Our generation

Most days, we just live our lives, following the same routine, meeting the same people, holding the same beliefs and worldviews.
But then every once in a while, something happens that shakes things up. It could be a good event that restores your faith in humanity. Or it could be something so horrendous that it makes you clutch and claw at your face and wish that you didn’t live on this planet.

And unfortunately, there has been a lot of the latter types of events occurring, with the recent shoot-out at the Dark Knight Rises movie premier taking disturbing to a whole new level.
Twenty four-year-old James Holmes (calling himself the ‘Joker’) allegedly killed 12 people and injured 58 others in his gun rampage. His apparently well planned attack included multiple guns, dyed hair and tear gas and no doubt leaves people wondering, “What is WRONG with that guy? Is he psycho or something?” It then in turn begs the question, what is wrong with people nowadays? I mean, there has been a lot of rage comics and whatnot on the internet about how the current generation is messed up.
Things like 11year olds complaining about their boyfriends (or lack of a boyfriend), things like 12 year-olds talking about having sex and 13 year olds using language that would make even the most foulmouthed sailor blush. And you know, I was like, ‘Well those are just those crazy American kids.’
I forgot about the enormous influence American media has on everybody’s lives and now their crazy morals are seeping over to Guyana. Kids who haven’t experienced puberty yet are posting Facebook statuses about unrequited love and heartbreaks.
Hopefully things don’t get so far out of hand that we’ll have to create a Guyanese version of MTV’s ‘16 and Pregnant.’ But who’s to blame for this type of behaviour? Lots of blame seems to be heaped heavily only on the current generation for their behaviour. But who’s the one passing judgement and dishing out the blame? Why the previous generation of course – our parents, aunts, uncles etc.
But an important question is – who raised our generation to be the ‘monsters’ that they’re labelled as? The same set of people who are condemning this generation’s behaviour.
Don’t you think, if the mom of that 16 year-old had sat down with her, and spent time to advise her and listen to her problems and in short, if that mom had been a good mom, would that girl have gone out partying and getting pregnant? If that dad had laid down rules and curfews, how would she have been out partying and getting wasted on alcohol and drugs? If her mom had taken the time to help her develop a sense of self-respect, mightn’t she have turned out differently?
Kids TV shows are morphing into mindless junk. Gone are the days of Jimmy Neutron, Dragon Tales, and Clifford the Big Red Dog. I think I gave up on kids TV when they kicked out Clifford to show Boohbah. And then there are violent cartoons like ‘Happy Tree Friends’ which pass parental control restrictions because on the surface they seem to be just cute and cuddly animals – which they are, except halfway through the show they start hacking off each other’s limbs.
And yet parents plop their kids down in front of the TV all day and expect them to become perfect kids, expecting the TV or whoever and whatever to give their kids the guidance they’re neglecting to give them.
Hopefully in Guyana, we won’t have to do a show like ‘16 and Pregnant’ maybe we’ll have to do something like ‘24 and Successful’.