Middle aged men like me are supposed to complain about the youth today. It's a middle aged tradition dating back to ancient Egypt. The youth are always destroying society. Their elders have been heralding the end of society because of out-of-control youth since the dawn of time, which is why there is no society anymore.
We are always hearing evidence that youth are destroying society. There's all kinds of weird behavior that youths are engaged in: like a pregnancy pact among teens (didn't exist), like rising juvenile crime (it's lower than it was in the 70s), like kids bullying other kids (parents are far more likely to physically abuse a child than other kids), like brutal youtube videos of kids beating up other kids (that professional middle aged cable news producers play over and over again), like the wars of choice young kids start for political gain --- okay not that one.
Well, now there's more...
Did you know that young adults don't grow up in time, they are too dependent on their parents, and simply aren't motivated to become independent hardworking responsible adults like their parents did? Never mind that we have the worst youth economy in history, the fact is the kids are just lazy.
Well, kids these days are putting people out of work. You know who they are putting out of work?
Prison guards.
Ohio is leading the way in reducing the number of children in prison. After struggling for years to treat young criminals in razor wire-ringed institutions, states across the nation are quietly shuttering dozens of reformatories amid plunging juvenile arrests, softer treatment policies and bleak budgets.
For Ohio, the number of juvenile offenders has plummeted by nearly half over the last two years, pushing the state to close three facilities. California's closures include a youth institution near Los Angeles that operated for nearly 115 years. And one in Texas will finally go quiet after getting its start as a World War II-era training base.
Maybe they are right, maybe kids are lazy. I mean real lazy. Like the extremely lazy children in California. Conservatives have warned us that increased diversity would lead to increased juvenile misbehavior. I am sure by misbehavior they mean laziness. Unlike my generation, or my parents generations, when kids were so full of energy they were engaged in all sorts of mischief, committing crimes small and large, showing there was no bounds to their youthful motivation, this highly diverse youth population in California seem only interested in creating mischief on video games like Grand Theft Auto, or whatever the latest über violent video game of the day is, because they clearly aren't interested in going out, exercising their bodies and causing real mayhem like their revered parents and grandparents.
California's diverse youth population is an embarrassment to their elders. I am going to show you something shocking:
In 1957, for every 100,000 youth in California 9,353.4of them were busying themselves getting into trouble causing good old fashioned mayhem. This was the standard set by California's grandparents. So, how are their grandkids doing? Well, the most non-white population of young people in the country are proving just how lazy they are (and probably risk-averse too):
In 2009, for every 100,000 youth in California, only 4510.4 of them are getting into trouble with the law. That means that California youth are so lazy that they are half as likely to go out and cause trouble.
And violent crime among youth today in California is the second lowest number since 1970? The lowest since then? 2005. In terms of all felonies by youth in California? It's the lowest level EVER. And their Californian grandparents were three times as likely to commit a property crime. This is further evidence of the decay of motivation by our youth. Something must be done to stop this or else .... ummm... oh, that's right, we'll shut down more prisons and more jobs will be lost.
Edit: Speaking of laziness. How about how lazy and forgetful we older people are in regards to the 18-29 set. I just got done reading several comments talking about how un-engaged young people are with the political process. Did you all just forget about Obama's huge youth army? Did you all forget that youth voter participation was extraordinarily high last election? Did you all forget that Obama won 63% of the 18-29yo vote in 2008?