Let's give our so-called 'feral youth' a break
The cover story in last week's Time magazine condemns young Britons by concluding that – compared with their European counterparts – our teenagers are the biggest drinkers, the most sexually promiscuous, the worst educated, and more likely to commit violent crimes. Reading the article by Catherine Mayer, you'll wonder how any adult in central London dares to leave home after dark. It paints a gloomy picture of feral youth terrifying whole neighbourhoods and postcode gangs who have little or no communication with adults. It reads a bit like that colourful 1970s movie 'The Warriors', in which tribes of exotically garbed gangs converge on Central Park in New York for the ultimate showdown.
The reality is so very different – but a large part of the media is determined to demonise anyone under 21. Every single day we get "bad news" stories about youth. Last week, we were told that white working-class kids were the lowest achievers at secondary school, and that a government agency was considering telling schools to lock pupils inside the premises at lunchtime to prevent them from eating devil food – ie stuff from the takeaways and chippies that surround our temples of learning. There was the news that three more teenagers had been stabbed to death, making the total of knife-related deaths 11 so far this year.
And the Children's Secretary Ed Balls announced that he plans to give teachers increased powers to search students for knives and guns. That's on top of the metal detectors being installed in some schools. I'm surprised Balls stopped there – why not just forcibly take the DNA of every single teenager in the country when they start secondary education and have done with it? Why not replace school photos with mugshots that can be emailed straight over to the local police?
Let's give our so-called 'feral youth' a break. I am not going to pretend that some young people don't drink too much: a survey of 15- and 16- year-olds in the North-west found that 84 per cent drank alcohol regularly and 20 per cent had been involved in violence afterwards. These teenagers drank on average 177 pints of beer or 44 bottles of wine a year. But it was a cheap way of having fun, and cost far less than hiring a football pitch to kick a ball about.
And, there's no denying that in certain parts of Britain, too many young women regard getting pregnant before they've even sat their GCSEs as the norm, a way of getting their own home and a little bundle to cuddle. With the number of people getting married at an all-time low, and almost half of all marriages ending in divorce, the parents of today's teenagers aren't very good role models when it comes to promoting stable relationships.
It would be perfectly possible to go around Britain and construct another version of our young. For every mindless yob with a nihilistic take on life, you can find another teenager who is passionate about causes such as Make Poverty History. Young people haven't stopped caring about those less fortunate than themselves – in fact, they are just as idealistic as they always were. According to Time magazine, we Brits don't like children much, and have always had a bit of a problem listening to and finding time for them, hence a whole generation that has lost its way.
This is so bloody facile I want to weep. Luckily, young people do have some great role models – Konnie Huq, who stopped presenting Blue Peter in January after 10 years, is considering refusing to take part in the Olympic torch relay through London in protest against the way the Chinese government has dealt with protesters in Tibet. Another great role model is R&B singer Estelle, whose single is No 1 and whose new album has had rave reviews. Leona Lewis, who is just 22, has taken America by storm, topping the US charts and captivating Oprah Winfrey. On 13 April, the finals of Live and Unsigned take place in London and, out of 10,000 entrants, 22-year-old Joe Allen is tipped for the top, with 46,000 fans on his MySpace site.
Good news about young working-class achievers isn't as exciting as tales from the gutter, but it's about time we realised the damage we are doing by presenting young people as a huge problem. They are our future, and not (whatever Time magazine says) a threat as dangerous as terrorism.
Janet Street-Porter
30 March 2008