When we are not being compared to a feral scum terrorising the elderly, literally chasing them as they zimmer back to their bungalows from run down council estates and ramshackled shopping parades, our behaviour is being put down to our mental wellbeing. This thinking is amply demonstrated by my own parents, who waver between thinking I am a complete wildchild write off who will eventually have to, presumably via some process of soul searching and self reflection, find my own way to maturity, to some self-destructive, bi-polar manic depressive in need of counselling or sectioning under the mental health act.
So we are to be feared or pitied, grossly irresponsible or not responsible, fuckers or fucked? I remember hearing about a year ago how we came bottom of some UN study into the “childhood experience” across several Western countries (see here). The media talk about childhood here as if it is some kind of assault course, to be survived not enjoyed. It does not help that we have become a nation of whiny bitches, and this can be very much attributable to learned behaviour: our habitual revelling in salacious bad news and our out and out indifference to the positive.
My Mum sucks up the ether of my rather obvious rebellion and spews it out amongst her friends to enhance how hard done by she is. My Dad turns away, as if my behaviour is the product of anything but his failure; the media, peer pressure, the cloistered life of modern day kids, lack of school discipline, the Americans, you name it he has blamed it, either directly or by inference. I think to my Dad, both him as a parent and me as a child are merely pawns being pushed along predetermined paths by cultural forces, a drift against which we are powerless.
Well, I call bullshit on that and seeking excuses for our failures. The main problem is that no one takes responsibility for their action, which goes for both parents and kids. I have done things that would make my parents freak out, things that are much “worse” than even my mother suspects I have got up to; yet, these were very much my decisions and I am not going to spin some kack about how it is all down to my parents, or being led astray, or some mental issues. Fuck that.
“One in 10 youngsters questioned in a survey disagreed that “life was really worth living”. Those not in work or education were less likely to be happy.”
Oh please. Even I trot out such nihilistic garbage from time to time. What does it even mean? That they are all going to top themselves? It is just a regular expression of the powerlessness me and my peers sometimes feel with life. The rate amongst the next age bracket up will probably be less yeah, and why? Well, cos that is when people do all that shit designed to give life meaning like buy a house, get hitched and start breeding.
Of those questioned, 29% said they are less happy now than they were as a child and one in five said they felt like crying “often” or “always”.
I can’t even remember how happy I was yesterday. I mean seriously. I was probably very fucking happy when I only had to get up eat, play with toys and someone else wiped my ass for me. We get more miserable when the gap between out expectations and reality gets bigger, so when your expectations consist of crayoning and eating dirt, you are probably not going to feel let down or angsty about not achieving those things. The crying thing is quite laughable really. One in five of my peers are sat there on the verge of tears? I cry at Disney movies, I cry when my favorite gets voted off X Factor and I cry when I turn on the TV and see dead Palestinian babies. We have a culture where everyone is seeking to be more introspective than the next person, where we are encouraged to emote, to rage and to be expressive (blogs being part of that); all of most gratifying to the ego of course. My Dad cries if his team gets knocked out of the cup. In short, we cry about loads of inconsequential shite, and probably alot more so than we used to. We want to be able to feel something because we have lived our lives without the presence of real things to cry about: it is pathetic.
Key to levels of happiness, were relationships with family and friends, although health, money and work were also important.
What is this, an exercises in stating the bleeding obvious? Happiness is a pair of strappy peep toe pumps you had forgotten you had. It’s like bumping into an big cocked ex when he is E’d off his tits and his girlfriend is away doing some missionary work on the Gaza strip. Although, maybe health, money and work are also something to do with it….
“Children must be given the chance to speak out, be heard and participate in setting the political agenda about issues affecting their lives, if we are to build stronger, safer and more inclusive communities,” he said.
Yeah, good luck with that. Why do all these kids charities people they interview talk the kind of language that is instantly a major turn off for kids? Yes, we need to create spaces where kids feel comfortable airing their issues, but solutions to most kids issues are local and are not going to be solved by some political agenda. Kids are en vogue as a political topic; bashing the ones that are a social menace and helping those that are not. Policy as universal panacea for all kids ills, then they all squabble over which stats prove it is or is not working depending on their political persuasion; talk about operating in completely different spheres.
The other thing that gets me about these studies is the complete lack of historical or demographic comparison. Are we more depressed than kids in the eighties say? I mean, the way my Dad tells it, life under ‘that bitch’ was hell. What about kids in the seventies? The fashion makes me want to cry just watching movies from that era. What about in the forties, as London burned and Britain stood alone? I bet those little chimney sweep pricks never felt more alive. That’s what we need a good visceral close to home crisis; that’ll make JLS losing X Factor seem somewhat unimportant.
What about the adults too? They are probably more fucked up than we are. If you want to see where self-obsession and promotion of ultimately unsatisfying short-term gratification came from, then look no further than the baby boomers and their progeny. They are not only fucked, but they have fucked us too, in every way they could fuck us; emotionally, spiritually, financially and in some cases, and I am not talking exclusively of the Catholic Church here, literally. Their parents expected them to be grateful for the liberty they had trudged over corpses for and my parents expect me to be grateful I have a DVD player in my bedroom: I am grateful as it happens, I just don’t feel I should show it and further, I do also wish it was a Blu-ray Player.
Rambling once again. Must be time to cry.
X- Lon -X
