Based on anecdotal accounts, I really believe that today’s teens are FAR more conservative than their older siblings, parents, and in many cases, their grandparents...
This is the 9/11 generation. Parents like my husband and I, who had young kids at the time of 9/11, are often super protective and attached to their kids. We were shocked into the realization that our dear ones could be gone in a heartbeat, and we’re not risking their loss if we can help it. A lot of folks I know say they can’t be as oblivious to what their kids are up to as their own parents were.
As a parent of three teenagers my observations concur. However the why for the change might not be all that positive. What I see is that today’s kids are overly scrutinized in everything they do by their parents. Whatever they do, their parents are right there next to them. Go to any HS sports practice and you will observe a group of dads all watching through the fence. I’m talking practice, not games. Any problem in school, mom and dad will be there to handle it for them. Two boys have a disagreement, more likely the dads will square off instead of the boys themselves. Thou it is better that their lifestyle is more so called “conservative”, the downside is that these kids cannot handle life on their own. They need their parents hands to hold in all of life’s situations. Today’s youth are not being allowed to take the hard knocks. Their parents will not allow it. I qualify this by stating I live in the suburbs of a major NE city. That is what I see here, it may be different else where.
Maybe moneywise, but they've been Glee-ified with regards to social stuff. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of the government budding out and pretty much keeping itself to trade and defense but there's gotta be a common morality in the culture I believe (that people hold on their own without the government telling them to).
In where, the Amish ordnuns?
I have a teen stepdaughter now. Her friends are foul-mouthed, disrespectful, lecherous, bi-curious, willing to make out with anything with a pulse, and almost VIOLENTLY liberal.
Luckily one of the worst offenders, a feral chick who has caught the attention of the stepdaughter's hormones, will be moving out of the area soon. Maybe we can break her of this crap.