A Candid Conversation

A Candid Conversation By Theresa Grant Real Estate Columnist Without question, it is a very different world today than the one I grew up in. I remember being a child living in what was then called uptown, it was actually the Yonge and Eglinton area of Toronto. It was a very modest upbringing. My parents worked hard to give their three daughters what they could. We all helped around the house, took turns doing the dishes and things to help our mom. We were respectful and obeyed the rules set out by our parents. We had one bathroom, one television and therefore had to agree on what to watch. Our parents set out most of the viewing schedule and I remember the whole family sitting around the living room watching Carol Burnett, The Waltons and many other entertaining programs. We as children didn’t use the phone much,we waited for someone to come knocking on the door to see if we wanted to play or we went door knocking ourselves. It was simple, stay close, come home as soon as the streetlights came on. At the time, we could not have imagined it being any different than it was. Progress to us (and to our delight), was returning to school in September to find a new piece of equipment added to the playground. For the many that grew up as I did in the sixties and seventies it is very hard to fathom what is going on with our youth today. Years ago, we thought that older people were looking to recruit the younger ones for their crimes and misdemeanors by telling them that they could not get into any serious trouble due to the young offender’s act.It would often be the case that a couple or a few named young adults would be arrested and we would see on the news that there was a young offender involved who could not be named. It seems that that is not even the case anymore. We see on the news on a regular basis, children as young as eleven and twelveare involved in horrific crimes and there are no older adults involved. Which begs the question, what the hell is going on with our youth?Where are the parents is one of the biggest questions that I hear posed when these stories hit the news. What is going on in homes across our region that would make these children think that it is okay to go out and commit the crimes they do? The most recent that comes to mind is the smash and grab at the Oshawa Centre involving a group of boys aged from 13-19. Then there are the 8 kids involved in the armed robbery of another youth on William Lott Dr. in North Oshawa. Here we had12-, 13-, and 15-year-old girls and boys. Back in the summer there was the swarming of a Pizza worker in south Oshawa that involved an 11-year-old boy and 3 girls aged 13,14, and 15. Most heinous of recent youth criminal acts is the elderly woman killed in frontof her home in Pickering by a 14-year-old boy in an absolutely unprovoked attack. Something needs to change. Now. People need to speak up.