Kids! What’s the matter with these kids today? Why can’t they be like we were, perfect in every way? Oh, what’s the matter with kids today?

From Bye, Bye Birdie Music: Charles Strouse Lyrics: Lee Adams



It is easy for us “older folks” to draw contrasts between our own youth and the current crop of youngsters. Usually we compare the conceived negative aspects of today’s youth with the enhanced positive aspects of our own.

Today’s youth, with their baggy pants; piercings; glazed eyes from too many hours of video-game blood, gore and mayhem appear different. Alien beings from another galaxy, they came to Earth solely to reap the fruits of my hard work. Erect hominids with strange habits, dress and speech, their primary aim is to make me an alien in my own world. They are creatures who always know more than I do of things I wish I knew something about. They laugh at my ethics and give me a blank look when I tell a joke. They create new words faster than I can learn them. They have been sprinkled with pixie dust and display a cockiness derived from immortality: They are young, have always been young, and will forever be young.

I was once a youth – truly, I was – resplendent in my rolled-up jeans and black sneakers, covered head to foot with a peculiar dusty substance. I was a child of the ’50s, a boomer, Elvis my king, Brigitte Bardot, my queen. I was lame from being chased by Officer Krumpski and Secretary McNamara, in dread terror of the military-industrial complex and disgustingly aware of the possibility of catching a “social disease.”

I was led by the beat of rock and roll, addicted to Ed Sullivan, in mourning for James Dean and scared out of any existential awareness by countless “duck and cover” drills. Bright futures existed only in Ray Bradbury and Arthur C. Clark novels. Around the corner of my tomorrow, there existed only instant vaporization and the black snows of nuclear winter.

I was fluent in the language of the Beatnik, laughed at “Dobie Gillis” and “Father Knows Best,” and was a fan of Duane Eddy, the Everly Brothers and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Looking at the youth of today, I naturally see a difference, but it is more of form than of substance. Global warming has replaced the horrors of a nuclear winter. Police in schools are filling in for “duck and cover.” Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake have stepped into the shoes of Elvis and Brigitte. Krumpski and McNamara have faded, only to be replaced by Gates and Rumsfeld.

Who would have believed that the dreaded military-industrial complex would transform into an insidious entity called “globalization,” or that the sterile social diseases of the past would be replaced with the killers AIDS, hepatitis C and numerous incubating tropical diseases too horrible to contemplate?

Inevitably, my pixie dust lost potency and I moved on. No longer immortal, no longer young. Somehow, I survived. Today, I am a husband, father and grandfather. A homeowner with thousands of Kodak moments filling boxes in the attic.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, I found myself drawn to these boxes.

While rummaging, I came across a tattered and yellowed pamphlet that had been created and published by the Houston Police Department back in the 1950s. The pamphlet was entitled: “For Parents: How To Make A Child Into a Delinquent – 12 Easy Rules.”

“Delinquent:” It sounded as anachronistic as “jeepers” or “swell.”

The simple words of that pamphlet made sense back in the 1950s. Some of the terms appear a bit dated, much like actors in old movies appear today. However, like many old movies, true classics transcend time and continue speaking to our current situation.

I sat on the floor, leaned back against the exposed knee-wall and spent about an hour reading, rummaging and remembering. Remembering the past, after all, is one thing we gray-hairs do better than the kids.

I’d like to dedicate the words of that old pamphlet to present and future parents everywhere.

“For Parents: How To Make A Child Into a Delinquent – 12 Easy Rules.”



1. Begin at infancy to give the child everything he wants. In this way, he will grow up to believe the world owes him a living.

2. Give a child all the spending money he wants. Never let him earn his own. Why should he have things as tough as you had them?

3. Satisfy the child’s every craving for food, drink and comfort. See that every sensual desire is gratified. Denial may lead to harmful frustration.

4. When he picks up bad language, laugh at him. This will make him think he’s cute.

5. Never give the child any spiritual training. Wait until he is 21, and then let him decide for himself.

6. Avoid the use of the word “wrong.” It may develop a guilt complex. This will condition him to believe later, when he is arrested for stealing a car, that society is against him, and he is being persecuted.

7. Pick up everything he leaves lying around – books, shoes, clothes. Do everything for him so that he will be experienced in throwing all responsibility on others.

8. Let him read any printed matter he can get his hand on.

9. Quarrel frequently in the presence of your children.

10. Take his part against neighbors, teachers and policemen. They are prejudiced against your child.

11. When he gets into real trouble, apologize for yourself by saying, “I never could do anything with him.”

12. Finally, prepare for a life of grief, for if the other 11 rules are followed closely, you will be likely to have it.

As I sat in that attic amidst the scattered, dusty boxes of ages past, my mind drifted to a time when my own children were small and entrusted to me. Have I done right by them? Did I give them the proper tools for cutting through that jungle out there? Have I done the best job of parenting possible?

Like my parents, I made mistakes. Now, trying hard to see back into the hazy past, I find that I cannot remember details with clarity and precision. However, when I concentrate on the now, look at my grown children, see their smiles and the smiles of their growing children, I know that I, like my parents before me, did the best job I could.

If children come with a book of instructions, we did not go by it, often did not have time to read it if we had it. Instead, we held our children’s hands when there was danger, held them tight when they cried or were frightened, worked hard for their daily bread and rejoiced at their accomplishments and hurt profoundly when they failed.

We brought them into the world with an act of love, raised them as an act of love, and now we watch them with love. It was not easy raising them. It is no less easy when they become adults. The laughing and the crying, the pleasure and the hurt, the victories and the defeats; the entire process holds me in awe. It is life, and life in its fullness is a wonder.

Guy Bourrie has been hauling on the highways for 20 years. He lives in Washington, Maine, and can be reached at [email protected].