12:12pm Friday 11th July 2008
By Colin Baker
IT IS a perplexing time, observing our young moving from childhood into the world that we have fashioned for them. And I use those last words advisedly. It is the world that we have created that they now inherit.
And it could be argued that we haven't done as good a job as our parents did for us.
Admittedly, the Second World War focussed the minds of that generation upon what was worth standing up for.
We, by comparison, have given our children much more in terms of material possessions, experiences and opportunities, creating perhaps a greater visible divide than has existed before for those who see themselves as "have-nots".
Last week I saw stark examples of two extremes. I saw a group of youngsters gathered from many of our local schools performing in a marvellous production of On the Town' in Windsor.
All the young people involved should be rightly very proud of their effort and the result.
When the show ended, they celebrated together at a restaurant and one of their number was the victim of an unprovoked attack in the street afterwards by two complete strangers, for some reason they alone could fathom.
I went to pick up my daughter and had trouble finding her in the streets of Windsor because she had said "You'll see the blue flashing lights!" - and there were three separate incidents attended by police involving street violence in that small town on that one night.
On the one hand you have young people who seize the various opportunities they are given to get together constructively, which no-one can deny are infinitely more varied and abundant than in my childhood.
On the other hand there are those who perceive themselves as deprived and yet are able to buy drink in such quantities as to negate whatever tiny amount of self-discipline they have learned, from parents who either don't care or are frightened that social services will come down on them if they try to discipline their children.
Teachers then are often unreasonably expected to pick up the pieces of this breakdown of family responsibility without being given the parental authority to do so or any official support when they try.
The epidemic of knife crime is the extreme example of this abysmal failure of us all to provide these young people with the feeling of self worth that comes through tough love.
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