This is in response to the letter to the editor, Kind gesture in Sidney ruined by thoughtless children.
Louise,
I hear your frustration with kids not listening, it tests patience. But that's what kids do, just as ugly willow trees won't stop growing even if they are shouted at.
You and I are caged in the limitations of our own cultural and chronological zeitgeist. And when behaviour doesn't correspond to what we understand and what is appropriate for the world you and I understand, it's scary.
But the world continues to turn, and it will leave you and I behind, one day. And the world, as we know it, won't depart suddenly. Change will come as a whisper, then grow to a shout until the world we once knew doesn't resemble what we see now.
It's scary!
The best response I can humbly suggest is to engage with the unknown elements. Talk to youth, but out there in person. Not online, not behind letters or social media, because written words and social media cloud intention effectively. See what concerns them, hear it with your own eyes and ears. Know it. Try and sympathize. Try to find parallels with the seemingly irrational things that you and I almost certainly might have once justified at a young and tender age :)
I see that they are also scared. I consider that they are hyper-connected to the world through computers. They "know" things at 20, and younger, that took you and I at least a decade or two to learn in our 30s and 40s. Ask, what's the vision that Canada is presenting to them, right now about their future? Do they see where they are part of the picture? Have we done a good job of communicating this picture to them? I highly suggest you look into Irvine Welsh. He is the author of the book and film called Trainspotting.
Keep asking questions, but be warned, it's complex, and I do not believe it can be easily summarized in "Americanization". To be quite frank, I don't see that as a culprit at all.
Warm regards to you and the rocks. Keep putting them out for everyone!
Paul Heinrichs
Victoria
