So here we are. Our savings are now worth nothing and our teenagers are helping themselves to TVs and mobile phones. Well, I suppose it makes a change from them nagging us for the money to get them. Somehow the events of the last few nights seem to sum up the summer holidays for me. I hate them – I find myself casting about for ideas to keep teenage boys engaged, but there is no way on earth I can compete with a virtual killing spree which takes place in the corner of his bedroom. And how does a trip to a National Trust property compare with being rooted in front of the TV watching some house DIY programme and Facebooking your every thought to the world? They even turned their noses up at my hearty suggestion of a few days by the sea which had to involve certain criteria before they would agree.
What makes me most ashamed about all this though is that the blame for the scenes in Tottenham, Birmingham, etc lies squarely with us – the thirty and forty something generation whose kids these are. Why are we so afraid of discipline? Are we rebelling against our own upbringings? Great – that means we can lob the blame onto our own parents. Brilliant – absolution. Again.
