Drunken Teenagers, The Home Secretary and the Loss of Intergenerational Cohesion

Sip this will you.

I see that the pigeon-holing prats in the government are on the "bash the parents" band wagon again, this time it's that all time favourite drunk teenagers. As they always do when faced with a problem, real or perceived, the jump for the legislative gavel is immediate. Parents who allow their children to drink are going to be prosecuted and sent on parenting classes. In the words of the queasily caring Home Secretary Jaqui Smith

"Groups of under-18s drinking in public is an all-too-familiar sight

"This type of drinking increases crime, puts young people in vulnerable situations, and I want to put a stop to it."

"These new measures are designed to set clear boundaries."

Under the plans, teenagers persistently possessing alcohol in public will be subjected to anti-social behaviour orders (Asbos) and acceptable behaviour contracts.


Thank you Ms Smith for assuring us that you personally want to put a stop to it, I feel so much better knowing that. The fact that you sound like a petulant school teacher convinces me that though you might wish to put a stop to it, you simply do not have the first clue how to.

As if this is anything new! When I was a teenager of 14 I spent many a blissful night in the park pissed as a rat on Martini Rose as did many of my peers. Thankfully I have developed some taste since then and prefer a decent red wine, but still of course get regularly bladdered and have a wail of a time while I am doing it.

The most annoying part of this continual trend of demonising young people is the dogged insistence from Smith and her ilk that the perceived vulnerability of young people means the action they take is actually going to help. They believe they are doing good guys! They believe in the cause, saving these children from themselves. Hooray and Hurrah, thank goodness for the safety net of government parenting. You set those boundaries m'dear, we need you to for all our sakes.

I jest of course, this particular issue is a symptom of a far bigger problem that Ms Smith would dare not tackle, after all it underpins the whole agenda of social control that Labour have been executing over the last decade.

Undermining parents, criminalising vast swathes of the population and in particular young people makes for excellent headlines for the "string em up brigade" but does little to actually address the fact that although bad parents exist, alongside bad teenagers, they are not necessarily a natural pairing on every occasion. Good kids have bad parents and vice versa.

As for the increase in crime that comes with this, that is an issue of good old fashioned respect. The police used to deftly handle situations like this and I recall clearly a friend as a teenager being dropped off home pissed by the local bobby and later being thoroughly chastised by his parents. He respected the police and his folks, primarily because he was afraid of both. Nought wrong with that either.

I wonder if she is equally vehement in condemning overzealous public schoolboys who are lucky enough to have private schools with vast grounds where getting pissed up is a matter of hiding in the farthest reaches of those grounds and avoiding detection as she so obviously is in catching the council teens who have no where to go and nothing to do.

Admittedly both examples are caricatures but it illustrates to me that this has absolutely nothing to do with protecting the vulnerable children (why are they always labelling people vulnerable?) but is about pandering to those who whine about groups of hoodies or drunken teens being rowdy nearby. I live in the town centre so it is an every night occurrence for me and it is always adults and not children doing the noise making. I learn to live with it, and that really is the nub of the issue.

We should learn to live with it, or rather them, who would be a teenager these days, the oft despised generation that seems to get bashed from all sides? No one by choice I suspect, and when we look at what has happened to the intergeneration cohesion since Labour arrived on the scene we may notice a pattern.

Removal of parental responsibility and power has to be first on the list and I use the word power specifically because raising children has an awful lot to do with it. You can include under this heading the removal of the right to give em a good old fashioned wallop.

The insane situation that exists where no adult would intervene to stop rowdiness or bad behaviour because they may get stabbed or god forbid, done for assault of some kind certainly does not help.

Up next is the proliferation of state mediation in personal and family matters coupled with the emotionalisation of almost every sphere of private life. There is an army of counsellors, psychologist and social workers that now have unprecedented powers to interfere, intrude and seriously damage families and individuals. They attempt to cajole those who do not conform to the state sanctioned idea of what a parent and a family are with the same ideology as those who dreamt up the notion of compulsory parenting classes.

Is there nothing these days that does not require their intervention to solve, have we become so hopeless that we must rely on the quasi religion of psychologist to sort it all out?.

The answer appears to be yes sadly, but could there be a solution that would help stem the perceived tide of teenage binge drinking and subsequent crime? Seen as it has been going on for years it is highly unlikely, and I suppose I am being unfair to Ms Smith if I criticise her for having no clue but then do not offer any solution so here goes.

We do need to learn to live with our teenagers. Yes, people bemoan their lack of respect et al but they are after all us, and the way we treat them now will have a terrible knock on effect when they reach adulthood, and currently we nanny them.

This has to stop, and it is easily done in my mind. We need to make them adults sooner.

"But wait" you cry, "they must have a childhood, they must remain innocent, be allowed to be a child."

Bollocks to that, you obviously have not seen an episode of the dross that is EastEnders and its drip drip of depressing messages or rubbish such as The Steve Wilko Show on daytime tv with every topic imaginable and fists fights for all to see.

You must be ignorant of what kids are passing around on their mobile phones or via Facebook if you imagine that the concept of childhood innocence fully exists any longer. At least in any Peter Pan and Wendy kind of way, that is as dead as a doornail.

Other cultures such as the Jewish culture and in Egyptian communities where I had the good fortune to see it in action have got the right idea. We need a point of adulthood that comes before they emerge as teenage terrors, we need to stop believing that rebelliousness in teenagers is a natural event that has to happen and we need to start fighting against the compulsion to protect and to let them go sooner.

So, in essence, at 14 we make a big deal (like a barmitzvah) about them reaching that age and we integrate them fully into adult society. From that point forward they live in the adult world to all intents and purposes. The hows, whys and wherefores can come later, but this is a start.

Schools would be restructured so that upon reaching fourteen they then move to a different school and the line is drawn between adult and child at that point.

Interaction between them and younger children would be frowned upon, they are now an adult. They should be given responsibilities, social ones, voluntary work and for the non academic a chance to work and be paid adult wages and be given vouchers for a number of years further education at any point in their life.

Actively encourage them to make adult non familial friends and experience different views and cultures. Teenagers rebel against the parent first and authority second, older friends can give them a perspective that can motivate and prevent them from entering a life of crime or achieving less than they are capable of.

Culture and social mores are passed from one generation to another in most cases informally and all this should be just that.

This informal education worked for generations until we placed a wedge between adults and children the way we have, it can work again. Not through molly coddling as we currently do can they learn, but through hard experience as most of us did and who are none the worse for it.

Next we need to address our tolerance for violence between people. This has got to be seen as intolerable. Stiffer penalties for any violent act must become the norm. The message that being nice to each other is a good idea must be paramount. When a criminal assault can get a shorter prison term than someone who looks at a so called "dangerous picture" we have got it assy backwards.

Finally, we need to scare children earlier, no, seriously, I want them scared of adults, I want a scared non criminal teenager over a bolshy criminal one any day, and next time an adult dare intervene in preventing bad behaviour and is sadly forced to use restraining or controlling tactics then we give them a medal not a prison sentence.

As adults we are the ones who are wiser, more knowledgeable and sorry, more important. When they are adults it will be there turn. Until then they must learn humility, the world is not theirs yet, it is ours, so stand in line kiddy's, like the rest of us did.

But the single most important fact is that this must be done by us, in our communities and social circles, it should not involve the state or organisations with a step by step process designated by faceless bureaucrats with an agenda of control. It will just be people, getting back to basics and rebuilding communities and encouraging the intergenerational cohesion that keeps us safe and draws a line between a pure child and those who are old enough to start to get involved. A community that prepares the young for a life free of state interference or mandated ideology and truly encourages spontaneity of spirit through exploration and discovery alongside self reliance and self responsibility.

The government should do what it does best, collect my rubbish, manage the economy and represent me on the world stage. It should not be locking up parents for the acts of legally responsible teens. It should back off and let us get on with it.

As for you "Mr and Mrs Jones" if you truly believe this is how it should be then you could start by asking one of the local hoodies if he fancies a cup of tea. He may surprise you and be a decent chap. Then the next time he is being rowdy with his mates a bang on the window and a quick smile and a wave may be all it takes to calm the situation down. That has to be preferable to calling in the state and has the added benefit of giving you someone to rope in and cut your lawn or clean your car for a fiver on a sunday.



UPDATE Its official, I am Psychic, snigger.