Many of us nowadays hear something on the news, from coworkers, or from our children when they come home from school, and we ask, "Dear Lord, what IS this world coming to?"
Sometimes we turn to our friends or family members, and gripe about the youth today, and how they are so different then when "we" were kids.

Personally, I am so sick and tired of hearing people my parents age, my grandparents age constantly stating things such as, "We NEVER had to deal with lock-downs," "We would never see guns at school," "We wouldn't even swear at teachers," "WE WERE RAISED WITH RESPECT."

Hello! We didn't just "evolve" into a bunch of gun-wielding, marijuana smoking, mouthy, rebellious, young adults, grooving to a hip-hop beat on our ipods.

Here's a wake up call ... MY generation HAS been bred from somewhere...

From single mothers, working their behinds off to just get by. Forced to leave their children alone at night so they can try to get ahead, because Welfare won't allow them to. From fathers who were raised without fathers, so they know nothing about what's it's like to actually be one.

From suburban parents who think that by handing their children the world, they have somehow benefited ours. From television that tells us we're too fat, and not to worry about losing weight, because by the time we get skinny enough, big butts will be back in.

From music that says, screw the police, and as many people as you can. Life is about you, and your family, and who's got the biggest diamond around their neck. From people who saw movements; witnessed extraordinary acts by people such as Rosa Parks, or Martin Luther King, and decided that they would still teach their children to see colour.

From governments that decided that after-school programs weren't worth it, but that the new Grand Theft Auto 3 was.

Please, give your heads a shake and realize ... We came from you.

I find it unfair that if YOU were raised with such respect, you wouldn't have passed down such an important virtue to the generation that will be depended on to take care of you when you are unable to do so anymore. We are your future doctors, lawyers, teachers. We will be the ones who hold your head up and feed you, after we change your diapers in the nursing home.

Or will we?

Everyone is so quick to say the youth is the future, and whine and cry about, "What is this world coming to?" Well, YOU, my dear Watson, are our past.

Please think about THAT before the next time you are so quick to judge us. Because, while you sit there, and shake your head, wondering what this world is coming to, we'll be thinking about it, too, at the same time as we try to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions you so inconveniently pushed into our air.

Now ain't that the truth?

Learn more about this author, Robin Bond.
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