It's a change of generation

I am 25 years old. I was born in 1990 (at the end) just to throw that out there. But still I was born in at a time where our parents were married, they had probably been together since they were teenagers and when we were born it was the best day of our parents lives.

I know in my case all of the above applied. I mean I was 7 weeks early (once again my argument that I am SO impatient and NEVER late) so that wasn't an enjoyable moment around my birth but everything else about my life from day one has been pretty darn perfect. I have an older brother, someone to look out for me and slap a few mean boys around if I need him to (hypothetically of course) my parents are as loved up now as they were when they were first together (Actually happy Anniversary for tomorrow...29 years?) We had a dog, we spent time with my grandparents who were and still are some of my best friends and we just got on with being kids.

Don't get me wrong school was a nightmare for me, my brother....hard to tell. We were polar opposites as kids. I wanted to be centre of attention pretending to be baby spice whilst Tom was sit in the corner playing Kirby (how good was that game) on his Gameboy pretending he couldn't hear me, I mean he only admits to being able to hear me now and it's 23 years on!

But my point is I think the 90's kids were the last of the stereotypical kids. We didn't have a tainted view of the world like kids do nowadays. We didn't see everything through the screen of an iPhone and our parents didn't stop us from crying by giving us an iPad. We are the generation of get outside and make your own fun. The micro scooter and moon boots kids. We watched videos and listened to cassette tapes. Social media wasn't even a thought...christ the internet wasn't a thought! Computers were as big as shopping trolleys and the main worry girls had were if they had the right pencil case for school "Whats in now bubblegum girls or groovy chick?'

We learnt to get on with things by using our own brains. We couldn't learn things in 2 seconds off Google,we had to go out and experience things for ourselves. We couldn't be nice to someones face then post a cryptic message on Facebook ten minutes later. We couldn't even change plans without ringing our friend off the house landline. 

This post was spurred on by seeing a toddler in work with his parents the other day. He sat on the sofa and was SO quiet I was a bit worried (kids normally go manic) but he was so focused on reading his COMIC BOOK I was amazed. He was actually reading a Beano and do you know what the sad thing was? I thought...I wander how many kids would find that geeky or laugh at him nowadays?

How many kids would find it funny that someone wanted to read something physical than chase pokemon on a phone?

The same gap generations applies as we got older. Drugs, alcohol, sex even weren't things that we ever really knew about or talked about. I can even vividly remember swearing for the first time. Now I know I might sound sheltered and spoilt but I never felt the need to get drunk or try drugs or sleep around as a 14 year old girl. Nowadays....that wouldn't be a shock.

Don't get me wrong my time from the age of 12 to 16 was spent trying to avoid the bullies who were making my life hell but even then....these things weren't apparent to us. By the time we were 17 me and my friends started to smuggle the odd Smirnoff Ice off our parents and convince ourselves we were hammered whilst having house parties but it was never a must do.

The amount of..well kids...nowadays who do drugs (I'm being deadly serious when I say I thought you smoked MDMA) blows my mind. Young girls and guys walk around dressed exactly the same, screaming, shouting, swearing, spitting and talking about how they 'were so lit at the weekend' after they took some rancid combination of drugs off some dodgy 18 year old student who parks his Corsa in a carpark and prays on kids who want to act cool. 

Don't get me wrong, if a grown responsible adult wants to take drugs I have absolutely nothing against it. If you know what you're taking, what it will do to you and that you can stop when you need to then go ahead. I have never and will never try drugs so I can't cast an opinion on the affect but you now what I mean.

It's kids from the ages of 13 (especially the girls who look  18) that are worrying.

Social Media paints a picture of what girls and guys should look like, what they should be doing and how they should be doing it. The world forces people to grow up way faster than it ever did before. 

The life formed through filters and snapchat dog faces is not the life that we had when we were kids.

We are the generation who have grown up with work ethic, life skills and memories of having fun. Our childhoods weren't built on fake idols. We grew up idolising our parents and wanting to be the same adults that our parents are. We are not the generation who want to look like Kim Kardashian and stop eating carbs at 15.

I just think it's a shame that kids no longer get to be kids.

Teenagers are adults and adults are the people getting disrespected at the end of it.

I guess its a shame to me but its also 20 years since I was wearing a mini skirt and platforms with my hair in bunches pretending to be baby spice.

xoxo