Students Blamed for Trashed Camp

nickthehunter wrote:
You all act like nothing like that happened when you were kids. It did. I can sight you a whole raft of incidents from 50 and 100 years ago just as bad or worse then this incident. So many posts blaming the todays kids as being something worse than what is really going on. Nothing has changed, it's still the "many" getting blamed for what a "few" do.

While your statement is true on it;s face, it is also ignoring the fact that When I was a boy (12 years old) in 1965 Many many more boys were Boy Scouts, it was like a rite of passage. Now most are not in Scouts and never get the training in respecting the wilderness that BS gave one.

Second there is an UNDENIABLE difference in the civility of society over the past 50 years. I see many parents indulging their children in clearly bad behaviour IN PUBLIC that would have gotten me sent to the car and my room when we got home.

Further my parents made it very clear to me that there is acceptable bahaviour in public and a bit different at home...and woe to me if I ever mixed them up.

I think what you are hearing from so many is this: In a lot of cases manners have been ignored by so many parents that we have a generation or two of very ill mannered folks who do not have the slightest idea how to act in public.

There are always exceptions llike at the restaurant we were recently at, where a young Maybe 14 year old boy that stood up and pulled out the chair of an elderly woman who was getting up, waited and slid it back in place. Or the many kids and young folks who hold the door for me as I am entering a store...and actually say "your Welcome" when I thank them. Some parents are instilling good manners in their kids but I fear the vast majority act much as their parents do in public...very badly.

I cannot count the times I sit in restaurants and hear the "F" word loudly emanating from the mouth of a young woman in general conversation usually followed by "Sh&t". This sort of language has it's place, but it's NOT in a restaurant or around the very young. And even if it was a young man making the comment it would be out of bounds and inappropriate in that setting. It's CONTEXT of place.

Were we as a generation perfect? absolutely not. But I think we had, and have, a better handle on the context of place, manners and what behavior is appropriate given the circumstances.