Generation X parents of highschoolers, do teens party less now than we did?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yup. Proud Gen Xer, here. My bff’s boyfriend was in the service and bought us all the liquor we could drink and more. We had co-ed sleepovers and drank our faces off. Those were the days. My entire parenting ethos has been to help my kid avoid all that and I have done well.

I truly believe that's what caused the whole tiger/helicopter parenting thing to occur. Parents who partied way too hard when they were younger, don't want to see their kids do the same. And I will admit I am guilty as charged - and I actually think it's a good thing! Yes, I have glorious memories of my decadent past, but I am happy as hell that I'm not raising my own teens in the same culture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They don’t party less. They’re just smarter about it. Drugs can be concealed as candy, vaping weed, and yes pills. Sometimes their parents pills or a friends pills.

Every survey shows that teen rates of sex, drinking, drug use has been declining since the early 90's. Yet teens actually are partying less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous[b wrote:]Y'all are nuts.[/b] Kids using weed in all forms as if it were a cigarette of our day. And drinking. All still there.

We're not nuts. Survey after survey shows that teens don't partake of weed (in any form) nearly as much as teens in the 70s/80's did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Definitely. I’m 46 with two in HS. And they— and their friends— are incredibly wholesome. I think there are several things going on.

I grew up in the rural South and cruised WalMart on Friday evenings. There was nothing to do. Having nothing to do is a great way to get into trouble. That isn’t a problem in the DMV.

Getting into college is so much harder and my kids workloads are incredible. And HSs no longer let kids phone in sports in ECs. They do them 15 hours a week. Kids just have less time to get in trouble.

We also live in a very education conscious area of the country. The peer pressure is to get into TJ or UVA or WM, not to drink and do drugs.

I think comprehensive sex education, drug and alcohol education etc., every year, for ES helps.

I think we were the product of liaissez faire parenting. Even if you want to free range/80s style parent in the DMV, you can’t without CPS getting involved. The expectation is that that you will monitor your kid 24/7. Helicopter parenting has become a thing.

I think technology makes it easier to keep tabs on your kids, stalk them on Find My Friends, coordinate with other parents, monitor social media and texts for problems, etc.

I think in the era of me too and social host liability, people take serving kids underage and sexual assault much more seriously.

We’ve also moved forward on identifying, treating and taking some of the stigma away from mental illness, learning disabilities, ADHD, etc. and teachers are more likely to point out these problems to parents and school systems have adapted to help kids achieve even with LDs. When we were kids, you adapted to the school. And if you couldn’t, too bad. So, kids get help and can have academic success. .

So yeah. I think kids are more wholesome. For a lot of reasons.

I hear a lot of people claim this. That it's more prevalent for kids in rural areas to party because there's nothing else to do, but I know plenty of people who are our age (I'm 46 as well) who grew up in places like NYC, who were doing just as much partying. In fact they were actually going to bars, (it was relatively easy to fake ID's and clubs didn't really seem to care about enforcing the law) I really see absolutely no difference in the level of partying that was taking place at that time between rural/urban kids. It's just that city kids were going to night clubs and rural kids were having big parties in corn fields.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Definitely. I’m 46 with two in HS. And they— and their friends— are incredibly wholesome. I think there are several things going on.

I grew up in the rural South and cruised WalMart on Friday evenings. There was nothing to do. Having nothing to do is a great way to get into trouble. That isn’t a problem in the DMV.

Getting into college is so much harder and my kids workloads are incredible. And HSs no longer let kids phone in sports in ECs. They do them 15 hours a week. Kids just have less time to get in trouble.

We also live in a very education conscious area of the country. The peer pressure is to get into TJ or UVA or WM, not to drink and do drugs.

I think comprehensive sex education, drug and alcohol education etc., every year, for ES helps.

I think we were the product of liaissez faire parenting. Even if you want to free range/80s style parent in the DMV, you can’t without CPS getting involved. The expectation is that that you will monitor your kid 24/7. Helicopter parenting has become a thing.

I think technology makes it easier to keep tabs on your kids, stalk them on Find My Friends, coordinate with other parents, monitor social media and texts for problems, etc.

I think in the era of me too and social host liability, people take serving kids underage and sexual assault much more seriously.

We’ve also moved forward on identifying, treating and taking some of the stigma away from mental illness, learning disabilities, ADHD, etc. and teachers are more likely to point out these problems to parents and school systems have adapted to help kids achieve even with LDs. When we were kids, you adapted to the school. And if you couldn’t, too bad. So, kids get help and can have academic success. .

So yeah. I think kids are more wholesome. For a lot of reasons.

This is a huge part of it, but the entire country has become more education conscious, so that in large part explains why teens overall are less likely to party. It's not just a DMV thing. My nephew attends the same high school that I did, which is not in an area nearly as affluent as this, and the number of students taking AP classes and heavily involved in activities is way higher than it was when I was in HS. It just seems like the % of kids who care about these things is a lot higher than it used to be. I think there are just less f**k up kids in general.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this thread a joke?

Have you not heard of the opioid crisis - which kills tens of thousands of young Americans annually? There’s nothing Gen X did that comes close. Plus every teen is vaping; pot is pretty much legal and heavily glorified by celebs and social media; SSRIs Xanax and Adderall are handed out like candy and glorified by celebs and social media.

The opiod crisis definitely seems to be the exception to the overall more wholesome teen now, but from what I can tell, it really does seem to be very isolated to specific populations. Yes, I'm sure that people living in Ohio, Appalachia, some parts of the NE, can't relate to the "wholesome" studios teen image that we are describing, but honestly I think the heroin thing is very prevalent in very limited areas. My HS daughters literally have never heard of anyone on opiods. You can say what you want but surveys still consistently show that overall teens are engaging in sex, drugs, and alcohol at much lower rates than the 70/s and 80/s and this is a trend that started int he 90's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this thread a joke?

Have you not heard of the opioid crisis - which kills tens of thousands of young Americans annually? There’s nothing Gen X did that comes close. Plus every teen is vaping; pot is pretty much legal and heavily glorified by celebs and social media; SSRIs Xanax and Adderall are handed out like candy and glorified by celebs and social media.

The opiod crisis definitely seems to be the exception to the overall more wholesome teen now, but from what I can tell, it really does seem to be very isolated to specific populations. Yes, I'm sure that people living in Ohio, Appalachia, some parts of the NE, can't relate to the "wholesome" studios teen image that we are describing, but honestly I think the heroin thing is very prevalent in very limited areas. My HS daughters literally have never heard of anyone on opiods. You can say what you want but surveys still consistently show that overall teens are engaging in sex, drugs, and alcohol at much lower rates than the 70/s and 80/s and this is a trend that started int he 90's.

I realize this word makes no sense here. I didn't type it and have no idea how it appeared!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous[b wrote:]Y'all are nuts.[/b] Kids using weed in all forms as if it were a cigarette of our day. And drinking. All still there.

We're not nuts. Survey after survey shows that teens don't partake of weed (in any form) nearly as much as teens in the 70s/80's did.

"Surveys" are think tank propaganda used to sway public opinion and policy. Prime example: "Surveys"/"research" says kids totally don't smoke weed anymore, so we might as well legalize it!

I also love the Beltway anecdote that teens are too stressed out trying to get into TJ and UVA (lol) -- actual data shows SAT scores are falling and US k-12 education is a growing global joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this thread a joke?

Have you not heard of the opioid crisis - which kills tens of thousands of young Americans annually? There’s nothing Gen X did that comes close. Plus every teen is vaping; pot is pretty much legal and heavily glorified by celebs and social media; SSRIs Xanax and Adderall are handed out like candy and glorified by celebs and social media.

The opiod crisis definitely seems to be the exception to the overall more wholesome teen now, but from what I can tell, it really does seem to be very isolated to specific populations. Yes, I'm sure that people living in Ohio, Appalachia, some parts of the NE, can't relate to the "wholesome" studios teen image that we are describing, but honestly I think the heroin thing is very prevalent in very limited areas. My HS daughters literally have never heard of anyone on opiods. You can say what you want but surveys still consistently show that overall teens are engaging in sex, drugs, and alcohol at much lower rates than the 70/s and 80/s and this is a trend that started int he 90's.

Aww yes, only white trash in flyover are popping opioids and xanax, snorting adderall, and shooting heroin. It's not happening in UMC bubbles! So darn deluded and gullible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a 9th. grader and 7th. By the time I was in 9th. I had smoked pot, drank, was hanging out with friends. So, yes I have heard that. They have their phones!

Yes. Also a wealth of stuff to watch on tv. When I was a teen, Friday and Saturday were horribly boring if you didn’t go out. Now my kid will have a few friend over. They binge a tv show on Netflix or Hulu, cook from scratch, and FaceTime friends at other houses doing the same. They might go to a school dance or game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous[b wrote:]Y'all are nuts.[/b] Kids using weed in all forms as if it were a cigarette of our day. And drinking. All still there.

We're not nuts. Survey after survey shows that teens don't partake of weed (in any form) nearly as much as teens in the 70s/80's did.

"Surveys" are think tank propaganda used to sway public opinion and policy. Prime example: "Surveys"/"research" says kids totally don't smoke weed anymore, so we might as well legalize it!

I also love the Beltway anecdote that teens are too stressed out trying to get into TJ and UVA (lol) -- actual data shows SAT scores are falling and US k-12 education is a growing global joke.

Do you have a kid in a decent school in the DMV? I doubt it.

As for SAT scores, you realized the test has been redesigned and renormed several times since Gen X took it? Comparing 1990 SAT scores to 2019 SAT scores is apples to oranges. They are different tests with different grading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Its the gaming, YouTube, and social media. Before all this, kids were bored and had to get together for entertainment. Then they were bored together and came up with bad ideas of what to do.

A good amount of the drinking in high school is to ease social anxiety when being in a large group and not knowing what to do. When they are in gaming groups, they know what to do because they playing something. Its stupid but it has a purpose to them. Getting drunk doesn't help their game performance.

Sounds like our kids hang out together!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Y'all are nuts. Kids using weed in all forms as if it were a cigarette of our day. And drinking. All still there.

Is this what your high schooler tells you? If so, that is a huge red flag. My mama didn’t give a damn what anybody else’s child was doing, but that didn’t stop me from trying to use it as an excuse.

[Anonymous]

This is not your imagination, OP. A recent and massive CDC study found that teens today are drinking less and having sex less than Gen X teens.

For a quick summary, see:
https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2019/06/27/teenagers

And see:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/23/upshot/euphoria-hbo-teens-sex-drugs.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, I don't buy that claim either. I have to admit, as a parent I'm glad that teens aren't as wild as they used to be, but I sure do have some fond memories of doing things, that I would never want my teens to do now!

+1. I was absolutely off-the-hook out of control in HS, basically did everything short of heroin and needles (and the only reason I never tried heroin was because I preferred stimulants - coke or meth? I was there with bells on ). No (major) regrets, and I outgrew it, but I sure am happy my kids didn't go down the same path.