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The Troubled Teen Industry (TTI)

Yes they were, though my mother was talking about the '20s, when everything was lovely, except when it wasn't.
 
Unfortunately this is a position of subjugation and abuse children and women have suffered for centuries.
Both have suffered from a dominant patriarchal attitude that demands subjugation of the family. Whether it be forced re education, child abuse, forced marriage, or spousal abuse the base issue is a male hierarchy that demands dominance, women and children are viewed as lesser beings and therefore subject to the control of men. Often the worst aspects of this are based in religious dogma, but not exclusively so, physicality plays a large part as doe as do the dominant economics of gender.
The media are complicit in this portraying children as ‘kids’ a breed apart, victims not people, and the steady sexualisation of younger and younger children is deeply disturbing.
Even the language has changed, when did all children become ‘kids’ which itself has gained a perjorative tone.
In the last three decades the demands on children have escalated, longer school hours, more homework, career stress, less chance to go out due to fear of assault, less social time, less green spaces, less sport, both parents both absent working round clock on minimum wage, social media, constant social change and reappraisal of values and history. Etc etc,
Poor buggers!
 
Joe Hutch said:
My guess is that those blaming the parents have no children.

Some children go wrong, other children, from the same family, are fine. There seems to be no particular reason why this should be so. It's obvs a mixture of genetics and environment, but children with the same parents, growing up in the same home, can and do turn out very differently.
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Well since you mention it you guess wrong in my case Joe.
I don’t say parents can always fix the problem but I believe there are an awful lot who could do more to help prevent their children going wrong.
There are also some kids (one in my own family who has turned himself around in adulthood thankfully) who may be unreachable though.
 
Joe Hutch said:
Ah, the good old days. My mother used to go on about how wonderful everything was back when she was a girl, interspersed with anecdotes about the bloke down the road who was in and out prison for knocking his wife about, or the children across the road who weren't able to go to school because their parents couldn't afford to buy shoes for them.
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My mother started primary school in 1933. She remembered very large class sizes and the black board on a trestle pulled out into the room. One boy in the class who was malicious and would assault both boys and girls. She also remembered another boy who was the class joker and in disrupting discipline, drew negative attention from the teacher. One day his mother turned up and walked straight into the classroom to take on the teacher, pursuing her round the blackboard while the children laughed at the slap stick ‘violence’ in front of them.

Fast forward to the War and the same boy was late returning to his regiment after leave- spending time with his girlfriend to whom he had proposed. On the train back south he climbed onto the roof to avoid his documents being checked and was killed when the train entered a tunnel. My mother told me this story three quarters of a century after the events and at the end of her own life- the story was incredibly vivid in the telling and has remained with me, particularly the distinction in character she made between the two boys.
 
Frizzy said:
Even the language has changed, when did all children become ‘kids’ which itself has gained a perjorative tone.
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Children have been referred to as 'kids' for several centuries. The Who recorded a song called 'The Kids Are Alright' more than fifty years ago, so it's hardly a recent thing.
 
TheDecameron said:
My mother started primary school in 1933. She remembered very large class sizes and the black board on a trestle pulled out into the room. One boy in the class who was malicious and would assault both boys and girls. She also remembered another boy who was the class joker and in disrupting discipline, drew negative attention from the teacher. One day his mother turned up and walked straight into the classroom to take on the teacher, pursuing her round the blackboard while the children laughed at the slap stick ‘violence’ in front of them.

Fast forward to the War and the same boy was late returning to his regiment after leave- spending time with his girlfriend to whom he had proposed. On the train back south he climbed onto the roof to avoid his documents being checked and was killed when the train entered a tunnel. My mother told me this story three quarters of a century after the events and at the end of her own life- the story was incredibly vivid in the telling and has remained with me, particularly the distinction in character she made between the two boys.
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There were 46 in my class at primary school as late as 1963! Two of my classmates had very different futures; one became a policeman, who ended up arresting the other one who had become a burglar.

One of our teachers had a foul temper, and would lash out at children, male and female, when in one of his 'moods'. It was only later that I sussed that at least part of his mood swings was due to his experiences in WWII. By the time he taught my nephew, 25 or so years later, he had mellowed considerably, plus he was no longer allowed to hit children.
 
Joe Hutch said:
Two of my classmates had very different futures; one became a policeman, who ended up arresting the other one who had become a burglar
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I like the way you've phrased that, Joe. You made it sound like becoming a burglar was an option on careers day, with the nice lady giving you a pamphlet on how to get into the trade after you've pronounced "I want to rob houses miss".

Reminds me of this:

 
In a way, the burglar route was the natural one for him; he was too short to join the police, and small enough to get through even the smallest window.
 
All I hear is those that are viewers not participants going on about how times were harder in past, or children are spoiled. Sounds like a python sketch,If only complaint on my rant is use of word kids then job done.
 
In the 19th century the Italian physiologist Cesare Lombroso made quite a name for himself by describing "the criminal type" on the basis of things like skull shape, nose, distance between the eyes, height of forehead, etc.
 
PaulMB said:
In the 19th century the Italian physiologist Cesare Lombroso made quite a name for himself by describing "the criminal type" on the basis of things like skull shape, nose, distance between the eyes, height of forehead, etc.
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Didn't the Nazis go for this in a big way?
 
PaulMB said:
In the 19th century the Italian physiologist Cesare Lombroso made quite a name for himself by describing "the criminal type" on the basis of things like skull shape, nose, distance between the eyes, height of forehead, etc.
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That’s why they started wearing stockings over their heads.
 
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