My theory is that the parents dumped the kids on the school systems where the teachers told them that anything they did was worth merit and nothing should be criticized. This led to a belief that nobody can tell them what to do, and they can do whatever the heck they want.
My predicate theory from the 1990s was that people in the 1970s used to decry how "children were having children." The children of the 90s were the children that those children had. What we're seeing 20 years later is that pattern repeating. These are the children that those children's children's children had. Their parents were spoiled, the children were neglected or pawned off to the schools, and the teachers coddled them with indoctrination that they were special, that they could do no wrong, and that nobody had the right to tell them otherwise, especially their parents.
-PJ
“...nobody had the right to tell them otherwise, especially their parents...”
This Grandpa is not above straightening out Grandkids behaving poorly in my presence.