IV MP -4-11
Letter to editor
Dear Sir,
I have read a letter from Henry Reid-Streebling in your magazine that expressed resentment towards today’s youth with respect to career and family values. I would like to comment on this letter, as I do not share the opinion of the author. I believe it is not exactly fair and reasonable to blame today’s teenagers for the changed circumstances and values.
Today’s youth is ignorant, lazy, spoilt and outright revolting, so negatively and adversely the society around us has changed, as according to some people inclined to nostalgia. Is this true? It will be only veracious to say that the children of today and their role in the society have changed significantly, but so did the world around them and the respective circumstances. Rather than stay home and spend their lives working on a farm, or in the family shop, as described by the author of the letter, they, namely we are excelling in schools and higher education. It might seem that we do not spend much time on it but, in fact, the pressure on us to get a higher education, which indeed is much less valuable than 50 years ago due to academic inflation, is a stress the previous generations have not experienced yet and which we seem to still manage. The demands and expectations (both market and parental) are high and I do believe that comparatively we are not worse than our respected predecessors.
The distinctions of the new generation are as easy to see, as will readily be observed in many aspects. From the role teenagers play in their families to the way they earn their livings; from the language they now use to their thoughtlessness and what we view as profane. In response to changes around them, teens now find themselves playing a different role then what they used to. Children once were expected to either work on the farm with their family, or spend their time working in the local grocery store, or run the errands. Now children are mostly