What are we coming to?
London Underground are, apparently, starting a new campaign to encourage tube passengers to give up their seats to pregnant women. A priority seat sign will be installed on tube trains. Why? Because research has shown that up to a third of pregnant women are never offered a seat on a train and many others have to wait at least five stops before someone offers them a seat.
I really don't want to turn this into an "in my day" sort of post because I'm really not that old. But it looks like I'm going to anyway. I was taught manners, to respect the elderly and infirm, and to offer a seat to a pregnant woman.
Have we really sunk so low that Transport for London have to launch a campaign and prioritise seats for those that need them? Are we so self-absorbed that our own comfort in sitting and reading a newspaper on a train is more important than giving up a seat for those more in need of them? Obviously we have and we are.
I despair of the human race sometimes and I do worry for our future. That is just one example of how we are falling to pieces. The youth of today has no respect. No respect for authority, teachers, their parents. If they want it they have to have it and don't care how they get it, even if it means stealing for it. They moan they don't have things but won't get a job and earn the money to buy the things they want. They think they have a "right" to be respected as their due but they're not prepared to earn that respect and if they don't get it, you're just as likely to get a knife in your back.
We have an epidemic of binge drinking in teenagers. We have teenage drug gangs. Gun crime figures in London last year increased by 4% - 27 teenagers were murdered in London alone last year. 7 teenagers have been murdered in London already this year.
We see it here where I work too. We have a gang of teenagers who come out of an evening and sit on one particular bench to smoke cigarettes and dope, and to get get drunk on alcopops. These are not youngsters with nothing better to do with themselves, they are from wealthy local families and are well-educated. But they have had everything handed to them on a plate, they don't know what it is to go without or to work for what they want so they are easily bored and turn to drugs and alcohol for their kicks instead. Then they think it hysterically funny to smash all the bottles and leave broken glass everywhere, in an area where there are both children playing and dogs being walked.
I realise that I am generalising here and there are a lot of kids out there that don't go off the rails. It's always the bad news that hits the press and that no doubt is colouring my views but, nonetheless, humanity is still falling to pieces.
I really don't want to turn this into an "in my day" sort of post because I'm really not that old. But it looks like I'm going to anyway. I was taught manners, to respect the elderly and infirm, and to offer a seat to a pregnant woman.
Have we really sunk so low that Transport for London have to launch a campaign and prioritise seats for those that need them? Are we so self-absorbed that our own comfort in sitting and reading a newspaper on a train is more important than giving up a seat for those more in need of them? Obviously we have and we are.
I despair of the human race sometimes and I do worry for our future. That is just one example of how we are falling to pieces. The youth of today has no respect. No respect for authority, teachers, their parents. If they want it they have to have it and don't care how they get it, even if it means stealing for it. They moan they don't have things but won't get a job and earn the money to buy the things they want. They think they have a "right" to be respected as their due but they're not prepared to earn that respect and if they don't get it, you're just as likely to get a knife in your back.
We have an epidemic of binge drinking in teenagers. We have teenage drug gangs. Gun crime figures in London last year increased by 4% - 27 teenagers were murdered in London alone last year. 7 teenagers have been murdered in London already this year.
We see it here where I work too. We have a gang of teenagers who come out of an evening and sit on one particular bench to smoke cigarettes and dope, and to get get drunk on alcopops. These are not youngsters with nothing better to do with themselves, they are from wealthy local families and are well-educated. But they have had everything handed to them on a plate, they don't know what it is to go without or to work for what they want so they are easily bored and turn to drugs and alcohol for their kicks instead. Then they think it hysterically funny to smash all the bottles and leave broken glass everywhere, in an area where there are both children playing and dogs being walked.
I realise that I am generalising here and there are a lot of kids out there that don't go off the rails. It's always the bad news that hits the press and that no doubt is colouring my views but, nonetheless, humanity is still falling to pieces.
