THE FAMILY GULF

FWR Says:  We have a family gap and a family gulf

We now know that there is a growing gap between the rich and the poor. There is every sign this will continue with the poor growing much faster than the rich. The days ahead for our children will mean lower living standards and the need to recapture our work ethic.

There is an even scarier picture of the family gulf. Here is an example: A teen group was making a presentation about their recent great camp experience. The audience was older adults.

The most notable feature of the presentation was the language used by the teens. If “awesome”, “like” and “cool” were deleted there was little other words and phrases used.

A second notable feature was their music. This is a misnomer because their tunes didn’t have any of the harmony, melody or phrasing found in conventional music of their audience.

We know that the current generation of youth has special problems. The unemployment rates are so high that many join protests just to feel that they belong somewhere. Their suicide rates are especially high. We have a generation of youth who are rootless.

In earlier days youth rebelled. In those times, however, their communities were stable - school, church and families were on the same page. There was a sense of belonging not shaken by teen pranks. Now is different. Our communities are much less stable - marriages are fragmented, religion is hardly relevant and in schools they learn undesirable behaviour often overshadowing their studies.

Too many of our youth are rootless with no prospects of improvement despite the good efforts of many community agencies.

The big youth message could be that our “proper” society looks phony to them. Are they saying they don’t want to be in the money rat race to buy more and more things?

FWR says:  Sorely needed is much more dialogue between the generations.