girls v boys

[eupraxia]

Not sure if I'm in the right place but here goes.

Sitting at my PC in my bedroom I hear childrens voices at the side of my house (I'm in an end terrace house). There were  4 of them, 2 girls and 2 boys of between 10 and 12 years old. They were having fun hurling abuse at passers by most of which was ignored. What amazed me most was the language. It was just downright nasty. I was brought up with the army round me so I'm quite used to bad language but what really got me was that it was all coming from the girls. The boys didn't say a word, they just sat on the grass and watched.

Are girls really worse than boys  these days. I think they are.

Scariest of all is that one day these two little darlings will be mothers and they arn't the only ones I've seen display this sort of behavior. If they are the future God help this country.

Is it just me or are little girls being made of slugs and snails as well these days.

[B00]

I agree with you wholeheartedly eupraxia, I live near a high school and the language and context from these adorable (?) kids is terrifying!

I have a 6 month old baby girl, and I sooooo dont want her to grow up into one of these fiends.

I also agree that girls, especially in groups, are far worse than boys, they are downright evil.

[smudge]

I live near a private pre-school & all the little children wear smart uniforms & straw boater hats, etc. All the Mummies & Daddies drop them off in their brand new cars, etc., etc., etc. However, when I was walking past there a couple of weeks ago, a little girl aged about four years of age, got out of a car, dropped her lunch box & shouted out "Oh sh!t".

I walked on thinking - "well that's a good start in life!".

[shaneystar]

I was a girl once and wouldn't have dared to behave how some of them do today.I used to live near a girls school in Wimbledon and their behaviour was dreadful.Convent school I hasten to add.Their language when you had the misfortune to get on the bus with a crowd of them was disgusting.They had to call the police once to disperse a crowd of them from outside the station because of their abusive behaviour to passers by and people waiting for buses etc.I think gangs of girls are far worse than boys.

[Peri]

I live in Dublin Eupraxia and there was an article yesterday in our Herald newspaper about girls as young as 13 going to discos (to put it crudely) with no knickers and short skirts for easy access.  These girls dont care what they do or what they are seen doing.  I know I was brought up on guilt being a good catholic girl but there is one extreme and this is the other.  I know its not all of them  just a minority but where are they getting it from - the T.V. , lack of moral guidance at home - can anyone enlighten me.

[lindapinda]

I always thought that I would never end up saying things that my parents said,but I really can't understand why things have standards have dropped as low as they have now done.I was sitting at the bus stop on saturday,and the teenage girl beside me spat 4 times.To make it more amazing,she spoke to me politely,to ask when the bus was coming!

[purpose]

Oh dear... do we all sound like our parents? I know I do. I agree that girls are far worse these days, and yet I'm sure that when I was 12-14 (in the mid 80s) it was the boys who were worse.

I've watched my neighbours grow up over the last 7 years with dread. The 'boy' was 14 when we moved in... quite a helpful sort, a bit anti-social in the music-playing department, but a bearable 21 year old now (if it weren't for the drugs and the 100s of cars parked out the front!) The 'girl' was 12... gobby, unpleasant, loud, rude, extremely anti-social and now she is the same at 19.

Oddly enough, we are thinking of moving!

[Dom Tuk]

We adults use swear words like F, B, Wan, etc all the time. We mean nothing by it. It does not actually mean what it says. Most of us have used it when we were children. We have grown up to be normal law abiding adults. Why is a swear word from a teenager or a child considered so lifethreateningly bad. Why is it considered bad behaiviour when we can use it in similar contexts. Why this horrendous double standards. We did it when we were young and still do it today .....If you deny this you are lying.

[jake-the-peg]

You want to think about why people do this sort of thing.

Clearly in this example the intention is to shock.

Why is it so shocking to hear little girls swear at people but not not shocking to hear paratroopers do the same.

Could it just be that a lot of us have preconceptions of how certain people are supposed to behave and don't like it when those preconceptions pan out?

I like Dom's point about age. Maybe there should be an age limit that you can say bl**dy h*ll when you're 13 but can't use sexual swear words until you're 18 (unless you're a girl of course)

I also don't buy it that kids didn't sit on street corners and hurl abuse or stones at passers by until recently - or was all that stuff about Teddy boys with razor blades or Mods and Rockers made up?

[shaneystar]

Well Dom I certainly don't use words like F B and the other one you mention all the time.In fact I don't use them at all.Bad language certainly wasn't encouraged in our home .My father was in the Merchant Navy and I dare say he could have cursed for England but we never heard him do so at home.I constantly hear my neighbour shouting at her young daughter to F ing well do this or that and she replies in the same fashion.I don't think it's double standards.It's up to parents to teach youngsters right from wrong .And to hear young girls and boys using bad language is horrible.I know I am beginning to sound like my parents!!

[eupraxia]

I do agree that a lot of it is down to the way children are spoken to and yes we are sounding like our perants :-).

But over the years , taking my kids to school I have noticed that in some cases this sort of language is openly incouraged by some perants. Listening to some mother, they think it's cute when the first word that comes out of thier babies mouths is the  F word.I try not to use such words around children, I really do. But Jake the Mods and rockers were all teenagers , not children of 10 and 11. we all know teenagers rebel thats what they do.My point was the age of these kids. Like other have said I don't remember talking like that to my elders when I was young and neither did my friends. You see from my age group it was the thing that only adults used those words and when you grow up you get to do it to, in the right context of course. The rights a passage where age is concerned have gone. Little boys wore shorts for the first years of their lives and they new they were grown up when they got their first pair of trousers. Little girls dressed in mummies clothes and practiced putting on make up but were always dressed to go out as little girls.

I'm now showing my age here but I guess times have changed and little girls now are carbon copies of grown women. Theres no distinction any more and in some ways is not nessiserily a good thing.

[Peri]

I agree totally eupraxia.  Kids today are bored and doing everything earlier, going to discos etc. so what is left for them when they get to the late teenage stage.  The world is moving too fast

[woofgang]

speaking as an ex girl,(now woman) girls were always worse than boys!!!

agree about the language. I do swear sometimes but only in company where I know will not offend and certainly not in public (I am now 51 and figure what the hell....). Mr Woofgang is ex merchant navy and I spent the first 20 years of our married life travelling with him. During all that time at sea, often the only woman on the ship, the only swearwords I ever heard were the ones uttered by me or the other wives.

Like shaney star's dad, my husband never curses  in company (we have no kids) although he is olympic standard in both vocabulary and creativity!

[shaneystar]

Trouble is Peri......why are they bored?
Kids today have far more than I ever had as a child.I didn't have a mobile phone,computer,playstation,television in my room and so on...in fact we never had a television until I was a teenager. I read about a very sad case in the paper today where a gang of younsters beat up a 43 old man so badly he later died in hosptial.they asked him for a light for a cigarette and when he refused they attacked him.My dear old dad once said to me that we would see anarchy on the streets in this country one day and he was not far wrong.

[Peri]

So maybe Shaneystar its because they are not able to use their imagination any more that they are bored.  Everything is done and there for them.  Girls are not playing with dolls etc as long as they used to.  When you have kids going out into the world it is worrying.  And by the way I DO NOT sound like my mother LOL

[shaneystar]

I sound just like my Dad! Years ago when the Beatles and Stones and so on first came on the scene he used to say it was a load of tripe and they ought to get a decent haircut etc.
I now find myself saying the same thing about loud music and often ask my son to turn that racket down !! Mind you he is 25.
But it's true what you say they are not children for long nowadays and when you hear of girls as young as 11 having babies it makes my mind boggle.

[jake-the-peg]

But we've *always* seen violent streets - Brighton Riots with Mods and Rockers, Teddy boys and hells angels. Kubrick withdrew "A Clockwork Orange " because of copycat attacks on innocent bystanders.

There was a slight lull in the war years when many of the thugs got a chance to kill and maim for their country but the streets were far from safe in Victorian England.

I don't know about any of you but I've been robbed more often by a man in a suit (pensions spring to mind) than by a thug with a knife.

Still at least he didn't swear at me while he was doing it

[lauraking72]

I work as a dinner lady at the local junior school, and i think girls are a lot worse, they are bitchy to everyone where as boys are only nasty to boys as they are aware of the repecussions. my son does not swear at home.....he knows what would happen if he did, but i hear him swearing at school along with his friends, its because he has to keep up with the other children, but like i said he wouldnt dream of it at home.