February 11, 2007
Sunday PM

I can't speak specifically for the incident Mrs. Lindahl describes in her letter, but I can address her main points.

Her suggestion that in the old days an older person would go to jail for touching somebody underage is false, and is one of the core reasons why a section of our youth population is so screwed up today.

In the old days, if a youth was raising hell or causing trouble at a public facility and then disrespected an adult who tried to intervene or stop the altercation . . . the youth would be punished. The parent would come down and THANK the worker and police help wouldn't be necessary, as the parents punishment would be worse than anything the police doled out. When the parent left, he'd thank the worker and give him his phone number to call if the son every caused a ruckus again.

But that's not how things work in today's society. Parents don't allow their children to take responsibility for their misdeeds. I don't know the specifics of Mrs. Lindahl's situation, but I've seen similar incidents happen at not only the Rec Center but other public places (the mall, the ball field, high school basketball games). A kid starts some trouble and when the people in charge tell them to stop or kick them out of the event, the youth responds with a "f*** you" and other name-calling and insults.

In the "old" days, the worker could grab the kid by the scruff of the neck and show him the door. And when the child's parents found out, the child would be punished! Parents taught their kids to RESPECT others!

But today, the child's parents call the cops and threaten law suits - because their precious little child was physically touched or picked on by the mean old workers! Unfortunately, a lot of kids today have been so spoiled and treated like they can do no wrong, that they have no respect for authority or other people's property or feelings. And anytime they get in trouble, their parents automatically blame everybody else involved in the situation.

When I was a teenager, if my friends and I were goofing off or causing a disturbance and an authority figure told us to STOP - we said "yes sir" and we stopped and hoped our parents didn't find out. Today, the kids just laugh, maybe curse at the worker and keep doing what they were doing.

I know that not all of our youth are like this. But I've seen it happen enough times to realize it's a problem.

Tony Gwynn
Ketchikan, AK


Received February 09, 2007 - Published February 11, 2006

 

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