FAO Naomi - re the Amish people

[boxtops]

Hi Naomi, just checking Sunday's TV listings. There is a programme on BBC4 - 8pm - about a group of Amish teenagers who come to the UK on a cultural exchange, It's entitled "Amish - the word's squarest teenagers". Might make interesting viewing, I've marked it to watch if I can.
Good to see you on CB tonight!

[123everton]

I'd watch it but it clashes with Top Gear (no contest), what I don't understand is why call the show "The World's Squarest Teenagers"?
Maybe they should learn to be hip and cool and catch clamydia or get an abortion by the age 0f 18 (1 in 8 I think it is have had one apparently) do you think they may have a certain contentment that we just don't have?
I'd love to spend my days building barns, working the land and keeping horses, even more so as a small boy.
But, then again, no Top Gear.

[jno]

keep an eye on iPlayer, 123Everton... it should be there all week. But the title doesn't make me feel it will be even-handed, somehow.

[pastafreak]

Correction boxy...it's C4...and it's a series.

[naomi24]

Thanks very much indeed, Boxtops. I've been to a few Amish townships, so that will be interesting. I'll record the series. (Thanks Pasta).

Everton, well, there's no doubt the Amish are pretty 'square' in today's western world, but you certainly have a strange idea of a 'hip' teenager. I don't know any even nearly as 'hip' as those you describe. Perhaps you and jno should watch the programme before forming opinions.

[123everton]

What, and miss Top Gear?
I don't view them as square, I don't view anyone as square, are these kids happy, that's a more important question.
I deal with lots of teens on a day to day basis, the S.T.Ds admittedly are straight out of the newspaper as is the abortion figures, I'm no fan of statistics but it's hardly a cool thing to be.
The kids I see are largely unhappy, furrowed brows (more wrinkled than mine and I'm nearly 40 and had quite a hard life), drunk, stoned, downright dimwitted (can't even add up) and wholly incapable of looking after themselves never mind anyone else.

[ummmm]

I don't know any teenagers like that.

I also know more people in their late 20's early 30's have abortions than younger people.

[naomi24]

Neither do I ummmm - but Everton is clearly an expert on teenagers, so what would we know?

[boxtops]

Oops - sorry re the channel, i was mislead by the 4... when I saw the listing, I thought myself that the word "square" itself is old-fashioned, it harks back to the 50s/60s - and these people are old-fashioned. They live by a different construct, no mobile phones and so on, but they have a set of morals and standards, which so many don't demonstrate these days. They would seem dreadfully unpolished to a modern teenages - who (IMHO) have too much to hand, too much to be bored with. I will watch - Top Gear will be repeated tomorrow, I believe!

[ummmm]

The fact that I have two of them.....both with lot's of friends..so not a lot I suppose.

[naomi24]

And Everton, why would you have to miss Top Gear? Don't you have a recorder?

[boxtops]

and ummm, btw, round here is one of the areas with a high rate of teenage pregnancy, our localities have special measures and had a department trying to spread the work to the youngsters about contraception and STIs. Being bored leads to experimentation....

[mollykins]

ahem . . .

[naomi24]

Well said Molly. :o)

[mollykins]

Apparantly an area near me has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy but at my school I've seen more pregnant teachers than pupils. But I do go to the slightly better of the three schools ( I dread to think what the other two are like, one has police there all the time.)

[ummmm]

Does it? Boredom is a state of mind.

[RATTER15]

I work with a few teenagers and associate with a lot of their friends, I really dont know anybody like that everton, maybe you should get your head away from TV and look at reality instead of these stupid statistics.

[boxtops]

molly hi, I am not tarring all with the same brush, not by any means - I know some great teenagers who - as you do - have hobbies and pass their time in great ways - but I see a lot more who don't appear to have any aim in life (and I'm not sure I did at sixteen) and get into trouble because their lives are unstructured. This is a hard up area round here so people can't afford to start hobbies where they have to pay for instruction - but they don't want to join in with free things either, more interested in dossing around on street corners. I feel sorry for them, they are missing so much of what's good about being alive.

[ummmm]

I had my daughter at 18 so I suppose I'm one of those stats. Teenagers like me weren't really counted though. Job, house, relationship...no benefits.

[boxtops]

Ummm, that's one question the TP team haven't been able to answer for me. My niece had two children in her teens, happily married straight from school (and still happily married) but those two children were planned and born into in a stable relationship. The stats would include them - but those children were not a "problem to the state" any more than your daughter was - but I don't know whether the stats differentiate.

[ummmm]

I think the first place they go for the stats is the benefits office.