# Are Kids Getting Better? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 15, 2011, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086 "2011-07-15T01:12:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086/41 "2011-07-15T18:04:26Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > Damn - my bad luck to live only in neighbourhoods where every flat surface has graffiti on it and everything not locked down walks away (and I don’t live in the bad part of town - I live in a quiet residential area). Your cites are accurate as far as they go, but what I’m experiencing in my life isn’t matching up with them. Also, your cites are for arrests; [vandalism is the largest unreported crime in Canada.](http://theothersideof55.wordpress.com/2011/06/05/the-scourge-of-vandalism/) … Well there is no reason to think it is less reported now than previously. Also from the theft link is the fact that it is specifically youth theft that has gone down: > [@](#): > > Unique in the set of Property Crime Index offenses, the juvenile arrest rate for burglary declined almost consistently and fell substantially between 1980and 2008, down 68%. > This large fall in juvenile burglary arrests from 1980 through 2007 was not mirrorred in the adult statistics. For example, between 1999 and 2008, the number of juvenile burglary arrests fell 14%, while adult burglary arrests increased 19%. > In 1980, 45% of all burglary arrests were arrests of a juvenile; in 2008, reflecting the greater decline in juvenile arrests, just 27% of burglary arrests were juvenile arrests. Hard to read this as anything other than that teens are committing less crime. Now these are US numbers. What’s going on in your particular Canadian neighborhood I can’t say. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086/42 "2011-07-15T18:56:38Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Well, yes, but wouldn’t the same have been true of the first generation with access to cars? Access to electric light? Access to the telephone? Radio? Television? Phonographs? Whisky? Wine? Paved roads? The wheel? The franchise? All of these could drastically change what it means to be a youth; thus the complaints going back thousands of years. I think the rate of change has gone up drastically. It took however many thousands of years to get to the industrial revolution, then things have taken off like a rocket since then. In my lifetime we’ve gone from computers only showing up in science fiction to three fairly modern computers in my own household (for two people). ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086/43 "2011-07-15T19:01:45Z")
My mother, a retired teacher, is absolutely adamant that kids improved over the course of her 40-year career. That’s just an anecdote, but personally I strongly suspect it’s correct. People romanticize the past, but if I look through an old class picture and actually am honest about it, there were a lot of shit kids in every class, more than I believe to be the case today. The fact is that crime rates are down. Kids are better fed, better cared for, and have access to superior medical care; they are born much likelier to have been properly cared for prenatally, which has a lot to do with health and behaviour. Educational methods are, in my honest and humble opinion, vastly better than they used to be; when I talk to my kid’s principal and teachers I’m just floored by how more capable and smart they are than my teachers were (who were fine people doing their best, but they didn’t know any better.) [QUOTE=Cat Whisperer] Damn - my bad luck to live only in neighbourhoods where every flat surface has graffiti on it and everything not locked down walks away.. [/QUOTE] Perhaps it is. I’ve never lived in a neighborhood like that. I know no Canadians with the same complaint. Perhaps you live in a city with an unusual crime problem? Around here things generally stay un-graffitied and outright vandalism is fairly unusual. Even in downtown Toronto, people I know whose homes are there don’t have much of a problem with vandals, and graffiti tends to be limited to certain places. We’ve discussed before the fact that Western Canada has markedly higher crime rates than Eastern Canada, but heck, I know a lot of people out West too, and they don’t have their yards constantly wrecked by vandals. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086/44 "2011-07-15T19:33:03Z")
**Cat Whisperer** , I’ll grant that there is more technological change faster than before. But again, if that is having an effect it is a positive one. Kids today are doing pretty damn well. And by extension that must mean that all those other parents that we all complain are crappy parents must actually be doing a pretty good job. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086/45 "2011-07-15T20:03:54Z")
I credit abortion. All the bad kids are being aborted, so there’s less bad kids running around. So sayeth [Freakonomics](http://www.freakonomics.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086/46 "2011-07-15T21:13:00Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > If the older generation did such a great job raising their kids, how come those kids grew up to be such crappy parents? Because they wanted to make things easier/better for their kids. And in so doing, they’ve done the kids, and society as a whole, a grave disservice. Parents are way too tolerant today. Nobody wants to be the bad guy and make the precious snowflake cry. And the precious snowflake then expects to be indulged in the same manner outside the family home. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086/47 "2011-07-15T21:20:50Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Because they wanted to make things easier/better for their kids. And in so doing, they’ve done the kids, and society as a whole, a grave disservice. Parents are way too tolerant today. Nobody wants to be the bad guy and make the precious snowflake cry. It’s strange how I don’t seem to know any of the precious snowflake parents. This is a complaint you only hear from people _who don’t actually know any kids_. Seriously, where ARE these allegedly spoiled children, these kids who are not subject to discipline? They aren’t in my kid’s classrooms; I’m endlessly impressed by how manners are insisted on there and how the teachers take no shit. We visited her next school and spent some time there and those teachers don’t strike me as being the types to take any shit, either. None of my friends who have kids let them get away with shit; they have rules, and the rules must be followed or consequences befall the child. When I’m in the playground with my kid and see other kids acting badly, their parents are almost invariably on the ball to put a stop to it. All the time I’ve spent in schools, playgrounds, around other people and their kids, and these precious snowflake parents just never seem to be around when I’m looking. That’s really quite amazing. I thought MY kid was good, but she’s just average. There are a lot of damned good kids out there. The actual facts lie in the data; there is no real world evidence that children are more poorly behaved than before. Indeed, it’s almost certain YOUR generation was far more poorly behaved; mine certainly was. I was a decent kid but the simple fact of the matter is that children of my generation (I was born in 1971) were much likelier to get into fights, steal things, and commit other sorts of crimes than kids today. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086/48 "2011-07-15T21:55:09Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Well, yes, but wouldn’t the same have been true of the first generation with access to cars? Access to electric light? Access to the telephone? Radio? Television? Phonographs? Whisky? Wine? Paved roads? The wheel? The franchise? All of these could drastically change what it means to be a youth; thus the complaints going back thousands of years. It would have been and it was. But, until quite recently by historical standards, such changes came on so rarely and so gradually that you hardly noticed them. It’s different now. Countless people can **remember** when there were no personal computers. Many can even remember when there was no television. (Anybody who can remember the pre-radio days is dead.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086/49 "2011-07-15T22:00:36Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Because they wanted to make things easier/better for their kids. And in so doing, they’ve done the kids, and society as a whole, a grave disservice. Parents are way too tolerant today. Nobody wants to be the bad guy and make the precious snowflake cry. And the precious snowflake then expects to be indulged in the same manner outside the family home. See post #33. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086/50 "2011-07-15T22:01:30Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Seriously, where ARE these allegedly spoiled children, these kids who are not subject to discipline? Didn’t you read? They’re in the local mall! ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086/51 "2011-07-15T22:23:19Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > It would have been and it was. But, until quite recently by historical standards, such changes came on so rarely and so gradually that you hardly noticed them. It’s different now. Countless people can **remember** when there were no personal computers. Many can even remember when there was no television. (Anybody who can remember the pre-radio days is dead.) But that rate of change extends back to the 19th C: tons of settlers went west at a time when it meant leaving your family forever and _took a train back_ to visit 20 years later. In the 1920s, cars, electricity, central heat, telephones, and radio all went from exotic to everyday. Someone who died at the age of 80 in the 1960s died in a completely different world than they were born into in the 1870s. Just the changes in life span and medical care between say 1900-1980 made as radical a change in people’s experiences as did the personal computer. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086/52 "2011-07-15T22:31:43Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > Damn - my bad luck to live only in neighbourhoods where every flat surface has graffiti on it and everything not locked down walks away (and I don’t live in the bad part of town - I live in a quiet residential area). Your cites are accurate as far as they go, but what I’m experiencing in my life isn’t matching up with them. Also, your cites are for arrests; [vandalism is the largest unreported crime in Canada.](http://theothersideof55.wordpress.com/2011/06/05/the-scourge-of-vandalism/) At this point, we just consider vandalism and theft the cost of living here. We have planned our yard with the idea of juvenile delinquents wrecking and stealing whatever is closest to the road. But Michael Moore told me there is no crime in Canada. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086/53 "2011-07-15T22:37:08Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > But that rate of change extends back to the 19th C: tons of settlers went west at a time when it meant leaving your family forever and _took a train back_ to visit 20 years later. In the 1920s, cars, electricity, central heat, telephones, and radio all went from exotic to everyday. Someone who died at the age of 80 in the 1960s died in a completely different world than they were born into in the 1870s. Just the changes in life span and medical care between say 1900-1980 made as radical a change in people’s experiences as did the personal computer. Yes, and that is **all** “quite recently by historical standards.” But so is American independence. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086/54 "2011-07-15T22:43:09Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > But Michael Moore told me there is no crime in Canada. ☹ No, he didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086/55 "2011-07-15T22:47:56Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Yes, and that is **all** “quite recently by historical standards.” But so is American independence. But if the claim is that today’s kids are different because they’ve experienced an unprecedented amount of change, I don’t think it holds up. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086/56 "2011-07-15T23:03:25Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > But if the claim is that today’s kids are different because they’ve experienced an unprecedented amount of change, I don’t think it holds up. It does. Change comes even faster and harder and **more** now than it did in the 19th Century, or even the mid-20th-Century. Not that that will necessarily keep up forever. [Michael Lind predicts “The Boring Age.”](http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1971133_1971110_1971120,00.html) ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086/57 "2011-07-15T23:16:10Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > I credit abortion. All the bad kids are being aborted, so there’s less bad kids running around. So sayeth [Freakonomics](http://www.freakonomics.com/) Crime rates are still going down although abortion rates peaked about twenty years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086/58 "2011-07-15T23:18:56Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > **Cat Whisperer** , > > I’ll grant that there is more technological change faster than before. But again, if that is having an effect it is a positive one. > > Kids today are doing pretty damn well. And by extension that must mean that all those other parents that we all complain are crappy parents must actually be doing a pretty good job. Technological rate of change is nothing new. I wrote a story on this very concept in 1967 for my HS science magazine (and I invented [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com) in it - using a transporter for shipping.) The concept was out there back then. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086/59 "2011-07-15T23:19:58Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Crime rates are still going down although abortion rates peaked about twenty years ago. Well of course, its exponential. The bad kids wouldn’t have been born, thus they didn’t give birth to more bad kids. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086/60 "2011-07-15T23:22:02Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Well of course, its exponential. The bad kids wouldn’t have been born, thus they didn’t give birth to more bad kids. “Badness” is not genetic. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kids-getting-better/589086.md?page=4)