I worry, sometimes, about becoming that overly I viewed my father and my grandfather. Every generation, it would seem, has issues with the choices and behaviour of younger generations. When I was a kid, Mum would make me tuck my shirt into my trousers before arriving at Grandad’s house to prevent upsetting him by dressing in what he’d consider to be a slovenly manner. Dad, who, at age 70 when I was 11 (this was in the early 1970s) was listening to Nana Mouskouri and the Vienna Boys Choir, was appalled at my choice of music; mostly comprising Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and The Kinks.
Despite being of the view that I’m not a narrow-minded old goat, I just can’t help feeling frustrated and critical over the attitudes and behaviour of a big proportion of today’s society. And I’m not just talking about teenagers or twenty-somethings. It seems that apathy, wokeness, and entitled behaviour is threaded throughout people in their teens, 20s, 30s, and even 40s. Of course that’s a broad generalisation and it isn’t valid across ayounger people if they can — and ‘young people’ in this context includes people in their 30s — because the common view is that they’re fragile (always off sick over bugger-all), have no work ethic, think the world owes them, and possess a general disregard for their fellow human beings. It’s all about them.
