Why We’ve Been Hating on ‘Kids These Days’ for Thousands of Years

There are underlying psychological explanations for why adults so consistently think that kids are deficient.

D-brief
By Nathaniel Scharping
Oct 16, 2019 1:00 PMMar 21, 2023 8:24 PM
Old Person Grumpy - Shutterstock
Kids these days, amiright? (Credit: aastock/Shutterstock)

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Ugh. Kids these days. They’ve got no respect. They dress all weird. They’re always on their phones. And don’t get me started on their music!

Versions of this argument have echoed through editorials, taverns, hair salons and Roman bathhouses for millennia. Kids these days just aren’t what they used to be.

To hear the various ills of youth, one might well think that Western civilization has been in decline since it started. The culprits? The kids, of course. Specifically, the ones these days.

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