From Michael Copeland, a meditation on the younger generation in Britain in the third decade of the 21st century.
Albatross Generation
by Michael Copeland
Huge, ungainly, fluffy, and stupid-looking: the young albatross has been given the nickname Booby by American servicemen at airbases on the Pacific islands where the birds nest. After thousands of years without predators no need has arisen for the nest to be hidden. As a result, in the colonies which the birds create, the landscape is unmistakably characterised by these “boobies”, one huge chick to each nest. The juveniles are, of course, as helpless and dependent on their parents as any young bird: it is their large size and the complete exposure of the nest that make them particularly unmissable.
The Booby provides a metaphor for the modern generation in Britain today, after decades of socialist provision, Health and Safety, child-safeguarding officers, state handouts, child benefits, free health provision, free buses, elimination of risk, provision of a “safety net” in the case of hardship and so on and so on. This state of affairs has reached the point where a headmistress has bemoaned how quite a few of her pupils, carried to school by car, do not even own a raincoat. The head of the Confederation of British Industry railed against this coddling of teenagers, pointing out that young people need to be exposed to risk if they are going to be able to handle risk in their lives and their businesses.
The modern generation has grown up insulated from real life. Infantilised, concerned mainly with clothes, pop music and celebrities, they seem like boobies, ungainly and doing rather little, waiting for the next provision to arrive out of the sky.
For previous essays by Michael Copeland, see the Michael Copeland Archives.
I completely agree with the above post, especially the last paragraph.
I would like to point out that that headteacher is part of the problem. No doubt she is a member of a union that gives her her orders; you are not allowed to tell children off for misbehaving and certain minorities must be coddled ( this has been going on since the late 80s at least in uk). Children are permitted to ignore teachers if they don’t like what they are saying. Some children are adept at manipulating their parents who probably just hand them an iPad when they get home from school. As a former teacher of 7 to 11 year olds, I was once threatened by a parent for telling her child to stop talking in assembly. And on it goes. Older children get away with the most outrageous behaviour that I won’t begin to describe. Parents assume children should be brought up by schools and are not afraid of telling teachers to their faces.
I don’t think its just a feature unique to the UK.
Look at how few teenagers have summer jobs, or how many parents feel compelled to buy their kid a new car; just so they can be “safe”. How many high schools still have Home-Ec, or shop classes?
There seems to be this big push to encourage every high school student to go to college, and they are alternately threatened or scared into believing the only way they can possibly succeed in life is by getting a degree. Of course, no one bothers to tell them that they’ll be paying for that degree for the next decade or so.
On the one hand, adulthood is being pushed further and further away, well into the 20’s by being a perpetual student and continuing to live at home, and legislation allowing adult children to stay on their parents insurance until 26, the ease of getting student loans, and the lack of pressure from society or peers to grow up contribute to this problem. On the other hand, legislation still treats adults as adolescents.
Why is it that a male can be drafted and sent off to war at 18 yrs of age to kill other males or be killed, yet he can’t legally drink a beer after a hard day of training or manual labor in the trades? Males used to have jobs and oftentimes married right out of high school.
If I had to guess I would say that this is not something that developed organically but was pushed and promoted for a reason. Just like women were pushed into the workforce by corporate interests to push down wages and increase the number of consumers, delaying adulthood and especially by keeping them in colleges allows indoctrination while building huge debts that can’t be discharged in bankruptcy so when they finally do leave college they are forced to become cogs in the machine; wage slaves that cannot protest, quit, riot, or do much of anything to rock the boat even if they were so inclined. You have to take that corporate job that pays crap because you don’t have a choice. Or perhaps work for the government in some lousy job that has benefits and some measure of security. And it delays marriage and having children because the globalists want depopulation anyway.
Excellent analysis. – An Irish Rebel Abroad.
So English “Boobies” are an Albatrossity. pun intended
Michael the author must have also met my American niece and nephew.
True, BUT we didn’t have to run the gauntlet of Africans with machetes to get to school on foot/bus/train whereas this generation of kids does. It’s not safe for them on the street or on public transport thanks to our voting stupidity.
Wall-E.