For want of a horse's nail
I was listening to Today with only one ear earlier (managed to drop water on the laptop and spray deodorant in the budgie's face. It wasn't a good morning) but still managed to pick up on the news that there has been yet another survey of British yoof: their personal relationships, how much they drink, existential crises, et cetera.
In the Shawcross youth, a complaint that the trainers the mater had bought for PE were SO NOT COOL and would lead to ostracsim would have been met with the shortest of shrifts. These days, apparently, such instances of child abuse require an immediate inquiry by UNICEF and Barnardos, followed by angry calls that the Government issue new guidelines on best practice in parental trainer provision.
They don't know they're born.
Anyway, it did strike me (as I was trying to placate the budgie) that asking teenagers how much sex they have, drugs they take, drink they down is but a blunt instrument with which extract the truth. Imagine the scene: a studious and hardworking researcher for a children's charity is sitting across from Trevor.
Trevor is fourteen. For years his attitude towards the opposite sex could be summed up with the words "girls smell", but recently he's begun finding the aroma intoxicating. Unfortunately, due to his interesting facial combination of bumfluff and astonishingly prolific acne as well as the fact that his voice can go from bottom C to top E in the course of one sentence, none of the ladies in his peer group are that interested in him. This he finds disappointing because - according to his mates - they are all doing "it". In fact, everybody in the world is doing "it" apart from him; he reckons that even his parents have done "it" at some stage. SO NOT COOL.
Researcher: Are you a virgin?
Trevor: [attempting unsuccessfully not to stare at her bazoombas] Er…um…uh
Researcher: It's okay if you are.
Trevor: No, no! I'm not a virgin! I do The Sex all the time! I did it three times last night!
Researcher: [shocked at such promiscuousness in one so young] Three times?
Trevor: I usually do The Sex fourteen times a night. But [proudly] I was drunk last night!
[Trevor's real relationship with alcohol extends no further than a small sherry at Christmas, but he's on a roll, baby!]
Researcher: How much did you drink?
Trevor: Fourteen pints (copyright W. Hague Esq, 2001)
Researcher: Do you usually drink that much?
Trevor: I do The Booze all the time! I'm drunk right now.
Researcher: [horrified, scribbling furiously] And drugs?
[The last drug Trevor had was the obligatory lemon chalky thing - standard issue for school nurses everywhere - when he caught food poisoning off the organic penne and low fat carbonara from the school canteen's Jamie Olivered kitchen]
Trevor: I was totally out of my face on The Drugs last Friday!
Researcher: [under her breath] Dear Lord!
From whence we get a predictably apocalyptic report about how todays yoof are all mini Pete Doherty's in the making who are learning nothing in school apart from how to drink, smoke, and shag their way across the green and pleasant lands of England. This gets picked up on by the meedja (Daily Mail has a field day) and suddenly we have a National Epidemic™ of underage licentiousness and, potentially, a War On Teenage Shagging on the Government agenda.
Or am I just cynical?
5 comments:
I've seen the people who did the survey you're talking about the SHEU give a presentation about their work and it's not quite as you'd imagine.
After all the survey is of 70,000 children and young people and social science isn't that well funded that they can do that many face to face interviews.
Of course self-reported figures are subject to a health warning and the best thing to do with the information as a policy maker (rather than a journalist) is to look at the trends they show over years.
Journalists on the other hand don't have the same imperatives when looking at these figures.
Kids havn't changed a jot in twenty years, in fact i suspect the rapid gentrification of many areas means that fewer probably get drunk or pregnant quite so often.
You are actually fairly wrong. I took 3 of those yoof surveys. One at 14, 16 and 18 I think. We all sat down in a normal class, then we were given these forms to fill in, and long they were. We were specifically told not to put our names, DOB, address etc anywhere. The forms were supposed to be entirely anonymous. And I suspect most people told the truth as they had no incentive to lie, no-one was going to know what they wrote.
I only ever went to confession once, as a 13 year old the night before Confirmation. Couldn't think what to say so I made up a story about stealing apples - Mars bars would have been more authentic but still rubbish. Asking someone that age if they do it on skunk or on white powder is bound to elicit a somewhat creative response.
I'm so out of it I can't remember my yoof.
but I've been smoking weed daily for many years, mostly for pain relief of late, but I do enjoy the other effects.
I smoke & drink, but my kids, 20, 18 & 15, don't.
in fact, they are so anti as to be a pain in the arse.
I only know my kids and their mates, and they are all really normal.
I reckon you have a point Hamer
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