A survey of teenage attitudes prompts Kenneth Noble to ask himself some pertinent questions as a parent. At first glance the teenage girls' magazine Bliss seems unremarkable… a glossy A5 publication with such headlines as "OhmiGod", "Arggh! I've snogged my best mate" and "Look gorgeous when you're skint". Yet at least three national newspapers have been quoting a remarkable survey that Bliss has commissioned about British teenagers' attitudes to life, sex, education and politics. The survey is unexpectedly showing that teenagers' attitudes to morality are less liberal than those of their parents' generation. As the headline in The Times put it: "Teens reject the permissive society". In the survey of 5,000 young people, average age 15, most thought the Government should be tougher on under-age sex and abortion on demand. But there seems to be a mismatch between attitudes and practice. The Daily Telegraph (11th March) reports that the poll "paints a worrying picture about under-age sex and drugs, with many youngsters indulging in both while disapproving of Britain's laissez-faire attitude to promiscuity". The poll suggests that 60% of teenagers think "it is best for couples to be married before they have children". Yet The Times reveals, "a sex-soaked adult society had resulted in a quarter of 15 year-olds having sex (24%), with many bitterly regretting it afterwards". Two thirds of those who filled in the survey thought that there were too many abortions. These findings should stop adults in their tracks. Our generation's liberal attitudes have seen a huge increase in both failed relationships and abortions - the NHS funded 186,274 abortions in 2001. To what extent are the teenagers' answers based upon bitter experiences of family break-ups, lack of moral guidance and inadequate role models? As a parent myself I know that I am a far-from-perfect role model, just as my parents were not perfect. But my parents were committed to each other, and they had the great virtue of making a habit of admitting when they got things wrong and renewing their efforts to get things right. The survey suggests that most teenagers have a strong inner sense of what is morally right. If my generation did a better job of living up to our own deeply held values (which we often try to inculcate in our children) it just might give today's youngsters the motivation to choose to live within the moral frame-work that they instinctively crave. That would give them security and - contrary to the popular portrayal of the permissive society - the freedom to find a useful and satisfying outlet for their energy and creativity.
English