo blocking Neil? Try some council estates in the evenings.
Tripped. Yes but it is more likely to relieve them of some of their personal possessions.
Unlocked doors. In those days people had the man from the Pru coming round for the weekly insurance payment plus others for other payments, particularly on a Thursday or Friday evening. The money and the card would be stored in the sideboard. So if you didn’t have a PC, microwave etc. you would be happy to leave your house with the door unlocked? People lock their doors when they go out so that no one can just walk in.
Park. We didn’t have mobile phones in those days. In fact very few people had landline phones. People who did were considered posh.
Pram assistance. You are a rarity.
Apprenticeship. Your comment says it all for me. It’s hardly surprising that many kids are not keen on taking on an apprenticeship if they have to be a skivvy for the first 12 months. By definition an apprentice is someone who is learning the trade, so what has making brews or fetching the chip dinners got to do with plumbing etc? I don’t suppose that the attitude has anything to do with the fact that the current skilled workers were skivvies during their apprenticeship and they see it as their right to do the same to new apprentices? A sort of getting their own back.

garinda · 26-10-2006, 23:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by jambutty

If we were talking about 200 years ago you would have a good point garnida. But we are not. We are talking about the generation that spawned the generation that spawned the current youngsters.

The present younger generation has inherited our country as it is today, because of the actions or lack of actions that the older generations have taken in the past.

You orginally said 'generations' in your first post.

WillowTheWhisp · 26-10-2006, 23:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by jambutty

If we were talking about 200 years ago you would have a good point garnida. But we are not. We are talking about the generation that spawned the generation that spawned the current youngsters.

50 years ago we could walk the streets with safety and confident in the knowledge that we wouldn’t be accosted or have our path blocked by crowds of yobbos.

If someone tripped and fell down in the street (even a drunk) people would gather round and help them up.

We could nip out to the local shop for a forgotten bottle of milk or whatever and leave the front door unlocked and the house empty. We KNEW that no one would come-a-calling and rob us blind.

We could let our kids go and play on the swings etc in the local park safe in the knowledge that they would come home more or less on time.

We could put out milk bottles with money in them to pay the milkman and no one came along and pinched it.

Our kids could set off for school clutching their bus fare and dinner money and no one stole it from them.

I could travel to an away football match and stand with the home supporters without fear of being done over. There was banter and fun poking but it was all innocent fun.

Men would hold open the shop door to allow a lady to go through first. Children would give up their seats on a bus to an adult, especially an old one or a woman without being asked to.

A young mum struggling with a pram to get onto a bus would be helped by total strangers.

In short, people were prepared to and did help each other whether we knew them or not. We KNEW how to behave and had RESPECT for others.

I know where you're coming from with most of this and although there are some exceptions, like Neil who will help a mother with a pram, there are plenty of others who won't. I rarely see children stand up on a bus these days to allow an adult to sit down. As for opening doors, some people would rather slam them in your face.

It really annoys me that nice orderly queues seem to be dying out too. You queue up for a bus and it arrives and a bunch of yobbos pile on ahead of you despite the fact that they arrived long after, or you queue up to be served in a shop and some ignorant chav type barges in front dragging little Glastonbury (I kid you not) and another one along with her.

garinda · 26-10-2006, 23:47

If things were so much better in the past, and people had so much respect for each other, who brought up this present generation of young people with such appalling manners?

The preceding generation, that's who.

I blame the parents.

I also blame their parent's parents.

accymel · 27-10-2006, 00:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by jambutty

There were tens of thousands of kids without a father and mum somehow had to manage on her own. But there was family around to help out.
.

I have to butt in here as bringing kids up myself without support, yes i have to manage no different but society still snubs us & prejudges us as always, & the tides have also turned where mothers are leaving their kids to dads to bring up alone whilst they do their selfish thing too as once was only dads that did it! Family <nuclear family> has altered quite a lot in some cases drastically that general society hasn't caught up with yet - family means different to each household these days

unfortunately ignorance is bliss within portions of society dependant on how open minded they are.

bygum · 27-10-2006, 00:29

To me there is only one thing that will sort todays mess out bring back National Service not only did it keep the work force turning over it taught respect somthing that a lot of young one's don't have today, all this when you do wrong a smack on the hand go away dont be a naughty boy or girl again gives me the craps put the sods in boot camp.

WillowTheWhisp · 27-10-2006, 09:34

Smack on the hand? You can't do that! You'll be done for assault.

In the olden days (well my Granny's day) extended families tended to stay around the same area so you had mums and dads and aunts and uncles to call on and help out if necessary. These days they aren't just in different parts of the country, they can be halfway across the world.

jambutty · 27-10-2006, 12:52

I did indeed garinda but the generations of between 200 years ago to the pre WWII years sorted things out so that society as a whole had got better by the time that WWII shattered so many lives.

I can only compare the generation that spawned me (my mum and dad) with today’s youngsters. Maybe my opening post should have made that clearer?

Quote:

Originally Posted by garinda

If things were so much better in the past, and people had so much respect for each other, who brought up this present generation of young people with such appalling manners?

The preceding generation, that's who.

I blame the parents.

I also blame their parent's parents.

You have answered the question garinda although I knew that already. I was looking for confirmation to avoid the flack from the “It wasn’t me” brigade.

As someone has already mentioned, the rot (if I can put it that way) started to set in after WWII and each generation thereafter has relinquished more and more of parental responsibilities until we are at our present state.

I am a ‘war’ child in that I was born in 1937 and was just two and a half when war broke out. You don’t want to know what it was like being a small child with a father in a Nazi concentration camp for five years. I was lucky because sooner or later my dad would come home. Tens of thousands didn’t have that comforting thought. Their father and in some cases mother would not be coming back. During the post war years the survivors were so busy getting their lives back on track as best they could that parental responsibilities didn’t actually take a back seat but were a bit more lax than they used to be. But nonetheless their kids were still brought up with respect for others and the knowledge of right and wrong.

In turn, my generation, having had an austere childhood, made a point of not letting our own children be denied some of the things that we were denied. In order to do so mum would have to go out to work. Of course once both parents got home from work there was still the home to see to so kids were left more or less to their own devices. And so it snowballed.

So in general the behaviour of today’s youth is down to their parents and grand parents and to a lesser extent their great grand parents.

But we all knew that didn’t we? Just some of us don’t want to admit it.

AccyJay · 27-10-2006, 13:36

I would normally say blame the parents, but, i'm from a single parent family. My mother worked damned hard (often 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week) to keep my sister and myself. She taught us discipline & respect, but she couldn't watch over us 24/7. I think a few more police on the streets & a clip around the ear wouldn't go a miss.

Also, you'll be screaming out PC Brigade this & child abuse that. I'll ask 1 question .......... which generation is it that sets these laws?

garinda · 27-10-2006, 13:50

Jambutty, I do know about the effects of war on both society and families, as my own Grandfather was killed aged twenty two, whilst my Grandmother was pregnant with my Mum, and like it was for a lot of people, life was a struggle.

This still doesn't answer how society got as bad as you think it apparently is. As each generation is parented by the previous one. Somewhere back in the halcyon mists of history, when we could all leave our doors unlocked, and the worst people feared was a clip round the ear from the local Bobbie, these people must have been somewhat lacking in skill as parents, and the teaching of respect, because we can only learn from example.