Is there a great difference in teenage years?

Jennifer - 16 year olds voted in the Scottish independence election. It all went just fine, the sky didn’t fall in, and many would argue that young people choose their vote more carefully than older people as they’ll be living with the consequences for a lot longer.

I would mostly disagree with the statements which came from the OPs group of older people. I don't see the world in the way stated there.

Teenager in the 60s. Definitely more respect for everyone and better manners all round. Expectations from adults were higher so feel teenagers were more mature than today. Today much more money to spend, have views on a lot of topics but they are usually repeated from media, not own thinking. We didn't expect to have food "on tap" nor did we party so much (think school Proms even). Voting at 16/17 goodness, couldn't make my mind up what to wear at weekend (not so much choice either) never mind which political party I thought would be best at running country. I even think 18 is too young. Drugs were around but not the heavy heroin/cocaine types so much as they are today.

Every generation tut-tut’s about the “youth of today.” It’s just how life evolves. Nowadays information is everywhere. Teenagers are so well informed. I’m not saying it’s a good or bad thing, it just “is.” It’s the older generation who created global communication. I was a teenager 1965 to 1971 and was sooo naive! Today’s teenagers will go on to create the generations after them and they will probably end up on Gransnet talking about the same subject. Lol.

janeainsworth, in regard to your post @02:23 today, I would agree that the Cuban Missile crisis of 1962 was clearly a great concern to all who lived through that period. Indeed it was the only time throughout the cold war years that I felt I and many others could well have found ourselves caught up and possibly annihilated in a nuclear war.

The reason I mentioned the Vietnam war as priority was for the reason that had Britain become involved (which looked very likely at times) National Service would have been brought back, and as young men that would have affected us without doubt we felt.

Other matters that you point out in your above post also gave rise to anxiety, but throughout the 1960s I was in my teenage and early twenties years when jobs and wages were plentiful with life being far more straightforward than today, and thoroughly enjoyable I found.

In Bristol where I spent those years, I was never offered drugs, with fights and knives etc being of no concern to us. We did hear rumours of cannabis use among the student population of the city, but they seemed to keep themselves to themselves in the Clifton area of the city which few other young people ever visited in those days.

As I said in my earlier post in this thread, in my teenage and early twenties years I lived for my motorbike, my mates and a gang of girls that would to hang around with us which was all good for a great laugh and in that nothing ever seemed to be serious.

Hope this explains better how I found life in the 1960s and my attitude to it as a young man of those years.

However, I would agree that life for young women was somewhat different in what they were allowed to do, and the standards expected of them still. That said the 1960s were great "breakout years" for young women I found.

I think the greatest difference is in the level of maturity.

So many children these days have their lives micro managed by their parents so by the time they reach their teens they are still effectively children compared to my generation at their age.

I have witnessed many teenagers in a town centre phoning mum or dad to collect them!

The main joke of course is that Corbyn wants to give them the vote at 16

Let’s hope the young women of today don’t have to endure this sort of thing, which in 1970 was considered by many men (and women) to be normal and acceptable
m.youtube.com/watch?v=xhHB0dOVOYs

There was only the Vietnam war to concern us as on several occasions Britain looked as if it may have become involved and that would have brought back National Service
You surprise me, Grandad.
Perhaps you’ve forgotten about the Cuban Missile Crisis and the threat of nuclear war which overshadowed my teenage years, 1962-68. I was also aware of the terrible fire at Windscale in 1957 and the possible effects in human health.
Then there was Harold Wilson’s devaluation of the pound in 1967 which caused some anxiety.
In the same year we had the first Arab-Israeli conflict, a portent of much worse things to come. And the Torrey Canyon oil spill, the first high-profile environmental disaster.

Plenty for a girl whose parents took a daily newspaper and listened to the six o’clock news every evening to worry about.

I agree with you Sara65.

Another big difference for today's teenagers is that they are assessed more regularly than when I was at school.

SurChengin

I agree with your point about social media, at least when it was my turn for the mean girls to be mean, I went home at 4.00 and had till 9.00 the next morning before it resumed.

Not so now, there’s no getting away, I worry for young people on the wrong end of it, life must seem unbearable at times.

I just don't recognise these differences at all. Perhaps they are perceived? I was a teenager in the 60s/70s and there were a lot of drugs about. There was plenty of hate, racism, disrespect, bad manners, underage drinking and sex. (I lived in a very affluent area if that makes a difference).

I've had a career teaching teenagers (at a FE college in a not so good area) and was always impressed (overall) by their very good behaviour and caring, sensible attitudes.

I think every generation see teenagers as being abnoxious, that was certainly so in the 1960s. Whether they are actually obnoxious, in any generation, I really doubt.

Every generation has to separate themselves from the one above and stretch out and experience the world that they live in. The best way to show your independence is to turn your back on everything your parents hold dear.

Move on 15 years from 15 year olds. Most 30 year olds are taking life seriously, careers, marriage, families.

It is, as they say, a stage we all have to go through.

My youngest is 12 and the older 2 are 20 and 22. The major thing that strikes me as different from my teenage years in the 80s is social media - they have to navigate some horrendous behaviour on there at a time when they’re very vulnerable. I would have hated to have grown up with that level of public scrutiny and judgement.

I think today's teens are quite obnoxious, generally.
I'm sure I wasn't THAT bad (in fact, I know I wasn't, because I knew my mum would find out)

I was a teenager between 1953 - 1963. My memories are not of it being so innocent as people believe. I can remember at 14 looking at parents and teachers and thinking that their control over me depended henceforth on me being willing to be controlled. having said that, I was treated as a child until I was 16, after that I began to be treated like an adult. That is one thing that has changed. The transition from childhood to adulthood starts earlier and lasts longer, sometimes too long.

But essentially I was a teenager in the 1960s. sex, drugs and rock and roll, actually I generally kept clear of all three. The postwar generation I belonged to kicked over every trace we could find, so I feel it is hypocritical to criticise people younger than me. I went away to university at 18 and after that my life was my own.

Work was available then - but it is now. It took me and several friends about two years to settle into careers after we graduated, but we worked as shop assistants, clerks, waitresses and anything else we could find to keep body and soul together. Not that different from the gig economy.

I look at my 12 year old DGD going on 16. I can see that the eductation she is getting is different but as good as mine, that she has more money than I did at her age, but that is general across all ages. She has much the same freedoms at her age that I had, but that I was a lot more independent than she is. I travelled on alone on public transport far more than she does and much further.

I was an art student in the 60s. A few students had tried purple hearts and hadn't enjoyed it and we knew someone who knew someone who was on heroin. That was as far as our drugs experience went. We rarely drank - too expensive! We would meet in the pub for a couple of drinks at the end of term (literally a couple of drinks) The biggest scandal was when two of the boys were arrested for vagrancy in London and had their hair shaved off.

I'm the same as you MaggieTulliver. I'm 64 and my experience of being a teenager was much closer to that of my children (in their 20s) than to many of the descriptions on here.

Sometimes my husband and I reminisce about our teenage years, we met when I was sixteen, but we weren’t together.

I often think about how many times I put myself in dangerous situations, and I honestly think that my teenage grandchildren are a lot more sensible.

But of course, Maggie is right, they can talk to their parents, and also to their grandparents, nothing any of them can say is likely to shock me.

I have a great deal in common with my 19 year old daughter (I’m 62) and she asks my advice about everything from drugs to relationships. I was a teen in the 70s and the main difference between us is that I had to rebel against my parents and she didn’t. Oh and technology of course!

Well I went through the 50 s my mum and dad both worked full time which was 8-6 six days a week I wasn’t a latch door kid as my Nan looked after me
I never had or was offered drugs
I had all the lack of confidence about my body face hair as today’s kids
I buried my head in a book instead of a phone no difference really
I lay in bed listening to radio Luxembourg similar to Netflix etc etc
I was 17 before I had a holiday and 20 before going in a plane
I was 16 before my granddad got a tv we didn’t get one until I left home
Outside loo , no bathroom and izal toilet rolls
I didn’t know what contraception was about until I was 18, oh what an innocent, but I wasn’t, that’s the problem
So few jobs to choose from for a woman shop, teacher, factory, secretary, nurse
I d love to have the life of today pressures and all We had pressures too

Of course there's a difference in the teens of today as many are obnoxious individuals due to this PC society that we've been forced/dictated into------" musn't upset them !"

Ok, so you didn't say directly that you would like to upset them; but you did say that 'PC society' makes young people into 'obnoxious individuals' who must not be upset. That does suggest (to me) that you think it would be better for young people if there were less by way of thoughtful language and more 'non-PC' speech.

I said " musn't upset " which is entirely different !

What do you mean,Doodledog ? I didn't say " I'd like to upset teenagers ??"

Wow where were the people surveyed living in an isolated village somewhere.
There were drugs available and alcohol was cheaper (perhaps those surveyed didn't think it was a drug)
There were people with tattoos and knives and we were warned to avoid them. I remember seeing a flick knife in the 60s (think they were illegal)
As for bombs and rationing Only 90 year olds would be teenagers when there were bombs. I remember sweet rationing but I wasn't a teenager when it stopped.
I'm not sure who these people were but I think they area bit out of touch.

Doodle I don't think young people are more sensitive it is just that they do not see the differences in people. I put this down to their upbringing. My parents were always very aware of people's sexual orientation and ethnicity but it did not rub off on me. In general society is more accepting, on the surface anyway.

At the end of the day teenagers are just as unsure as we were. It is a troubling age with the same pressures, exams etc as we had with the added problems brought about by social media.