Is there a great difference in teenage years?

That's two generations difference, which possibly explains why our experiences of teenage years are so different. Quite honestly, some of the comments on here would have been more appropriate for my grandmother.

Thanks folks, our oldies group ranges from 55 eldest at moment is an 93 year old retired vet.
We have a regular weekly meeting in a church hall and thanks to Anchor Homes regular discussion groups meeting in their lounges.
Discussion next week is “,Do decision makers ignore older people at their peril ?

I was in my 20s before I realized communism was perceived as a serious threat. We were staying in Germany with my brother who was in REME. On his way in to work he noticed some men with binoculars looking down on the camp/base. To be on the safe side he reported it and next thing he knew he was being cross examined by MPs and mysterious men in suits.

There was one pub in Hastings that was known as a drugs den and it doubled up as the gay pub as well.

Some GN members seem to be very unlucky with the teens in their area. Both my teen GSs are kind and polite and so are their friends. No tattoos or earrings so far.

They do seem to have a lot more “stuff” but a lot less freedom. They have started walking themselves to our house in the holidays. They both like cooking but don’t seem to do any housework (they have a once weekly cleaner) and all have their own TV which means they are often in different rooms and often playing computer games with friends who are presumably in their own homes. They are conscious that there are predators online and hopefully will avoid such pitfalls. They’ve already had chats with their mum about one odd ball they weren’t sure about.

Swings and roundabouts I suppose but I am glad I was a teenager in the 60s when anything seemed possible and women were beginning to question their role in society. My Mum was another who thought boys should be self sufficient.

Martha please come back and tell us something of the demographics of the older people social group as I'd love to know more about it.
My experiences were much more like Trisher's - I wonder if we are slightly younger?

But school girl crushes, as distinct from friendships, were quite common in the 1950s and earlier. I can remember quite a few girls having them when i was in secondary school. the subject of te crush would be a teacher or older girl, usually someone in the 6th Form.

In the days of single sex education and boys and girls kept more seperate in adolescence, burgeoning hormones had to find an outlet in some direction.

I think school girl crushes faded out with The Beatles and co-education.

When I was at school if we looked at a same sex teacher/friend and admired them it was to take something forward in the formation of ourselves. Smart dresser, good sense of humour, warmth etc

Nowadays I have experience of teenagers questioning their sexuality if doing this. Its as if they have to decide to own and proclaim a gender. I’ve even heard a best friend of the same sex described as ‘my crush’. We just had a best friend.

I love their sexual freedom but hate that they think they have to decide a gender ‘type’ so early in their sexual maturity. I believe some know very early that they feel they are not the sex on their birth certificate but I also believe many are ‘lost’ as to their sexual identity due to the many labels that are encouraged by diverse groups.

This is only MY opinion. That is what you asked for.

ah, 50s and 60s, now those were the days! :-)

Trisher I do not think that the fear of communism was fear of the ideology, but of the powers behind it, the USSR in Europe and China, under Mao Tse Tung in Asia. Both those countries were known to be totalitarian and could be seen to be expansionist and suppressive.

Somehow British Communism always seemed a bit harmless and not worth bothering about.

I hitchhiked all over - wouldn’t do that today.
I slept on the beach in Torquay with my hippie mates.
Loads of drugs but my mates stuck to cider.
Lots of experimenting with sex- shotgun teenage weddings common.
We loved rock n roll and fashion - mini skirts no bigger than a belt.
We weren’t all innocents by any means.

Not really, drugs, sex, violence. None of that changes.

I was never frightened of communism maybe because I knew people who were communists. I wasn't, at least in my teenage years ,very conscious of being unequal either. Perhaps because I was raised by a mother who always worked, believed boys should learn to cook, and the best thing a girl could do was be educated. I think I took my equality for granted and assumed I could go where I wanted and do as I liked. I do sometimes look back on risks I took with horror and hope my DGD never behaves as I did. However I did have a good time. It came as a bit of a shock to me when I married and had babies and suddenly realised how much of a second citizen I was.

I became a teenager in 1966. I was constantly afraid of IRA bombs.

I am another who finds Grandads innocence as a teenager, a bit surprising. The cold war and the threat of nuclear anihilation overshadowed our childhoods as Global warming does our grandchildren's.

Yes, we were used to it and I didn't waste any sleep over it, but it was there all the time. The fear of the Soviet Union, the constant reminder of how brutal its government was: Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968. The fear of conventional war and attack by the USSR was certainly significant in my teenage years.

Perhaps because my father was in the army, I was also aware of the world wide creeping of communism. He served in Hong Kong, during the Korean War. Hong Kong was the supply base for the war and my father was in logistics. Later during service in Malaya, there was the threat of communist insurgence there. I watched the parade in Kuala Lumpur that marked the final end of the Emergency, as it was known.

But more than anything the knowledge of a possible nuclear holocaust was always there.

I think it changed during the 60s. I was a teenager late 60s and early 70s and I think we were all aware that we were very different from the teenagers of the 50s. Everyone was quite worried. I don't think it was just relative, I think there really was a rapid change around that time.

Yes, teenagers today are taught about sex, the risks of infection or unwanted pregnancy, taught about drugs etc. at school, but speaking as a teacher I know that a good many pay no attention when warned about health risks.

Teenagers still, just as we did, listen more to each other than to what their parents or teachers say.

It never was easy being a teenager and it still isn't. The problems have changed, that's all.

"things"? I'm sure I wrote "thugs"!

There was nothing on that list about equality or feminism (unless I missed something). Thank goodness we aren't expected to be nice little secretaries, willing to sit on some creep's lap any more!
Sex, drugs and rock n'roll have been around for a LONG time and certainly existed in my teen years. Anyone remember teddy boys? They were (reputedly) the knife-wielding things of the day in the 50s.
As for teens being more street-wise - maybe they are. But they don't seem very mature to me. Young men especially seem to be children till at least their 30s. As others have said, our generation were out working much younger - it was fairly usual for girls in their late teens to be wives and mothers and running their own homes and for most teenagers to be in full-time work. I don't think there was anyone at my school in the 6th form who didn't have a Saturday job - now nobody seems to have them.

I was a teenager in the 80’s and hated travelling on buses because a lot of the other school kids were loud, rude and had no respect for anyone.
I didn’t hang around the streets or drink cider and smoke in the park (although I know a lot of my friends did)
I also knew nothing about sex as my parents had never explained anything to me - except when I had my first period and my mum said ‘right, this will happen every month and you can get pregnant now!!’
I still had no idea what she was talking about ?
One of my best friends at school had a couple of abortions before she was 15 but again we never spoke about it.
Experimenting with neon make up in the 80’s was an experience - what I must have looked like! ?

I have a 24 yo DD, 23 yo DS, and 14 yo DD.

The eldest two both work and have moved out of home.
My youngest is fantastic at make up thanks to the online tutorials nowadays.
Yes she has more money than I used to, but uses it to go shopping, out for lunch with her friends - it was Wagamama yesterday or saves it for a particular pair of trainers.

Both her and her two best friends are well behaved at school, work hard when there and have regular sleepovers at each others houses.
They don’t hang around the streets, smoke or drink in the park but again they have friends who do so in that respect teenagers haven’t changed!
It’s the same with being respectful to both peers and their elders. Nothing’s changed...

I talked to all my kids about sex, drink and drugs, so that’s a huge change from my youth. They could have an alcoholic drink with a special dinner, and we as a family have never smoked I guess that’s rubbed off on them.

I think that listening to your children is a HUGE thing! I don’t think my mum in particular ever really listened to me, and that’s sadly given us a fractured relationship now.

I don’t want that with my children - we are incredibly close. They call me daily and I tell them I love them every time I say goodbye to them.
I want them to be able to come to me and talk to me no matter what the problem is.

I worry about the levels of on screen violence our young are exposed to in film, tv, online entertainment etc. Every era has had its challenges I suppose, but it's variety and content seems darker, more available and insidious these days.

....I’d forgotten ‘knuckle -dusters’.... nothing much changes...we just get older and with selective memories!

I agree with a lot of what Martha Beck says , especially about manners! But the knife culture , although worrying is not really new, is it!? I was brought up in 50/60s as were most of us , you telling me you don’t remember ‘teddy boys’ with their ‘flick knives’ and the chains wrapped around their hands inside their pockets. Also on the point of dress culture ....the teddy boys were always smartly dressed in suits , shined shoes, and spotless white shirts. Don’t be fooled by ‘hoodies’ ...it’s just fashion and not a sign of criminality!

My son’s friend (12) had fairly explicit porn sent to his phone by another one of his classmates recently - his mum, quite rightly, phoned the community police officer and the boy was spoken to informally. I’m having to navigate a whole other level of social media and phone use now - it’s changed so much in the ten years since my older 2 were starting high school. I hate it.

When my youngest was in senior school, it was just the beginning of things like MSN and Beebo ( I think that’s right!) initially it was banned, and then it crept in by stealth, with us allowing her to take part in a sporting forum. The desk top computer was in a corner of the living room, and I could hear what her and her friends were giggling about in the corner, but there was an incident once when they were sent a very pornographic photo, which I think now I probably should have taken to the police.

My point really is, that they now all have phones and laptops, and I imagine it’s almost impossible to know what they’re watching, or who they’re talking to.

Scary times.

It's said that 'comparison is the thief of joy' and with youngsters looking the social media I think it encourages them to compare themselves with others so much more.
We compared ourselves with the models in teenage magazines and found ourselves wanting - not pretty enough, hair disastrous, body wrong shape - now it's so much worse.
Porn is easily available and it's skewing ideas about what is normal. Girls are under pressure and boys too it has to be said. They are sexualised before they gain the maturity to cope with it.
The Kardashions/Beckhams of this world are another case in point - no-one is allowed to be 'good enough' anymore, you must be perfect. Who is, for heaven's sake?
I think it's worse today and I'd hate to be a teenager now.

I have to admit I had a little chuckle at "usually repeated from media, not own thinking", having followed threads on here.

I don't know what kind of teenagers you know 4allweknow, but the ones I've come across very much have their own thinking.