Is it harder to be a child today than when you were growing up?

[Katarina Witt]

^^I agree teen pregnancy rates have gone down, all the stats show that. However, by the 70s most teens kept their babies, usually w/o getting married. Heck, it happened in my own family! About the only benefit to some of these young marriages was it did make the father responsible for the child support. I was a public health nurse at the time (70s), taught teen parenting classes and had my finger on the pulse of teen pregnancy so to speak.

The stat that I think is kind of odd is this: "Between 1971 and 1982, the estimated percentage of never-married 15- to 19-year-olds with premarital sexual experience increased from 26.8% to 42.8% (4,5). Thus, analyses of pregnancy and fertility trends can be misleading if the extent of sexual experience is not taken into account." I see this is an editorial note, not part of the report. I guess what the Dear Editor is saying is that teen sex is up, so of course teen pregnancy will go up. I think DE is comparing apples to oranges. Sex =/= pregnancy.

[Vegabern]

Watching my boss and her daughter who's a senior in high school it sure seems harder. Kids are expected to be perfect. They need perfect grades, be involved in numerous extra curricular activities, volunteer, etc. etc. just to be considered at even a modest state school.

Forget about drinking on the weekends. Even though it's always been illegal for anyone under 18 and 21 for a long time parents and the law were A LOT more forgiving when even I was in high school in the late 90's. Her daughter was caught simply at a party where kids were drinking and her world is crashing down on her. I'm not advocating for teen drinking but I can see the difference in our current zero tolerance era to even my generation.


Not to mention the cost of college, moving out, getting a job etc. etc. is a lot tougher today.


Combine that with social media and there is no way I'd want to be a teenager today.


On the other hand, it has been getting easier for kids who aren't the stereotypical American youth. That was until hate was unleashed again....

[krug]

I always compare this scenario to athletics. When I went out for football back in 1979, we had 2 a day practices for 1 week in the summer, followed by practice all week and a Friday night game.

No special camps, No conditioning all summer long, no weight classes, no speed or jump camps, no nutritional counselors, no hours of video, hudl, scouting, etc.

Today, football is too specific, just like childhood I guess. The thing is, perhaps we weren't as good, but I think we were a lot tougher. This applies to both, football and childhood.