Why are today's adults treated like children?

[fallen-archie]

In previous generations, children often left school at 14 or 16, started work, married, went to war or took part in National Service, all before the old age of majority of 21. Nowadays, they are just as likely to be in full-time education until their mid-twenties and still living at home, shielded from the concerns and anxieties of adult responsibility from which Dr Williams wants them to be further protected.

Arguably, children are less prepared now for adulthood than ever so why are adults today treated like children?

We are told on a daily basis how to live our lives by people who seem to have taken it upon themselves to assail us with instructions, demands, advice and warnings, spoken as well as written. Rail commuters are constantly hectored. On the Sunday after the clocks went back one October, passengers waiting on the platform were treated to the following: "Here is an announcement. The hour has changed this weekend which means that it may be darker than usual when you return home at your normal time. Please take care."

Whenever it rains, we are informed in grave tones that this means the station concourse will be wet and therefore slippery. During a cold spell cautions were  being issued every five minutes; there were, however, fewer explanations of why the trains had stopped running. In the summer, when the temperature rises much above 60F, we are importuned to carry a bottle of water at all times as though we are about to trek across the Sahara. We must also never forget to take all our belongings with us.

My favourite announcement advises passengers that beggars sometimes operate on the train and we must not give money to them because the rail company "has made a donation to a homeless charity on your behalf".

Who is it that decides to issue such patronisingly idiotic advice, and why? Do they have training colleges dedicated to devising phrases that will sound irritating and condescending in equal measure?

The masters of this genre are, of course, government departments, which seemingly employ armies of bureaucrats compiling statements of the blindingly obvious presumably because they have nothing else to do.

We are grateful to  a former  minister, for this gem: "Whatever the weather, a traditional festive walk is a great way for families and friends to avoid that sluggish feeling and have a more active Christmas." You don't say. In any case, how does the suggestion that we venture out for this walk "whatever the weather" square with the counsel of the AA or the Met Office whenever a flake of snow falls from the sky that we should "only travel if absolutely necessary". Soon, we will go to work accompanied by a disembodied voice telling us to "breathe in, breathe out".

We are exhorted and harangued, often for no obvious reason other than that someone or some agency feels it necessary to ensure all possibility of risk or potential for discomfort are removed from our lives. I had thought this had something to do with a fear of being sued – but there is a deeper reason.

We live increasingly in a world where it is assumed that the authorities, whoever they are, will look after us. The trouble is that many people believe they should be looked after. Society is gradually being infantilised; and it is this that destroys individualism, erodes common sense, removes discretion, stifles creativity and entrenches dependency.

We are all to blame: it is easy to point to a scapegoat when anything goes wrong, and our children are chaperoned wherever they go, yet they are more adventurous than we were, travelling the world and hurling themselves out of planes or off bridges attached to elasticated rope. Only at home are they cossetted by parents with a disproportionate idea of danger and a government that thinks it is helping matters by turning much of the adult population into a reservoir of suspected child molesters.

The biggest change we have seen in recent times is not children growing up too fast, but a paternalistic bossiness that is simply a displacement activity for sensible government and which has infected most walks of life. I wonder if those left on here can think of another outstanding example of this behaviour?

The bulk of this article is edited and originally appeared in the Daily Telegraph,  written by Philip Johnston.

[cee-dee]

Why are they treated like children? Probably because they act like children?

Anyway, in the times past of which you speak, those with any "authority" were chosen in the light of their achievement(s) and experience in their field. Today, those appointing them seem obsessed with "qualifications". A chosen one may be absolutely bulging with brains and "qualifications" but absolutely useless at doing any real "work". After a time, many fields of work (particularly the bureaucratic) become completely overrun with those of similar ilk.

Looking at complaints about some of the school exams, there have been several reported instances where the questions seem to have been set by a smarty-pants seemingly delighted by inventing obscure trick questions and more interested in how "clever" they were in setting a trick question rather than setting a direct testing question.

Also, in times past books and technical articles were written using a clear typeface which featured serifs and the article also used new paragraphs and/or line spacing for clarity.

All gone now in the sans serif revolution and the world of the jumbled article.

[fallen-archie]

Those were the days

[cee-dee]

You remember them well eh?

[joamur_gosof]

Example 1 

WE are stopping working tax credits to persuade people to work harder..we are the party of the hard working and we are the new middle.... Santa talking to the countries children in a new dumbing down program.

Example 2

'WE the rich are the people who give the poor the tools to make their dreams come true...santas nephew telling the adults to go fly a kite for money as it belongs to the tool makers..

[fallen-archie]

In my day Santa would leave one main present, if lucky a meccano set and a few small stocking fillers. In my Father's Day he might have got an orange which was considered quite exotic. Today we see average families competing for the biggest and best in electronics. We also get free health care for all. Malnutrition is not a common sight on the high street in fact obesity is now the norm. Taxation direct and indirect is massive. Of course workers deserve a fair wage, a living wage but we cannot go on giving stuff away at the rate we do without it impacting elsewhere. If you over tax the super rich they will simply up sticks and go elsewhere, leaving the usual suspects to pick up the tab. 

[evoman3957]

People always want more, whatever it is...Goods, Freedom, Money, Rights.........you name it ; they want more of it. Give them an inch, they want a foot, give them a foot, they want a yard etc. etc. it's self propagating. If somebody else has got something they want and can't have, they are accused of being the haves; while other poor souls are the have nots. Never mind how hard they may have worked for what they've got, or how hard they may have saved, or done without ,until they'd got enough money..........somehow they're to be derided as the "Haves". Better to be somebody, who lives on credit, can't walk past a Pub with a fiver in their pocket and rather go on a package holiday to Spain every year; than spend the money on perhaps a new bed for your kids ( because the springs have gone in theirs ); or a new 3 piece suite ( because the existing one is ripped and got cigarette burns all over it ). I saw people for what they are a long time ago, treating some of them like Children is a result............they're lucky they're treated like human beings at all.

[joamur_gosof]

Nay and yay , not all earn 'ed super rich and not all pauperers are self inflicted ,all are victims of circumstance or oppertunity. so having an opinion one way or the other is to want .

Seeing people and what they are comes from experience and is not a knowledge outside oneself .

'Humans' want what is right and children want .

Social engineering adults made this world for humans and obviously there are trial and errors

Example 3

Santas second cousin first removed but not yet.. blames and wants,feels and needs and of course promises presents and peasants as a way to restore the balance in 'todays' HARD working ....

I've paid my dues Time after time. I've done my sentence But committed no crime. And bad mistakes ‒ I've made a few. I've had my share of sand kicked in my face But I've come through. We are the champions my friend and we just go on and on and on and on and on 🙂

[margaret*e]

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04854XqcfCY

OP has a point.

At 15 I was working,capable of going on a bus to work, 5 miles away, by myself.

My youngest kids, now 27 and 29, left at 18 went to university, and although they have their own homes still phone for a lift from Dad to go take them to work/shops.

[******lynda******]

From my second day at nursery school, I walked to and from on my own. At 8 I was taking my younger brother to the doctors and the dentist. At 11 we moved to a different county. I lived outside the catchment area for school buses. I went alone to grammar school on my first day, in a town I had never even heard of before, via another town I had never heard of before, a 2 bus trip each way, never having been on a bus before. I had to ask where the school was when I got to the town. We were given jobs and responsibilities from a young age, and no one thought they had to break the bank to give us a Christmas or birthday...one main gift and some pens and colouring books or jigsaws, some sweets and an apple and an orange.

[evoman3957]

...........and I bet you grew up a better person for it, more grounded, more respectful, more understanding, more grateful and less tolerant of life's parasites & weirdos and all their excuses to justify the unjustifiable.

[******lynda******]

Not sure I had thought of it like that, but you are probably right. Independent, self reliant, adaptable. I think the era made me tolerant of weirdos, so long as they are not harming anyone, but I do find I am less tolerant than many of people whose idea of poverty includes holidays, wardrobes full of clothes and satellite tv. Today's children don't play outside barefoot.

[dark_castle1]

lynda, children play outside in barefoot ! Are you mad. You would be taken to court if you sent your child even outside to play all wrapped up just like we were NOT ! 

I cannot remember the last time I saw children out playing on Christmas morning with a present they had got. That in itself says a lot about the modern society in my opinion.

I left school on the 23rd of December at 15, joined my first ship and was in Northern Ireland on the 24th and did not see a Christmas at home again until I left the Merchant Navy 12 years later. Your Christams presents in the Navy consisted of a writing pad, envelopes and socks given to you by the Flying Angel Seamans Mission.

Oh and I sent some of my wages home to my mum to help her out.

[evoman3957]

and it's not that generation......OUR generation, that are going out to fight for ISIS. What are these sick children looking for, what hardships have befallen them, that's so much worse than the hardships WE faced, that make them so hateful and easy to manipulate............too little discipline and too much of everything else if you ask me...........So sad that life has become so cheap.

[joamur_gosof]

To no one in particular....and all in unparticular 

if you think its discipline that makes a 'better person'' and you ask ' what drives them to whatever  then discipline is exactly what they will find under groups like  IS so that's what they seek...annnd of course that discipline will make them 'better for it' ....?

To be a better person is to not call or assume on others,unless the others are a direct criminal towards you...then call away at the top of your voice as you are right . if its just something you don't personally like because whatever that drives you to speak then ISIS awaits the disciple's of discipline where folk can vent their hatred on whoever takes their fancy in the ''LOOk'' undicsiplined people ...uuurrrrggghhhhh .not like me I we  our mine us me me.

[evoman3957]

To no one in particular....and all in unparticular

The bottom line is that we live in a World, where people think there is always an excuse to justify the inexcusable.

[joamur_gosof]

the bottom line is where a personal inexcusable lies ...in some cases its look fat people in others its driving tanks over students.

[joamur_gosof]

Ignorance arrogance and bigotry  is where my inexcusable kicks in especially when coupled with an opinion statement.

Why are children or adults treated like anything other than human beings ? discipline or doctrine is the need for dictatorships and education is the key that isn't used enough  to free but instead confused with control instead ....mainly because to be  treated in any way is to suggest we are  broken with the potential to become wrong in someone elses eyes .

Social engineering from lame cretins will always result in the same finger pointing blame scenarios at lame cretins from a personal view..who are peoples lame cretins today ? fat ,,poor , immigrants, rich, banker ,warmongers, smokers, litter droppers ,lane hoggers ...

It should be enough to all want respect for each other but soooo many issues and personal finger pointing ...well look at the world today ...resembles history but should resemble star trek ...you reap what you sow so to speak.

[lambsy_uk]

---

@******lynda****** wrote:
From my second day at nursery school, I walked to and from on my own. At 8 I was taking my younger brother to the doctors and the dentist. At 11 we moved to a different county. I lived outside the catchment area for school buses. I went alone to grammar school on my first day, in a town I had never even heard of before, via another town I had never heard of before, a 2 bus trip each way, never having been on a bus before. I had to ask where the school was when I got to the town. We were given jobs and responsibilities from a young age, and no one thought they had to break the bank to give us a Christmas or birthday...one main gift and some pens and colouring books or jigsaws, some sweets and an apple and an orange.

---

I can tell my own story of walking to school, catching buses by myself, working from the age of 16 and getting only a handful of presents for Christmas.

However although my girls get a lift to school and back more often than not; they do have to walk at least a couple of times per week, 2.4 miles each way. They do get more presents for Christmas though not the 'I Phones' and Play Stations you see some get, often those who can least afford it who think they have to buy love. I have to pester my girls to carry their pay-as-you-go phones in case I have to call them,

But then I recall the kids I grew up with who got new bikes for Christmas, again often those who could least afford it; while I got a handful of presents and had parents working 2 jobs to send my brother to private school.

Fundementally I don't think things have changed all that much. I can afford a few extra presents for my girls but they don't get spoilt, that is left to those who value possesions rather too highly, but we've always had those people around! The thing is I give what I can afford although they don't expect much; many others given what they can't afford and it becomes expected of them. That is rather childish!

[ravendays]

Why?  Because the limp wristed vote for either Tory or Labour every five years.  Next!