Gaping generation

The generation that includes the day-after-tomorrow's leaders is barely ever out of the news these days. At times, indicative samples of its members shove out of the main headlines even the ubiquitous political class. As with most news, news of the young is usually bad. Too many members of the generation passing into its teens, recent surveys show, are overly chubby, starting the road to obesity much earlier than their lethargic and energy-challenged parents. It's not simply a matter of not bothering to keep up appearance. They are already in the rank of the grossly overweight for their age.

Many of them start smoking as they prepare to step over into their early teens. They also start to drink at about the same time. Not quite like fish - a recent headline said that they drink, but do not get drunk. I suppose that was meant to be not only correctly factual, but also implicitly reassuring. It was not. As for sex - well, after stuffing oneself, having fun idling about and enjoying a nice smoke, a little bit of it would sort of come along naturally, wouldn't it?

Survey samples, perceived to be representative, do not suggest a pretty picture of where the country is going. Before rushing to judgment over the young, however, it would make more sense to reflect on where our society has arrived. The young do develop a dynamic of their own. But at the age where the teens start, if not completely aping their elders the young are surely reflecting to a considerable extent their moral and social mores. They are, consciously or not, under the influence.

Despite constant health warnings, far too many parents and other adult members of the family smoke. Aside from the example they set for their young offspring or siblings, they often turn them into passive smokers.

Drinking is more of an acquired habit, rather than a case of children being led astray through bad example. Yet there is no doubt that hard drink remains easy to get for the under-aged as unscrupulous vendors, including various entertainment outlets, regularly cock a snook at any legal regulation that is supposed to bind them.

As for sex, it's in the air and practically elsewhere. I wouldn't say that children witness samples of it in the home. And marriages which break up because of illicit sexual encounters affect offspring negatively through the smashed family structure, not because the kids comprehend what caused it. But there has definitely been a sharp loosening up of social habits and sexual exchange. My ancient as well as younger generations would not dare suggest that, in their time, sex never ever took place before marriage and was restricted to the matrimonial bed. Some steady partners exercised restraint, others did not, while one-night stands and other quick flings were not matters written in illegible Latin.

But a sea change has definitely taken place. Young people tell me that, among their peers, casual sex during or after an evening out, unburdened by any budding emotional entanglement, has become an expected normal ending to whatever social intercourse had taken place during the few shared hours, if any real sharing occurred at all. Young females and males who are not prudes, but neither are they wantonly free with their sexual favours irrespective of the absence of emotional attachment, are classified as odd and out of the norm.

This is the world 11- and 12-year-olds are stepping into. A place less committed to cool reasoning and so-called good practice than ever before. Surveys among our very young as well as international or EU comparative studies regarding which detailed results are published, merely confirm the age we live in. And that's before beginning to take into account other extremes like extensively experimenting with drugs leading to early abuse, as well as use of colourful language and expletives which make old sailors seem tongue-tied.

Another sign that this is the mood of the times lies in the fact that the trend seems to be practically taken for granted. Should it be? There may have been a lot of hypocrisy and unnecessary restriction about, in the not-so-distant past. The drive towards a behaviourally freer society will not be arrested. Nevertheless, that should not equate to a gradual death of basic values.

An approach of critical revision of the way we live is called for. Before talking down to the young, elders should start by introspecting, to try to identify what it is that they themselves are passing on, or failing to do so. It is not a case of asking the Church and social and political leaders to embark on a grave preaching campaign. They have to do their bit, certainly. Yet it is more a matter of society looking into the mirror and talking frankly about what it sees, and what it concludes should be modified.

Updated values should remain relevant, and be projected as such. In the family - if the term is to retain any basic meaning. In social exchange - if social organisation is to retain any basic sense. Modernism should not be allowed to lead to a derelict society.