kids these days
- Thread starter rockypoppy2
- Start date
borderpolice
Well-known member
Me and my mates all got knifes when we were 16. We felt well hard. It's just part of male coming-of-age: you are still living at home, wanking all day, and being asked by mum to do the dishes, but with your mates, you are pimp daddy with lots of cash, bitches and fast cars.
We were taught by very mild hippy teachers though. That must have been it. If we'd been smacked at school, I'm sure we'd all seem the error of our ways and swapped the knifes for bibles.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
The thing that struck me in the story about the kid getting killed on the motorway was not any sense that it was his parents' fault, but the immediate knee-jerk reaction that "there ought to be signs up and a big fence" to stop anything like that happening again. As if motorways are some sort of hidden menace! It just struck a chord with the modern obsession with DANGERS and HAZARDS which means everything has to carry a WARNING, on the grounds that people are presumably too stupid to realise that crossing a motorway on foot might not be a great idea. Kids never pay any attention to signs anyway, if anything it's just going to make the danger more alluring. And it might seem like a tenuous link to connect this with the smacking thing, but I think it's all part of a very pernicious and damaging trend towards treating kids as uniquely vulnerable and precious (while at the same time bombarding them with manipulative advertising from the second they pop out) which is having consequences as far-reaching as the breakdown of discipline in schools to childhood (and subsequently adult) obesity.
So that's my two cents. If I gave anyone the impression that I was indiscriminately "pro-smacking" then I'm sorry, that's certainly not what I think, any more than saying you support the availability of abortion makes you indiscriminately "pro-abortion". I support the right of parents to bring their kids up as they see fit, within reason of course, hence my point about the huge difference between admonishing a child, which is a hopefully very small but nonetheless important part of upbringing, and physical abuse. If you've got kids going to school with big bruises, that's obviously completely unacceptable, and it's very important that we have social services and police with the powers to intervene in these cases - but at the same time, I think it's a very dangerous path to go down if we could end up with parents being charged with assault for administering a basically harmless smack to a child when all verbal reasoning has failed, which would likely end up in a situation whereby the child could be taken into care, with the very real possibility of lifelong harm being inflicted as a result.
So that's my two cents. If I gave anyone the impression that I was indiscriminately "pro-smacking" then I'm sorry, that's certainly not what I think, any more than saying you support the availability of abortion makes you indiscriminately "pro-abortion". I support the right of parents to bring their kids up as they see fit, within reason of course, hence my point about the huge difference between admonishing a child, which is a hopefully very small but nonetheless important part of upbringing, and physical abuse. If you've got kids going to school with big bruises, that's obviously completely unacceptable, and it's very important that we have social services and police with the powers to intervene in these cases - but at the same time, I think it's a very dangerous path to go down if we could end up with parents being charged with assault for administering a basically harmless smack to a child when all verbal reasoning has failed, which would likely end up in a situation whereby the child could be taken into care, with the very real possibility of lifelong harm being inflicted as a result.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
bassnation
the abyss
whatever. but my experience is the same as my mates who grew up in south london, kids did not carry guns and knives as a matter of course back then. you can come up with whatever polemic you like, they do now and they didn't then. i'm not even agreeing with mr tea or anyone else, just passing on an observation from my own experiences.
borderpolice
Well-known member
How do you know that kids carry guns as a matter of course now? Do you do stop and search?
I'm genuinely interested. I think it is possible that a certain kind of youth is more violent than they would have been 20 years ago. But I am not sure.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
You've not been keeping up with the news much, have you?
borderpolice
Well-known member
It is my impression that street violence has been declining for a while now on average. But there are always conflicting reports.
N
nomadologist
Guest
oh mr. tea, I got hit like crazy, and I'm still a junkie! how do you explain me??
N
nomadologist
Guest
yup, you're basically guaranteeing your kid a lifetime of tawdry S&M fantasies
bassnation
the abyss
well, i don''t have a position on smacking really, but i don't see violence declining at all, at least round here. my mates dad got stabbed ten times in the stomach last week for telling some kids off outside his boozer in tulse hill and the same week one of the bar managers had his jaw broken in three places by some random nutter while he was boarding the bus. theres shootings every week. i walk past people who i overhear moaning that kids kept them awake running round the council estate shooting guns. seriously, i think things have got much much worse. but this is anecdotal and only based on my own experience in london.
N
nomadologist
Guest
there are so many gunshot wound victims at the hospital near me that you have to wait in line at the ER for hours and hours and hours.
nevertheless, crime has STEADILY gone down by almost every estimate since the late 1970s
nevertheless, crime has STEADILY gone down by almost every estimate since the late 1970s
N
nomadologist
Guest
eww who wrote that??
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Damn, you got me there! Since I'm having to explain things to people unable to distinguish between responsible parenting and child abuse, I can only declare you a medical mystery.
Edit: I realise, too late, that the obvious answer here would have been "a misjudged attempt to appear cool and interesting". Still, better late than never.
Last edited:
vimothy
yurp
Over-all levels in America, certainly. But whether youth violence in the UK is increasing or decreasing is a different matter.
N
nomadologist
Guest
how hard is hitting "too hard"? should you need stitches? should you need a blood transfusion?
N
nomadologist
Guest
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I don't see how any sane person even needs to ask this question.
Whoops, I'm on Dissensus, aren't I? Stupid point, my mistake.