Anonymous wrote:Depending on age (1980 would be younger than me, for example) many of us came up on the heels of "the 60's" but before AIDS and Nancy Reagan kicked in. The drinking age in DC was 18 - you saw from the kavanaugh hearings what it was like to be a teen here. Just a different time, but I fear for kids who have never experimented getting into this stuff for the first time while in college.

Yup. '67 here. When the drinking age was 18 (in WV and Ohio), kids drank more, younger and got in trouble less because a drunk 17YO was only months away from being legal anyway, unless they were from PA and driving to a neighboring state to drink. But even in PA, kids could drive to the border, buy and take the party home. It takes a population a while to adjust to a new normal.

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Anonymous wrote:They’re using pills instead. less messy and easier to hide.

You act like Gen X'ers did not pop pills.

We drank cough syrup with codeine

we sure did

Slightly tangential question. Am I the only idiot on here who actually tried to smoke banana peels?

It me. And did you try to make LSD with morning glory seeds? Little did I know that set me up with a lifelong interest and career not as a drugged out loser but a PhD in organic chemistry

Depending on age (1980 would be younger than me, for example) many of us came up on the heels of "the 60's" but before AIDS and Nancy Reagan kicked in. The drinking age in DC was 18 - you saw from the kavanaugh hearings what it was like to be a teen here. Just a different time, but I fear for kids who have never experimented getting into this stuff for the first time while in college.

Anonymous wrote:I have two kids in high school, and I can't get over how "wholesome" teens seem to be now compared to how they used to be. When I was my kids' age, it seemed like a lot more kids drank, smoked, got high, dated/had sex, were out late on weekends going off with their friends, etc. Now it seems like that's relatively rare, when I tell my kids some of the things that I did at their ages, (and I wasn't a wild kid) they are pretty shocked. I know that there are some kids who still do some of the things that I mentioned, but they seem like their the "bad" kids, whereas when I was that age, it was pretty much the norm. Do other Generation X parents notice this as well?

AIDS, M.A.D.D. and "just say no" seem to have worked. But I 100% agree with you.

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And for the record, I AM in a position of authority, and I CAN tell the difference between a kid who is legitimately troubled and those who've just been conditioned by weak-ass adults who are afraid of upsetting them. You sound like the latter type. Can I suggest you buck up, learn to parent, and stop coddling so much? You're NOT doing them any favors.

Words to strike fear into the heart of anyone who was ever a troubled teen who and dealt with moron adults who knew nothing about their life (but were totally sure they knew it all).

I remember teachers who didn't know my mom was an addict telling me all about personal responsibility when I did things like show up for school trips with no money for food. So glad that y'all "CAN tell the difference." Good luck with that.

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Anonymous wrote:I think the consequences of wild behavior are so much worse now—I wasn’t wild at all in high school but get my FH and his brother and his best friend from high school together and they have some crazy stories. “Borrowing” a parent’s Porsche and driving to California without having licenses. A neighborhood being taken to the hospital via helicopter for alcohol poisoning. Fights, parties, more alcohol and drugs, etc.

My in-laws weren’t particularly attentive parents, DH was the third boy, but a lot of what happened back then the cops would just turn kids over to their parents, say it’s just kids being kids, and nobody who wasn’t there would even hear about it. Now there would be arrests, suspension, expulsion, news and social media.

I think this is mostly why, it was just different then.

When do you mean, by "back then"? I guess I'm gen X but I can't really relate to most gen X posts but I'm a 1980 baby. I didn't have a cell phone until my 2nd semester senior year of college! I feel neither GEN x nor millennial

My freshman son has no interest in dating. He is a well rounded kid, a good student, a good athlete, and he likes hanging out with friends, riding his skateboard. No interest in dating. My DD is in 8th grade and has not interest either. A lot of her friends are dating. She has guy friends, but that's it. She also likes hanging out with her friends and is busy with her sports/hobby. Both are good looking kids, I think DD is very beautiful, but I'm her mom. I didn't date either until the end of my senior year of HS. I had tons of friends and loved my social life. I was never interested in any boy until my first boyfriend at the end of my last year of HS. I think it depends on the kid. Also, both my kids are late bloomers in terms of puberty, so that might have something to do with it.

Anonymous wrote:My teens do not party, but they also are not wholesome.

Vaping
Sex
Social media

They find trouble, just different trouble

when you vape marijuana you can't smell it like the 80s.

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Anonymous wrote:I think the parents posting that their kids are too busy to drink and smoke pot are delusional. You have freshman and sophomores or you are completely clueless.

No, we aren't. I'm one of them, and my kids are at a tiny school, leaving the house at 6:30 and retuning after sports practice at 7, eating dinner with us, and then studying until lights out. The just aren't at the point yet where they are hanging out in random places unsupervised, even on weekends.

So they are freshman or sophomores and have not life on the weekends (or you go with them...worse).

You'd probably call them names, like geeks or nerds, but they and their friends are enjoying life their own way. You may call not partying having "no life," but they think life is pretty awesome. Their joy lies elsewhere and that's more than OK.

No. It's hard to have friends freshman year. I don't really expect kids to drink alone in the basement but when they have an actual opportunity to drink and smoke pot... around junior year, they partake. It's not because they are great or bad... it's just a fact.

When somebody says... "my kids are not in random places" that means they are never away from school or home or their parents. neither good or bad... but that just means they lack opportunity instead of pretending they are better/worse than other kids.

Yes!!! I went to a Catholic School, pretty conservative and we partied hard. There was also a local public HS party going on, and I often went with my neighborhood friends. In our area, I think there is a lot of pressure this days academically on kids and my own children feel like they need to do really well to get into college. The kids get together to study for tests, hang out, mall, movies, a lot more than to party.

My teens do not party, but they also are not wholesome.

Vaping
Sex
Social media

They find trouble, just different trouble

I'm right at the border of gen x and millennial. I was born in 84, and while I know some kids were partying and experimenting it wasn't every kid and wasn't my friends and I. We just had no desire, we were not made to keep busy with homework and activities, we just found our own fun being teens before adulthood slapped us in the face. Call me what you want, I'm a nerd, I know it and own it. We had a life and had fun, the ones without a life will be those after the trouble from the partying/experimenting that they did.

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Anonymous wrote:I think the parents posting that their kids are too busy to drink and smoke pot are delusional. You have freshman and sophomores or you are completely clueless.

No, we aren't. I'm one of them, and my kids are at a tiny school, leaving the house at 6:30 and retuning after sports practice at 7, eating dinner with us, and then studying until lights out. The just aren't at the point yet where they are hanging out in random places unsupervised, even on weekends.

So they are freshman or sophomores and have not life on the weekends (or you go with them...worse).

You'd probably call them names, like geeks or nerds, but they and their friends are enjoying life their own way. You may call not partying having "no life," but they think life is pretty awesome. Their joy lies elsewhere and that's more than OK.

I was born in 75.

As teens we definitively had more freedom, more independence than teens now. We also had more responsibility and were seem as older and expected to cope and deal with life.

I wasn't a partier in high school but quite a few of my friends were. There were a lot of bush parties on the weekends. Very few were dating or in relationships. A few were having sex but many weren't.

When I was 16, one of my friends borrowed his parent's van and 6 of us went on a road trip to an amusement park 5 hours away for a weekend. I regularly borrowed my parents car from 10th grade onward and hung out on weekends at friend's places, often staying overnight. We didn't have cell phones. My parents expectations were that we call home if not coming home for the night and that the car had to be home by midnight. We all worked part time jobs and were saving up money for school.

We were actually a pretty wholesome group of teens. We played a lot of board games, and hung out talking a lot. We watched movies, and wandered around in parks at night. None of my friends smoked in high school but they did drink but not to the point of being completely drunk.

College was really when the debauchery started.

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Anonymous wrote:They’re using pills instead. less messy and easier to hide.

You act like Gen X'ers did not pop pills.

We drank cough syrup with codeine

we sure did

Somehow I had the impression this was just something a group of idiot boys in my high school had come up with on their own. Color me surprised to discover it was an actual thing!

Although I think they were just drinking entire bottles of over-the-counter Robitussin, not the good stuff with the codeine.

How old are you cough syrup folks? Younger GenX? I don't remember cough syrup being a thing and I graduated HS in 1991. We had plenty of booze, pot, and other drugs...but not cough syrup