Youth of today - is this how it is now?

So, something rather amusing happened at work tonight and it got me thinking... I'm a bit disturbed about the youth of today and how bad things have declined in the past 10 years and where they might be when I have kids that age in 15-20 years.

At about 6:30, I was standing at the ticketstand awaiting patrons to show up for the 7 o'clock set. This woman approaches me and says that her young teenage daughter is seeing Step Up with a few friends, one of which is a boy. She's not supposed to be dating and she was wondering if she could just go in the theater and check up on them to make sure nothing funny was going on. Since no one was really showing up for the 7's and the previous show wasn't really busy I said I'd walk her back so she could take a look and have the nearby concessionist keep an eye on the ticket stand.

So I walk the mom into the theater. It's in one of the stadium seating ones, so we walk to the halfway point, so she could view her daughter. The girl is sitting alone with a boy, huddled way up in the top corner. The moment she sees her mom, she gets up to move, to which her mom is like 'what are you doing?' The girl is like 'nothing...' and the mom tells her to move to the other side of the boy. The mom goes walking out of the auditorum, and once we get to the hallway she's like 'Looks like a good thing I came to check up on them... I think I'm going to go purchase a ticket" to which I tell her, by all means, go ahead.

When their movie gets out, we see the girl and her friend trailing behind mom, out the lobby exit doors, with the boy straggling behind, as he had to wait for his ride. After the boy left, we found an unused condom laying on the floor.

The boy looked a little older than the girls, who looked to be maybe in the 12-14 age range.

Who in their right mind, at that young of an age, would want to lose their virginity in the back of our movie theater? I just don't get it!

Growing up in high school, especially my freshman and sophomore years, my parents weren't fond of me hanging out with boys, outside of Sundays and Wednesdays at church or at school-related events like Pep Band and sports games. I remember freshman year when Alissa and I were supposed to meet up with Tony and Bryan at the mall once, Becca listened in on the phone conversation regarding the planned get together and told mom and dad when they got home that night (I had been babysitting her when we were on the phone).

People worried about the things kids were doing when I was that age... am I just getting old or are things really that f-ed up with teenagers these days?

Back in my day, which was barely 10 years ago (wow, that makes me feel old!), it wasn't until my junior year of high school that you'd start hearing about the few handfuls/cliques of kids that slept around, smoked, did drugs and partied. Everyone knew who they were and generally it was looked down on. The girls were known as the sluts and skanks, the druggies were obvious and the guys that partied usually hung out with the girls that were loose. Back then it was easier to stay away from the problem kids.

But having worked with high school kids for the last 3 years, I can't believe some of the things I hear them talk about. Teens having babies wasn't exactly common when I was in high school, but now, it's pretty common apparently. As is going to parties with alcohol on the weekends, people getting high regularly, girls sleeping around and giving sexual favors... I'm kind of appalled at some of the things I hear from my kids at work! Even in the movies like Juno and Superbad - do kids of today really act like that? In Juno, she gets pregnant by her best friend because 'they got bored' one afternoon. Seriously?

Is the youth of today really that messed up? I'm almost scared to be a parent if the things teens are doing today are that much worse than what it was 10 years ago... I can't even imagine how bad it'll be in 15-20 years from now! Bec, if I ever hear of you doing any of things that it seems kids of today are doing... well, let's just say, you better not be!

So am I completely overreacting and just getting old, or is this how the youth of today really is?