Why Is It Now Wrong To Cherish The Way Of Life, That We Once Held Dear?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2337702/SIMON-HEFFER-Coronation-dream-politicians-betrayed.html

Is it now wrong to still cherish our way of life?

/// But steadily over the past six decades — particularly in the past 15 years or so — those aspects of Britishness and key institutions have all too often been insulted, rebuffed, ridiculed, despised, attacked and, to all intents and purposes, destroyed. ///

How very true, but not just by politicians.

[Sqad]

jim........I have a certain amount of sympathy with your point:

\\\44.6%?!! How can you possibly believe that half of all teenage girls are pregnant?! \\\

I think brenden meant that 44.6% of teenaged pregnancies led to legal abortion.

[ummmm]

Then I'm afraid you're wrong.

[boxtops]

I don't think so, sqad - most of the teenage pregnancies round here lead to live birth.


it does however peeve me that my niece was included in those stats, she was married at 18 (and still is) and had two children before she was twenty, all planned and intended, but she was still a teenage mum.

[jim360]

Yes, that seems more reasonable Sqad.

Statistics are worth kicking up a fuss about, as they are so often misused. I imagine I misuse them myself at times, though hopefully not too often.

Returning to the main point:

//Take the Children, with a few different colours of crepe paper from Woolworths they would spend the weeks up to Christmas, sitting by their coal fires, busy making lanterns and garlands for their Christmas decorations...

With some pram wheels, a wooden soap box, etc, they made their own transport. A few cuttings from the hedge rows and they manufactured their catapults, and bow and arrows. All the four seasons were taken up in various [outdoor pursuits]...

Today's children may have their technology, but are they not losing out in some way?
//

Yes, I think in some way they are losing out on this. It takes just one conversation with my grandmother where she delights in embarrassing me because I cannot recognise blackthorns to know that there are vast areas of knowledge and experiences of the outdoors I (am presumably many others of my generation) are missing out on. My parents spent a lot of effort trying to get us to explore the outdoors, and not all of it was wasted, but it's still going to be as nothing compared to your childhood.

What is regarded as "normal" for children has changed. We have lost things -- but we have also gained other things. That is the way of things, and I think it's presumptuous to say that the only things that matter are those we have lost.

[Gromit]

Sqad / Brendan / AOG

Contrary to your perceptions, teenage conceptions rates have fallen dramatically in recent times.

// Teen pregnancies are down to a new record low, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics. The new data shows the under 18 conception rate for 2010 is the lowest since 1969 at 35.5 conceptions per thousand women aged 15–17 - down to 34,633 in 2010, down 9.5% on 2009. //

[jno]

if you don't believe the ONS, where do you imagine the newspapers get their statistics from?

[anotheoldgit]

THECORBYLOON

/// You said canary was too young to say what like it was for adults in the 50s so why is it you can say what like it was to be a child at that time when you were an adult? ///

I can't believe you have actually asked this obvious question.

As an adult you have a more mature mind to be able to consider what it is like to be a child, whereas a child cannot possible know what it is like to be an adult.

If this wasn't so, there would be no reason to believe that a child could not bring up an adult, just has an adult is able to bring up a child.

[Sqad]

boxy

\\\ most of the teenage pregnancies round here lead to live birth. \\

How do you know that? A termination is done early on, long before it is physically obvious that they are pregnant and it is unlikely that they are going to tell you that they have had an abortion.

[boxtops]

Since the NHS has thrown vast amounts of money into attempting to reduce teenage pregnancies over the past few years, going into school, handing our condoms under the C-card scheme, and so on, I'm glad that the trend is downward.

[THECORBYLOON]

How can you say it was a happier time for a child when you were decades older and therefore unable to go through the same experiences as that child?

[ummmm]

Good point Kosmos.

[Kromovaracun]

AOG

"Today's children may have their technology, but are they not losing out in some way?"

Yes, they are, but they also gain in others. Whole communities exist through the internet and video games which weren't there before - I know, because I'm part of it and I'll look back on this part of my childhood and adolescence very fondly.

I admit I do sometimes envy aspects of my father's childhood (he was born in 1954) - but I certainly don't envy other aspects. And I know that he'll never really get to experience aspects of what my own generation has in the way that I have. I'm grateful I was born into the time I was born in.

[boxtops]

Personally, I couldn't tell which of them had had a termination sqad, but stats will out.

[Kromovaracun]

Oh and Sqad - I take the point about definition of "safe sex". I hadn't thought of that.

[anotheoldgit]

Gromit

/// Contrary to your perceptions, teenage conceptions rates have fallen dramatically in recent times. ///

Does this take into account how many are terminated?

Regardless of that fact however, we still have the highest rate of teenage pregnancies compared to the rest of European countries.

[Gromit]

// Does this take into account how many are terminated? //
Please look up the difference between conceptions and births.

// Regardless of that fact however, we still have the highest rate of teenage pregnancies compared to the rest of European countries. //
And how did we compare to the rest of Europe in the 1950s? I suspect you have no idea. It is only worth mentioning that comparison if you know for a fact that teen pregnacies were lower than the rest of Europe in the 50s.

[Sqad]

Gromit......you and your statistics may well be correct.......but records only started in 1969, by recent times we mean, the 50's and 60's.

Kosmos:
\\\Well at least now, abortions are not done by a backstreet butcher. Unlike in the good old days. \\

Indeed...they are done on the NHS.