Are Today’s Children Spoilt?

No! I really think that human nature is the same over millenia. Older generations keep saying, always, that the younger one is spoiled, lazy, etc. 

I don’t think so. 

When I look at my daughters, I see no big difference with me. Yes, they want some entertainment and don’t realize, yet, they everything has its cost. Well, that’s fine for their age. 

I didn’t have a smartphone with games and internet. They do.

I had other kinds of fun, like playing football or hockey. And I’m a boy. 

They have their own, thanks to the new technologies. 

I haven’t been abroad in my school years because I lived in the USSR. They have been to other countries, including North Cyprus. That’s fine. 

I don’t see that they wish, essentially, something more than I had been wishing for. 

So now, I maybe don’t like the music they listen to, or videos they watch. 

Yet, their children will be surprising them in the future to come. 

The Wheel of Life is making another turn. 

Are today’s children spoilt?

I was brought up during the austere 1950s, when Britain was doing its utmost to recover from the war and make life a little easier.

You might say we had nothing – very few toys with which to play, and absolutely no spare cash for treats like ice cream. I would argue that, despite that, we actually had everything.

We were allowed outside at the crack of dawn. Our friends also “had nothing”, so none of us thought we were better than anybody else. We could disappear into the woods with not a parent in sight; we could fall out of trees, dust ourselves down and carry on, without worrying that our parents would be suing the local authority for some trumped-up charge of negligence.

We had boundaries. We could stay out all day, but we had to be home by the time the street lights came on – in other words, just before dark. Yes, we might get a hiding if we abused that curfew, but we never, ever considered it to be child abuse. It was simply the way things were.

Imagine all that freedom. Imagine all that lack of stress.

There were far fewer cars on the streets, so we played every sport imaginable, outside, on the roads, in the fresh air, virtually every day of our childhood lives. We invented games, made things up as we went along, argued, fell out, made up again and got on with it.

Thirty years later, when my own children were young, things had changed considerably.

They were brought up on the British island of Jersey, where 17-year-olds expected, on their birthday, to be presented with a car. The posh kids got a brand-new model; the others, like my two, got a rusty wreck from the local shady dealer – and that had to suffice. Compared with my childhood, they were positively spoilt.

But were they? They had more possessions, certainly. They had more opportunities. They had far greater freedom to travel and experience the world.

But they also had more traffic, more parental supervision, more organised activities and, increasingly, a world in which children were expected to be protected from virtually every possible risk.

Then came the next generation. My grandchildren would never expect a car for their 17th birthday. In fact, I suspect that for many young people today, a car would be rather less exciting than it was to my children.

Instead, they have something I could never have dreamt about as a child: instant access to almost the entire world. Smartphones, tablets, computers, streaming services, gaming, instant communication and more entertainment available at the touch of a screen than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams. So, surely they must be the most spoilt generation of all?

Well… perhaps not. Because along with all those wonderful gadgets comes something we never had to worry about. Comparison.

Today, a child can compare their entire life with hundreds of other children before breakfast. Who has the best clothes, went on the best holiday, has the latest phone, looks the best, has the most followers, received the most likes??

Imagine being twelve years old and having a constant, electronic popularity contest taking place in your pocket. Suddenly, my childhood doesn’t sound quite so deprived. We just went outside.

So maybe we shouldn’t be asking whether today’s children are spoilt. Perhaps we should be asking whether we gave them the right things to be spoilt with. Because, looking back, I wouldn’t swap my lack of toys, my bruised knees, my muddy clothes, my childhood freedom and my friends for all the technology in the world.

And I’m not sure I’d swap the rusty old car, either. Well… perhaps I would.

Are today’s children spoilt?

I have thought about this several times over the years and my short answer is no, I don’t believe children are more spoilt today than in years past. In fact, I think they are more mature & responsible. Yeah, here me out.

Let’s go back to the 1950’s. In America the kids were listening to Rock-n-Roll (OMG), they drove shiny Chevrolets and listened to Elvis the Pelvis. And what’s up with that hair? What will become of us when they start to run the country? They will fuel the greatest economic boom in history, that’s what.

How about 100 years ago? In the 1920s young ladies wore short dresses that showed their legs. They have no modesty! They call themselves “Flapper Girls” and listened to radios and record players. Dancing… OK, jumping around like insane people. What will become of us when they start to run the country? They will fight World War Two and become known as The Greatest Generation, that’s what.

My argument is simple: each generation thinks the next will disappoint. They look backwards and romanticize a world that never existed. Mayberry is not a real town and Andy & Barney never walked any street. We all do it. Many countries around the world have some version of Make America Great Again. It’s all make believe.

As for “these kids today”:

If the worst thing you can say about someone is that they got their first iPhone too early, in YOUR opinion, that’s pretty damn good, in MY opinion.