Are our generation totally *&"^ing irresponsible as parents?

AngryBadger · 26-01-2006 10:42PM #1

Legitimate thread here.

A 14-year old girl was raped in Waterford city on monday night. The backstory is that she HITCHED to a party in TRAMORE earlier that night with her friend. then returned to the city by a bus arriving at 12:45am.

Now obviously all right-thinking people are enraged and baying for the blood of the twisted piece of dog vomit that raped this girl.

However, I'm also forced to ask, what the hell kinds of parents does she have that they allowed her to hitch to a party, at 14 years of age, in tramore, and then to just get a bus home.

For people not familiar with Waterford, Tramore is a good stretch from the city. We're not talking over the bridge here. And in a broader sense there seems to be a lot more in the way of underage crime, and general loss of parental control with kids. Within 5 minutes of reading the article about this attack, I listened to a news piece about a 16-year old being charged for beating a 19-year old woman to death. A few weeks back i read about a 16 year old girl in court for prostitution, which took place while her mother and baby sister were present, this poor young girl was an addict on top of this.

Am I missing something, or are we really screwing up this generation of children?

xzanti · 26-01-2006 10:45PM

If a 14 year old wants to go somewhere they generally find ways and means tbh.. When me and my friends were 14/15 we used to just say we were staying at each others houses studying etc and then go out to clubs.. Not condoning it in anyway but... Its not THAT difficult..

My parents did everything they could barr sitting at the end of the bed watching us all night.. IMO they did everything they could.. They were fairly strict but where theres a will theres a way..

ST* · 26-01-2006 10:48PM

AngryBadger wrote:

However, I'm also forced to ask, what the hell kinds of parents does she have that they allowed her to hitch to a party, at 14 years of age, in tramore, and then to just get a bus home.

I doubt very much she told her parents what she was actually going to do. Alot of teenagers tell their parents that they are staying at a friends, bag on back with their 'pyjamas' in them.

One might beg the question in which case, didnt the parents check it out that her daughter was actually going to stay where she said she would?

xzanti wrote:

My parents did everything they could barr sitting at the end of the bed watching us all night.. IMO they did everything they could.. They were fairly strict but where theres a will theres a way..

I was the exact same Xzanti, I was climbing out windows - the works. I was fine until I hit about 16. then my parents didn't know what hit them.

AngryBadger · 26-01-2006 10:52PM

Shock_treatment wrote:

I doubt very much she told her parents what she was actually going to do. Alot of teenagers tell their parents that they are staying at a friends, bag on back with their 'pyjamas' in them.

One might beg the question in which case, didnt the parents check it out that her daughter was actually going to stay where she said she would?

I know kids do this, that's not my point.

My point is, if I know it, and you know it, and everyone else knows it, then surely parents know it, and therefore the question becomes why did they not do something about it?

If she snuck out, did they not notice she was gone? If they discovered it why weren't they in the car like a shot to get her home???

Just because teenagers think they can do what they want doesn't somehow make it ok, and to condone that attitude is reckless in the extremes. It's a parents job to safeguard their kids.

For the record, I'm not trying to stigmatise any parties involved in this particlar case, but I see a lot of this, surely we all do, and I think it's something we need to give very serious consideration.

JC 2K3 · 26-01-2006 10:54PM

Parents aren't really irresponsible, the media has ****ed up a generation of kids, innocence ends between 10 and 14 nowadays. Acting grown up, getting dressed up, going to parties/discos and underage drinking every weekend are all "cool" nowadays and easy to do for a teenager. What can you expect of parents? To chain their kids to their beds in their rooms? The only thing I think parents are doing wrong is not realising the impact the TV is having on children and letting them have unlimited viewing time. Spoilt kids are also more likely to indulge in this sort of behavior at a young age.

ST* · 26-01-2006 10:55PM

AngryBadger wrote:

If she snuck out, did they not notice she was gone? If they discovered it why weren't they in the car like a shot to get her home???

You would have to know the exact circumstances AB. She might have been in her bed when the parents when to sleep.

You cant expect the parents to stay awake all night to see if their daughter is going to sneak out of the house.

They probably checked her friends houses etc when they realised. but where the hell do you look?? even if her teenage friends knew anything at all about it, they would be afraid to tell- and hope nothing happened to her.

26-01-2006 10:58PM

Shock_treatment wrote:

You would have to know the exact circumstances AB. She might have been in her bed when the parents when to sleep.

You cant expect the parents to stay awake all night to see if their daughter is going to sneak out of the house.

They probably checked her friends houses etc when they realised. but where the hell do you look?? even if her teenage friends knew anything at all about it, they would be afraid to tell- and hope nothing happened to her.

They could put an alarm on the house

it's a good general safety measure as well.

Yeah, I think kids are nuts these days but I think it's a little too easy to blame the media or any one thing.

AngryBadger · 26-01-2006 11:08PM

JC 2K3 wrote:

Parents aren't really irresponsible, the media has ****ed up a generation of kids

I'm not even entertaining this notion, blaming the madia is horse****, and the same as blaming computer games for violence. Do parents not control what their children are exposed to, and do they not determine what values their children share?

Shock_treatment wrote:

You would have to know the exact circumstances AB. She might have been in her bed when the parents when to sleep.

Fair point. I don't know the exact circumstances. But indulge me a moment.

In order to get to tramore in time for a party, she would have to give herself and hour or so travel time, particularly give that she was hitching to get there. And we know she got the bus home, which means she needed two hours for a round trip, and that's under the assumption that she arrived, gave everyone a big wave, and then left immediately to get home, which is unlikely. So let's assume she stayed for an hour. That means she had to leave waterford at 9:45pm at the latest to arrive at a party for one hour, and then go straight home. I'm not even factoring in getting from her house to the road to tramore, or any of a hundred other considerations.

Which would mean her parents probably went to bed at 9pm.....which seems pretty unlikely.

At any rate. I'm not trying to villify her parents. I'm trying to make the point, that in general, in recent times, we really don't seem to be paying atention to our kids.

I spent a lot of time teaching primary school children during my time as a postgrad, these were ranging from about 7/8 to 11/12, and a lot of them were quoting me shows like South park, and various sexual acts that there is no way children that age should be exposed to. And before anyone suggests this is a class-specific phenomenon I encountered this in nearly every school i went to.

I just think people are really passing the buck with their kids, and that's not ok.

Setun · 26-01-2006 11:13PM

It's the MTV generation...

And on the other hand there's the underprivileged (sp?) backgrounds where most of these situations arise from. For example a couple in my locale are often in trouble for neglecting their kids. At one point the kids were left wandering around outside a pub on their own, unfed/ unwashed etc. while the parents were passed out on the ground from drink.

I don't know the background to the story, but it could have been this kind of neglect or it could have been a highly unfortunate and hellish accident, a mistrust on the parents part.

26-01-2006 11:15PM

Clearly, people need a license and special training to become parents. With heavy penalties on any who don't take parenting classes.

No, I'm not joking.

ST* · 26-01-2006 11:21PM

AngryBadger wrote:

Fair point. I don't know the exact circumstances. But indulge me a moment.In order to get to tramore in time for a party, she would have to give herself and hour or so travel time, particularly give that she was hitching to get there. And we know she got the bus home, which means she needed two hours for a round trip, and that's under the assumption that she arrived, gave everyone a big wave, and then left immediately to get home, which is unlikely. So let's assume she stayed for an hour. That means she had to leave waterford at 9:45pm at the latest to arrive at a party for one hour, and then go straight home. I'm not even factoring in getting from her house to the road to tramore, or any of a hundred other considerations..

So we are going with the theory she might have lied about going to stay in a friends house? At that age, it could easily have been her first time lying that badly to her parents. Not defending the parents, I certainly would have checked the story through.

AngryBadger · 26-01-2006 11:35PM

Shock_treatment wrote:

So we are going with the theory she might have lied about going to stay in a friends house? At that age, it could easily have been her first time lying that badly to her parents. Not defending the parents, I certainly would have checked the story through.

Yeah, i'm not trying to blame the parents either, just think this kind of thing is unhealthy, and see way too much of it.

Binomate · 26-01-2006 11:37PM

Yes. I think it's to do with people being more open to things now-a-days.

AngryBadger · 26-01-2006 11:39PM

Binomate wrote:

Yes. I think it's to do with people being more open to things now-a-days.

But not with their kids???

ST* · 26-01-2006 11:40PM

AngryBadger wrote:

Yeah, i'm not trying to blame the parents either, just think this kind of thing is unhealthy, and see way too much of it.

I agree with you there. Parents need to take whatever precautions needed to make sure their children are safe. Its a pretty nasty world. Its not just the teenagers either. I know these were UK cases, but Holly & Jessica were only 11 yrs old. then there was Jamie Bolger who was 3 if I'm not mistaken?

aidan_dunne · 26-01-2006 11:44PM

bluewolf wrote:

Clearly, people need a license and special training to become parents. With heavy penalties on any who don't take parenting classes.

No, I'm not joking.

As the saying goes, "You need a licence to own a dog but you don't need one for a child." You might be onto something here, bluewolf.

I can't believe how f**ked up the world has become either. There's so many freaks, weirdos, paedophiles and everything out there now that I'm beginning to think if I ever have kids myself the only option might be to actually barricade them into the house at night until they turn 18 in order to keep them away from all that nastiness. Sounds harsh, I know, but, seriously, how the hell are you supposed to protect your kids from all the weirdos these days short of doing something as drastic as that?

Honestly, I hear these stories of young children being abducted and raped and killed and then I look at my little niece and I'm bloody terrified that someday something like that might happen to her! :eek: Though, God help the person that would do that because I would hunt them down and kill them slowly and extremely painfully! :mad:

The world has become a very scary and dangerous place, my friends. So much so that it might actually make you reconsider ever having children.

26-01-2006 11:46PM

I never planned to have children in the first place. If I want to mind anyone, well there are plenty of people out there already who need help.

As for the license bit, there is so much hassle about adoption and yet anyone at all, unfit or otherwise, is fine to have kids. Whether they beat and kill them or not (guy who chained his daughter to a radiator and killed her, in America, anyone?)

Or whether they are otherwise unfit.

Seriously, there should be some kind of regulation. Mandatory parenting classes, whatever.

Kernel · 26-01-2006 11:54PM

Parents are certainly more liberal today than they would have been, say, in the 50's - certainly. Society and sense of civic duty has also gone the wayside in our quest for material riches, and self gratification.

The government can also hold some of the blame, by allowing the country to turn into an economy in which both parents, nowadays, are often forced into working full time and paying somebody to raise their own children in a creche filled with other abandoned kids.

EDIT: Almost forgot the media and capitalist corporations puching their lifestyle brands on kids and teaching them to live like adults, when they should be enjoying their youth and *shock* innocence, instead of going out drinking Absolut Vodka, dancing with 30 year old men and having sex with them in the taxi on the way back to his place. "Please don't let them be up, please don't let them be up" Bank of Ireland etc...

AngryBadger · 27-01-2006 12:48AM

Kernel wrote:

The government can also hold some of the blame...Almost forgot the media and capitalist corporations puching their lifestyle brands on kids and teaching them to live like adults, when they should be enjoying their youth

Again I think blaming the media is passing the buck. Certainly different branches of the media pcreating a marketable image with young people in mind, but surely it's down to parents to ultimately dictate how much of this their kids can buy into? Should they not be monitoring what kids are spending their money on, what they're interested in, and all that jazz.

I do agree that more could be done by the governemtn by way of the education system, and the fact that there are residential areas all over the country with no facilities for young people, (on this banning cyclists from the park in Waterford, WTF???), however I do feel the bigger issue here is peoples' lithargic attitude to the whole idea of having, and raising children.

the attitude nowadays seems to be that kids are just the "done thing", like a new lexus, or flashy jeans. Haing kids is something that can be wonderful, and rewarding, but requires 110 % committment. I just don't think you have any business having kids if you're giving it anything less than this.

Sleepy · 27-01-2006 12:54AM

I know my mother always insisted on phoning any friend's parents if we were staying with them that night, up until we were around 16 anyway...

I think parenting standards are dropping in general, but that is just a generalisation, I know some fantastic parents that are around the same age as or younger than myself too. Most of these had great parents themselves though. It's a self-perpetuating cycle, the offspring of bad parents don't stand a chance.

One thing though, aidan_dunne, I don't think there are actually more freaks, weirdos, paedophiles etc in the world today than there were a few generations ago. Back then, they simply seemed to prey on their families or join the church and prey on orphans and alter-boys. Just judging by the amount of people I know that have suffered abuse as a child, I'd be surprised if there were more than a handful of posters whose families hadn't been affected by some form of abuse or another... it's a sad state of affairs but evolution just doesn't seem to be ridding us of these wastes of DNA.

Quackles · 27-01-2006 12:56AM

I'm not commenting on the case of that poor girl, because as previous posters have said, we don't know the facts. What I do know is that my 15 year old sister's friends appear to have a lot more freedom than I did as a teenager, and frankly, I don't think its a good idea. A parents job is to set boundaries for their chidren. I think that parents seem to be more concerned with being their children's friend than being a disciplinarian.. All I can say is heaven help my son, because I'm coming down on him like a ton of bricks

Crucifix · 27-01-2006 01:00AM

I consider my parents to have been very good parents. But I still got up to stuff they never knew about (like many posters have been saying). I think one key thing is that my parents never knew, because I didn't get caught, and I didn't get caught because I had a bit of common sense.
I'm pretty sure at 14 I would've known that hitch-hiking to a far-away party was a bad idea.

Stark · 27-01-2006 01:04AM

There are some great parents out there, and some parents who should have their kids taken off them. I know one seperated-mother who let her son grow to be 14 stone at the age of 12 by feeding him sweets non-stop and who let him stay at home from school whenever he wanted (at one point for several months) so she could be more popular than his father.

The other night in our estate, some teenagers were doing the usual crap of getting drunk, causing trouble etc., nothing particularly new there. Except one of them had a child who could not have been more than 2 years old out drinking them on a cold night. They also brought the child around and got it to urinate on the front of houses. I don't know what would be more ****ed up, whether the child was the offspring or sibling of one of them. Either way, lousy, lousy parents.

JC 2K3 · 27-01-2006 01:30AM

AngryBadger wrote:

I'm not even entertaining this notion, blaming the madia is horse****, and the same as blaming computer games for violence. Do parents not control what their children are exposed to, and do they not determine what values their children share?

In the past parents didn't have to worry about the TV brainwashing their kids, they didn't have to worry about rapists/murderers on the loose and there wasn't such a vast amount of high sugar/high fat foods(promoting hyperactivity) aimed at children around. Modern parents aren't necessarily less responsible, they just have one hell of a tougher job than parents of past generations.

aidan_dunne · 27-01-2006 01:30AM

Quackles wrote:

What I do know is that my 15 year old sister's friends appear to have a lot more freedom than I did as a teenager, and frankly, I don't think its a good idea. A parents job is to set boundaries for their chidren. I think that parents seem to be more concerned with being their children's friend than being a disciplinarian.. All I can say is heaven help my son, because I'm coming down on him like a ton of bricks

You, good sir (or madam! You can never be sure on Boards!

), speak a lot of sense. I've seen it with my own younger brother. Granted, he's the youngest in the family and always got away with murder as a result anyway but, still, if I did any of the things he's been doing the past couple of years when I was his age and acted like the little tramp he's become, my father would have probably hammered the living shíte out of me and with good reason. You only have to look at the gang he's hanging around with. :rolleyes:

I never had that kind of freedom when I was younger. Boundaries and rules, as you say, we're set for me and I had to stick to them (e.g. you had to be in at a certain time, you had to keep your room clean, etc.) otherwise, quite rightly, you'd be punished, grounded, wouldn't be allowed play your Nintendo/PC, whatever. Okay, I'll admit that at the time you'd be pissed off about it but you accepted it. Nowadays if you try grounding a kid they'd nearly tell you to just "f**k off" and push passed you out the door. Believe me, I've seen it happen many's the time.

If I had tried that when I was younger I would have had the crap beat out of me and, believe me, I would have learned my lesson!

People argue these days saying, "oh, you can't hit a child" and all that. Bullshít! I was often slapped when I was a kid if I did something bad and, let me tell you, I ended up obeying my parents and having a lot more respect for them than my brother, who never got slapped. And now him, like most of his peers, have no respect for their parents or authority anymore.

And then people wonder why society's going to pot and we have youngsters acting like gangsters and terrorising the bloody country! :mad: As a parent you have to lay down the law with them, punish them in some way if they disobey you and, most of all, control them, not the other way around. That's what's wrong with the bloody country!

I say, stop all this hippy, bullshít, child psychologist crap about trying to be your child's "best friend" and start acting like their f**king parent, for God's sake!

daiixi · 27-01-2006 01:40AM

Shock_treatment wrote:

One might beg the question in which case, didnt the parents check it out that her daughter was actually going to stay where she said she would?

hang on a sec, when I was 12/13 my mum would drop me off at a friends place, talk to my friends mother then go home. She would call up a couple of hours later to speak to me and my friends mother to check that everything was A-OK and then my friends mother would head out for the evening leaving my 12/13 yr old friend and I to look after her 8 year old sister. My mum did all she could, it was never her fault that another adult conspired against her to allow us to do whatever we pleased!!!

Unfortunately kids have no respect these days. Once I got to 16 I at least TOLD my parents where I was going. I didn't ask for permission because I was going to go whether they approved or not, but they at least knew where to find me, or to start looking for me if a problem arose!

AngryBadger · 27-01-2006 02:27AM

JC 2K3 wrote:

Modern parents aren't necessarily less responsible, they just have one hell of a tougher job than parents of past generations.

I'm not going to dispute the fact that there are more sources that influence children, but every generation has this kind of thing, I don't accept that the responsibilty, or our ability to address it has changed. In theory as society evolves so do we, and so we should be able to manage these additional social institutions. However, even if we weren't keeping pace, that doesn't somehow absolve us of our responsibilities.

Ok, there are high-sugar foods out there,that doesn't mean you have to feed them to your kids. TV can only "brainwash" your kids if you let it raise them, kids watching appropriate television, whose parents are around to give them context for what's going on will not be "brainwashed". The bottom line is, yes, raising kids it a tought affair, but if you're not up to it you don't get to make a **** out your kids ad then whine an bitch about it, you just don't have kids.

As many people have said, there are a lot of good parents out there too. I just wanted to see what kind of reactions this thread would get.

daiixi wrote:

My mum did all she could, it was never her fault that another adult conspired against her to allow us to do whatever we pleased!!!

I'm not exactly sure what your' point is. For one thing I'm not sure this qualifies as bad parenting, and it seems the only point you can possibly be making is that parents can't control everything and so they shouldn't be expected to control anything?......help me out here

brown*eyed*girl · 27-01-2006 10:40AM

AngryBadger wrote:

Legitimate thread here.

A 14-year old girl was raped in Waterford city on monday night. The backstory is that she HITCHED to a party in TRAMORE earlier that night with her friend. then returned to the city by a bus arriving at 12:45am.

Now obviously all right-thinking people are enraged and baying for the blood of the twisted piece of dog vomit that raped this girl.

However, I'm also forced to ask, what the hell kinds of parents does she have that they allowed her to hitch to a party, at 14 years of age, in tramore, and then to just get a bus home.

For people not familiar with Waterford, Tramore is a good stretch from the city. We're not talking over the bridge here. And in a broader sense there seems to be a lot more in the way of underage crime, and general loss of parental control with kids. Within 5 minutes of reading the article about this attack, I listened to a news piece about a 16-year old being charged for beating a 19-year old woman to death. A few weeks back i read about a 16 year old girl in court for prostitution, which took place while her mother and baby sister were present, this poor young girl was an addict on top of this.

Am I missing something, or are we really screwing up this generation of children?

I think the answer to your question is both yes and no tbh. Of course the parents are responsibile for the safety of thier kids and especially teenagers. But like a lot of people here I used to pretend I was at my mates house etc. My poor Mam wouldn't even think to check as I was a "model" daughter and got great results in school, worked part-time, helped around the house, etc. etc. Now I wasn't bold or anything but like a lot of teens we were quite wild and I did hitch out to Tramore myself once or twice when I was a teenager (with my mate). We did the knacker drinking too. We were so clever we'd do the knacker drinking the night that my mate was sleeping in my house and I knew my Mam and stepdad went out. I remember my mate saying they can't smell drink if they are drinking (not that they were drunk) and we'd be sobered up again they got home. Looking back now I SHUDDER to think of the danger we put ourselves in but at the time we thought we were the bees knees. My Mam hadn't a clue to what we did socially half the time because I never gave her cause for concern. I am a parent myself now to an almost 13 year old daughter and she doesn't get away with anything because I know all the tricks that I used to play so I am very very strict and over-protective and always ring and double check etc. God I'm so bad I smell her breath every time she comes in. It really doesn't mean that my daughter is going to turn out better than me or I'm a better Mother than my Mother because I double check. Its too much of a grey area to just blame the parents. Sometimes it is their fault, sometimes its not. Most parents I know would be great parents and want the best for their kids.

It is hard being a parent to a teen in this day and age though. Especially when I know what we were upto. God it makes me have nightmares thinking that my "baby" is becoming a teenager soon. I've already had lots of chats with her about smoking, drugs, drinking etc. I try and advice her the best I can. Its a tough one because I know a girl who's parents were really really strict and she turned out to be an awful awful teenager and woman now. She was a comlete druggie and tbh a complete wreck. So I think its important to find a balance. I and a lot of us parents really do try our best.

Another thing I would say though what about the man who raped the girl - are HIS PARENTS to blame too for him turning out to be a rapist?

Kernel · 27-01-2006 10:54AM

AngryBadger wrote:

Again I think blaming the media is passing the buck. Certainly different branches of the media pcreating a marketable image with young people in mind, but surely it's down to parents to ultimately dictate how much of this their kids can buy into? Should they not be monitoring what kids are spending their money on, what they're interested in, and all that jazz.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not solely blaming the media, I'm just saying it's a factor. Advertising and media sells us all an image and a lifestyle, and we are all affected by it. Younger teenagers are even more tractable and will buy into the image more easily than an adult who has experience of the real world.

Parents have a difficult job, and many things to compete against - Ibiza Uncovered selling sex and drugs to their kids is just one of the things. Didn't happen 30 years ago.

toffeapple · 27-01-2006 10:55AM

Sleepy wrote:

I know my mother always insisted on phoning any friend's parents if we were staying with them that night, up until we were around 16 anyway...

I think parenting standards are dropping in general, but that is just a generalisation, I know some fantastic parents that are around the same age as or younger than myself too. Most of these had great parents themselves though. It's a self-perpetuating cycle, the offspring of bad parents don't stand a chance.

One thing though, aidan_dunne, I don't think there are actually more freaks, weirdos, paedophiles etc in the world today than there were a few generations ago. Back then, they simply seemed to prey on their families or join the church and prey on orphans and alter-boys. Just judging by the amount of people I know that have suffered abuse as a child, I'd be surprised if there were more than a handful of posters whose families hadn't been affected by some form of abuse or another... it's a sad state of affairs but evolution just doesn't seem to be ridding us of these wastes of DNA.

Have to agree with the point made here...talk to older people about this..these things did happen years ago they just didnt receive as much coverage..granted they probably didnt happen with the same frequency but there were less people and you may think this sounds stupid but access to cars makes these type crimes easier to commit...in the past beasts tended to prey on young women they knew and more often than not it was covered up to safe face for everybody.

brown*eyed*girl · 27-01-2006 11:02AM

toffeapple wrote:

Have to agree with the point made here...talk to older people about this..these things did happen years ago they just didnt receive as much coverage..granted they probably didnt happen with the same frequency but there were less people and you may think this sounds stupid but access to cars makes these type crimes easier to commit...in the past beasts tended to prey on young women they knew and more often than not it was covered up to safe face for everybody.

Yes an awful lot of abuse was swept under the carpet years ago. Some poor unfortunate children never got their abusers punished.

Are our generation totally *&"^ing irresponsible as parents?

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