Youth Angst - Please! Let It Happen

On any given day in 2010/11, there were about 14,800 youth (12 to 17 at the time of the offence) in Canada’s correctional system (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2012001/article/11716-eng.htm). “We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently inhabit taverns and have no self-control." These words - expressing the all-too-familiar contemporary condemnation of young people - were actually inscribed on a 6,000-year-old Egyptian tomb (http://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/mar/17/ephebiphobia-young-people-mosquito). Coming of age is not a thing that should be treated out of context or proportion. It has to happen. The problem is not that the youth are going through a coming of age process. It is a general lack of acceptance of the general population of the inevitable. It is as bad as pissing into the wind! The bad part is the fact that the people who are most irritated or affected by this process are people (adults!) who actually went through the same process with the same annoying behavior and are now CEO’s and even presidents. “I had learned not to care. I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though—Mickey, my potential initiator had been just a little too eager for me to go through with that (http://poorrichardsnews.com/post/27181198657/president-obama-admitted-to-felony-marijuana-and-cocaine). One, therefore wonders, what’s all the commotion about? What wrong will come out of this? One issue of course, is that the youth are not sure of their futures. There is a lot going on. Nothing is certain. For those in government care, the assistance essentially ends at the age of 19, regardless of an individual’s capacity to cope with life (http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Struggling+with+uncertain+future/9546386/story.html).

In addition to these issues, the issue of today’s multicultural community poses its own problem. And these can go down critical issues such as health services, which may be delivered based on the ethnicity of a person (http://www.goodtherapy.org/therapy-for-multicultural-concerns.html#). The more work is done to try and bridge the gaps, the less successful the process seems due to the actions of a few (http://rt.com/usa/180508-poll-police-black-huffington/).