Revelling
No celebration in Dublin now seems complete without excessive amounts of alcohol, which brings with it the need the need to vomit in public places, to fight with anyone who might be passing and to urinate in the street – and if you don’t believe me, then come and watch our suburban dual carriageway some weekend evening. Saint Patrick’s night featured a gang of fifteen or sixteen year old youths walking down the road, shouting obscenities at each other and at anyone passing by; urinating in the shrubs; and smashing beer bottles on the pavement. This is a good night out for some people in Ireland.
Flicking through You Tube for stuff from Bayonne, I found a Basque band giving an impromptu street recital amidst very merry revellers late one night last summer
No broken glass in sight; no vomit; and no incontinent young men.
Where did we get it wrong?
It started just after our generation Ian, the inability to discipline children properly,and I dont mean thrash them, the breakdown of family values and respect for our elders and knowing when to stop.Everything now has to be done to excess, the yobs know that no-one can touch them.That behavior has been going on over here for years, unfortunately.
There was a prominent ex-Children’s court magistrate on the news last night talking exactly about this sort of thing. She recommended parenting classes to help reestablish the connection with wayward teens then added “The problem is, it’s only the good parents who attend!” How do we get parents to realise that they are failing their children! I think we have to accept responsibility as well. We are the nub of the family. Having said that, we have to be careful not to tar all with the same brush. I often have ‘drunken’ revellers at my place but yobbo behaviour is not their ‘thing’. They’re just noisy and fun!
French society has undergone radical changes, but seems to have been better able to cope.
Perhaps they are more authoritarian, perhaps we are too liberal.
The problem has to be tackled very early in childhood. The difficulty comes in that young children are watching their parents doing this week in week out and know no better. I frequently see children of six and seven openly smoking, a nine year old smoking cannibas and if the teenagers are about with their cider or beer than the younger ones will be taking swigs and nobody bats an eyelid. If you talk to parents some will promise to sort it out and then do nothing and others refuse to believe it and you are then in the wrong for accusing their child. The parents who would listen are not he ones you need to reach as it’s not their children involved. What is the answer? Maybe it’s too late.