When I was growing up in mid-1980’s I used to see mostly only adults with partners and wondered if teenage relationships were there at all or not; perhaps they hid somewhere on their dates or parents were more strict then than now or the society generally forbade the same or is it that parents didn’t give much freedom as today.
Did teens take education more seriously than now? or is it that sex wasn’t so much of a topic thus younger people had no opportunity to feel the need to mingle or socialize with the opposite sex that early.
Could the church have been stricter then by instilling values both a church and much more in the society than the modern 21st century or post-modern community does or is it that the media and modern role models weren’t so much of a threat to our norms.
Have parents become more careless than they used to be and now more influenced by modern civilization that encourages freedom of worship and cultural contamination brought about as we cross continents for higher learning and business then find ourselves mingling and getting hitched to and with other less or more strict cultures.
So much could be said about what we currently see in society and much more as times keep changing either to our advantage or otherwise.
As you engage teens and parents either separately or together today, you get to see very great disconnect in what the two groups wish to see from each other.
I have on a number of accessions held forums where teens and parents meet to engage and you’ll find accusations from both sides uncontrollably coming out and the main issue is 1.trust! 2. Trust! and 3. Trust!. Who between this two is ready to trust the other side unconditionally.
Parents have a valid point, they know the ocean very well and even to its deepest point and have experiences regarding its safe points and otherwise, while teens after swimming for a couple of days believe they have sufficient knowledge of what is in the same ocean, this fact is prime and worth respecting but the question one professor asked parents is, what happened to you in the ocean that you have actually told your teens about as an experience that would make you either trust them alone there or not or is it that you had horrors there that you have never gotten over, for example, some parents got pregnant without planning to in their teens, others got raped by their dates, others got STIs that keep haunting them to date, others got heartbreaks they live with to date after the people they cherished more took their partners they still have feelings for to date and the issues could go on and on.
