Why we hate our children
Of course every generation hates its children, but there seems to be a special venom in the loathing shown to its offspring by the sixties and seventies generation.
Our parents disliked our long hair, our scruffy couldn't-care-less clothes. They sneered that we went on anti-Vietnam war demonstrations in our "uniforms" of faded jeans, and longed to encase us in the uniform of the forties and fifties, when you wore grey suits and white shirts and thought yourself lucky to have the chance.
But we were young and free of spirit. We were the beneficiaries of the victory over Nazism and the Attlee settlement. As teenagers we had a bit of spare cash, and fun ways to spend it - things that our parents and grandparents could only dream about. As students we had a grant, and the taxpayer picked up the bill for our teaching. The most phrase most often heard among our parents was: "I want him (and, increasingly often, her) to have the opportunities I never had."
As we got older, they still worried about leaving us money. My mother and my partner's mother, neither of whom were rich, tried to save out of their tiny pensions in the hope of making our futures easier.
Our parents may have grudged us our freedom, but they never grudged us their money.
Now we're the parents, a popular car sticker says gleefully: "Spending the kids' inheritance." The most frequently heard sneer about those of our children who are students is: "He (and, increasingly, she) has come home for another handout" followed by a cynical and intolerant laugh. Yet the only reason they have to come cap in hand to us for money is that we have kicked away the ladder we climbed. As a student, I had enough to live on (my widowed mother being demonstrably penniless) and did not have to work in termtime, or beg from older relatives, or build up a mountain of debt.
That freedom from humiliation and worry, we decided, was too good for our children. We pulled away the ladder we climbed. We kicked away their legs, then sneered at them for being lame.
The intolerance our parents showed towards our clothes is as nothing to what we display. "Hoodie" was just a name for a coat in fashion with children and teenagers, until it was adopted by dishonest politicians anxious to create a shadow enemy they could fight on our behalf.
Teenagers under legal drinking age cannot go anywhere - pubs and clubs are barred to them. What is our solution? To condemn them for hanging about on street corners and making us feel uncomfortable, and to talk darkly of imposing a curfew on them.
Our schools have been turned into education factories, forcing grounds in which a set of predetermined information is crammed into young heads, in which there is no place for flights of fantasy or inspirational teaching. Our children are increasingly being forced back into school uniforms, against which our generation successfully rebelled. And the penalties for truanting are growing, with police now rotuinely frogmarching truants to their school. One of the argument used in favour of school unforms is that it will help the police to recognise those who ought to be at school. We are forcing our children into prison uniform so they will be instantly recognisable when they scale the walls.
Why are we doing all this? I have a theory. We were the generation that had everything. We thought the world could only get better. Under our guidance, it has got a great deal worse. We have squandered the fine legacy left us by the thirties and forties generation. What can we do about our guilt, except hit out at those we feel guilty about - our children?
Our parents disliked our long hair, our scruffy couldn't-care-less clothes. They sneered that we went on anti-Vietnam war demonstrations in our "uniforms" of faded jeans, and longed to encase us in the uniform of the forties and fifties, when you wore grey suits and white shirts and thought yourself lucky to have the chance.
But we were young and free of spirit. We were the beneficiaries of the victory over Nazism and the Attlee settlement. As teenagers we had a bit of spare cash, and fun ways to spend it - things that our parents and grandparents could only dream about. As students we had a grant, and the taxpayer picked up the bill for our teaching. The most phrase most often heard among our parents was: "I want him (and, increasingly often, her) to have the opportunities I never had."
As we got older, they still worried about leaving us money. My mother and my partner's mother, neither of whom were rich, tried to save out of their tiny pensions in the hope of making our futures easier.
Our parents may have grudged us our freedom, but they never grudged us their money.
Now we're the parents, a popular car sticker says gleefully: "Spending the kids' inheritance." The most frequently heard sneer about those of our children who are students is: "He (and, increasingly, she) has come home for another handout" followed by a cynical and intolerant laugh. Yet the only reason they have to come cap in hand to us for money is that we have kicked away the ladder we climbed. As a student, I had enough to live on (my widowed mother being demonstrably penniless) and did not have to work in termtime, or beg from older relatives, or build up a mountain of debt.
That freedom from humiliation and worry, we decided, was too good for our children. We pulled away the ladder we climbed. We kicked away their legs, then sneered at them for being lame.
The intolerance our parents showed towards our clothes is as nothing to what we display. "Hoodie" was just a name for a coat in fashion with children and teenagers, until it was adopted by dishonest politicians anxious to create a shadow enemy they could fight on our behalf.
Teenagers under legal drinking age cannot go anywhere - pubs and clubs are barred to them. What is our solution? To condemn them for hanging about on street corners and making us feel uncomfortable, and to talk darkly of imposing a curfew on them.
Our schools have been turned into education factories, forcing grounds in which a set of predetermined information is crammed into young heads, in which there is no place for flights of fantasy or inspirational teaching. Our children are increasingly being forced back into school uniforms, against which our generation successfully rebelled. And the penalties for truanting are growing, with police now rotuinely frogmarching truants to their school. One of the argument used in favour of school unforms is that it will help the police to recognise those who ought to be at school. We are forcing our children into prison uniform so they will be instantly recognisable when they scale the walls.
Why are we doing all this? I have a theory. We were the generation that had everything. We thought the world could only get better. Under our guidance, it has got a great deal worse. We have squandered the fine legacy left us by the thirties and forties generation. What can we do about our guilt, except hit out at those we feel guilty about - our children?
posted by Francis Beckett at
2:29 AM
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