Kids These Days

by maximusaurus

“The children of today have no respect. They’re entitled, careless, and good for nothing. We’re doomed when it’s their turn to take over.” – A caveman, 35,000 BC

Along with “I’m never drinking again”, the Kids These Days spiel is probably one of the most repeated in the history of the human species.

How easily we forget just how hard it can be, to be a kid. To have very little say or control over what happens to you. To live in a world where adults wield seemingly absolute and arbitrary power. As a kid, I often felt like I was constantly skating on thin ice, that at any moment the wrath of an adult would come crashing down on me for some transgression I didn’t even realize I had committed.

Being autistic made it particularly tough. Navigating the rules of society felt like trying to make it through a room filled with those invisible sensor lasers. And even the rules I did understand where extremely hard to follow. Sit down. Keep still. Be quiet. Yep, that’ll go over well with a kinetic thinker with more energy than Tigger on an espresso bender. May as well try to tell a kangaroo not to hop.

When I misbehaved, which was often, it was almost always either unintentional, or a desperate attempt to exert some degree of control over the terrifyingly uncertain world around me.

Young people cop a lot of flak. I’m sure they always have. But as someone whose job is mentoring kids and teens on the spectrum, I don’t think we give our youth nearly enough credit. The young people I work with are passionate, thoughtful, and empathetic. They think outside the box. They question. They care deeply, sometimes to the point where it causes them great stress. And it saddens me to see them getting badmouthed, because they have so much to offer.

I think kids these days are a marvelous people, and knowing that they are the future fills me with optimism and hope.