Teenagers are victims of adult bad example
When we scratch our heads trying to arrive at an explanation for the 'moral decay' of young people, I would suggest that we look in our full-length, adult mirror.
We adults are responsible for the environment that fosters such anti-social behaviour; we transmit not just our genes, but also our values and attitudes.
The current problems of alcohol and drug abuse, and dangerous sexual practices, find their roots willingly nourished by the advertising industry, which deliberately targets a younger and younger audience.
Advertising is becoming more and more explicitly sexual with women constantly portrayed as less than human, one dimensional, subservient, disposable and, above all, as playthings for males.
Women have become commodities, hence the lack of public outrage at the huge growth in lap-dancing clubs, for instance.
In Ireland now, adult worth is calculated mainly on the ability to make large sums of money, irrespective of how it is acquired.
How can we adults look disapprovingly at the behaviour of young people when we plan to build a series of incinerators across our country, endangering the health and environment of future generations, simply because we are too lazy and unimaginative to tackle the problem in a mature manner.
Most experts in the field of developmental psychology contend that children inherit their value system from their parents.
They are the mirror on which our image is cast, and we don't like what we see.
Don't blame the mirror, don't blame young people: let's stand up and take responsibility. Let's behave like mature adults.
John Russell,
10a, McCurtain Street,
Cork.
