Kids these days.

I'm lobbing a theory out into the void. Let it bounce around for a bit before you lob it back.

I don't want to sound like an old man, but I'm having a hard time adjusting to children of this new and frightening generation. Granted, they're not all frightening, per se, not completely void of dignity or morals or ethical fortitude. But by and large, even the actual "students" among the massive social monster I see for three ninety-minute chunks each day don't give me much hope in the future. While I'm largely seen as an entertainer for future laborers, those advanced-placed students set to eventually employ the other mongrels don't showcase a skill set founded in honesty or empathy or well being.

Social justice, one might say, if one were trying to be ironic.

I read today that something like 11% of high school seniors in a certain mid-western state could pass a test for United States citizenship. I read another study recently reporting the astoundingly large percentage of 18 to 21 year-olds deemed "unfit" for military service, results of either obesity or lack of high school diploma or GED equivalence. I do not support tests for classification of a "citizen," nor do I support imprudent dispatching of military for the means of meeting largely imperialistic goals. But those figures are frightening.

When I was young, the clause, "When I was your age" meant something. It meant urban sprawl did not exist. It meant freeways did not have 12 lanes and televisions did not have color and presidents were killed and nuclear war damn well nearly happened and Reaganomics coaxed us back from the brink. The town where I was born was half the size it is now. So much happened so fast that the "ancient history" of smoking in restaurants and cars without seat belts hadn't completely disappeared from collective memory.

I learned to value what I had by watching it materialize before me. I knew what it meant skip a song on a CD because the 8-track in Grandma's motor home played on like an limitless torture session. We know what it means to blow air into Nintendo game cartridges; that's what makes the Wii so damn cool. As children, you and I could see the past right there in our mother's eyes. We could smell it, because it was made in a microwave instead of the "old fashioned way." We knew acting out would get us a bruised backside because getting spanked wasn't just a what happened after you broke every last rule, it was just. what. happened.

The new generation of parent doesn't see a past that is drastically different. It doesn't recognize the rapid change. A parent today can't lambaste a child using that tired clause "When I was your age" because it just doesn't resonate. Try these on for size:

"When I was your age, we had to rewind the VHS tape, not just skip DVD scenes."
"When I was your age, our headphones were made of metal that pinched our hair."
"When I was your age, we had to roll the windows down manually."

See? It isn't quite the same as, "When I was a kid I was afraid of my teacher, because the last guy who gave him an attitude got paddled in the ass."