From the Scrapheap: It's different for today's kids

Dan Jackson

The young fella didn't want to walk to school in the frost the other day. The deal around here, normally, is that the kids get a lift to school if it's raining -- but when it's fine they walk.

"It's cold out there," he said after poking his nose out the door. "Pffffft," I replied. "When I was younger than you I used to play rugby in this barefoot ... With sheep poo everywhere ... and thistles ... At Kaierau."

He looked at me wide-eyed. I'd like to think it was in awe but the reality is he probably was trying to work out why I'd have been so stupid as to run around barefoot in a frost with sheep's poo and prickles everywhere. Now that I think about it. He's got a point.

I've been told off before by my significant other for comparing my childhood to our kids'.

She's right. The fact of it is that my childhood and theirs are completely different.

Normally this is the point in this familiar take on the generation gap where I should spout on about how hard it was in my day and how easy it is for today's kids.

It is not a new theme.

Four hundred years or so before Christ was born, Socrates -- presumably old and grumpy at the time -- said: "The children now love luxury. They have bad manners. Contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise".

And it's as true then as it is now. In some ways many of today's kids do have it easy. Calculators and tablets for schoolwork, mums (and dads) zooming them everywhere in cars for after-school activities, bugger-all real chores to do.

But what's also true is that in other ways today's kids have it harder than I ever did.

I never had to cope with any of the pressures today's kids do.

For example, I didn't have to compare myself to anyone of the millions of internet celebrities all doing triple back-flips on their pushbikes or hanging off rock faces by one finger.

I had no concept of cyber-bullying -- bullies for me were either dealt with by avoiding them or, if that failed, a punch to their face.

Imagine the pressure young people feel when their peer group turns on them and belittles them on social media for the world to see.

I don't know how I'd cope with that -- probably not well.

When I was a kid, there was any number of secure jobs to go into when I left school. Engineering, mechanical, carpentry were all perfectly valid options (funnily enough, I became a journalist instead). But now a lot of those jobs have disappeared through either automation or offshoring to cheaper labour markets.

The relevance of these jobs has been lost to us. The traditions of trades are disappearing.

What will our kids do when they leave school?

The world I grew up in had comprehensive social welfare, health care and education.

Today's kids are being brought up in a much harsher "survival of the fittest environment" with social services a shell of what they once were and an official disdain for people who find themselves in unfortunate circumstances.

And let's face it, all the above I've written is about kids with loving parents in a stable home.

How hard is it now for kids who don't have that? Kids that come from broken, drug-addicted or abusive homes?

I dunno if there's more of that about than when I was a kid, but it certainly seems like it.

My childhood was awesome. There was plenty of love and food about.

That's all that really mattered.

My kids are getting the same from us.

My missus did take them all to school in the car on the frosty morning. We're lucky we can do that for them.

Dan Jackson is a Whanganui journalist and part-time scrap metal dealer