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Why Is It Now Wrong To Cherish The Way Of Life, That We Once Held Dear?

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anotheoldgit | 14:56 Sat 08th Jun 2013 | News
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2337702/SIMON-HEFFER-Coronation-dream-politicians-betrayed.html

Is it now wrong to still cherish our way of life?

/// But steadily over the past six decades — particularly in the past 15 years or so — those aspects of Britishness and key institutions have all too often been insulted, rebuffed, ridiculed, despised, attacked and, to all intents and purposes, destroyed. ///

How very true, but not just by politicians.


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There's a flaw in your argument -- and AOG's, by blatant and unfair generalising. Also, the rates of teenage pregnancy are falling, although this is from a high point -- but that highpoint was 1971.
Our culture is gradually being diluted to accomodate and promote the minorities culture which appears to be sacrosanct)- like to see this happen in an islamic country
Younger-age pregnancies have risen in recent years, yes. And no, I wouldn't deny that it's a problem. But the fact is that STIs have risen far more dramatically among the over-45s than they have among the under-25s:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/campaign-to-tackle-soaring-std-rate-among-over50s-2074219.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7974297.stm

http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/interactive/news/theme_news_detail.php?id=801284466

This is not a matter of speculation. It's a simple fact.

I also wouldn't necessarily be quick to make assumptions about what younger pregnancies actually mean - a close relative of mine has had 3 children by age 23, with two different fathers, and is in a perfectly stable relationship. She's also an attentive and loving mother, and has started her own business to help raise her family.

Kromo

\\\ And if young people conduct safe sex (which they actually seem to do more often than the over-45s according to STI statistics)\\\

The definition of "safe sex" has changed over the last 50 years as in the 50's it meant not becoming pregnant but now it is confined to contracting VD (I can't help using the old terminology).

It seems that "safe sex," whichever definition, is a valueless term as there is an explosion of teenaged pregnancy and also a rise in STD.s

Might i suggest that the above is due to the fact that being pregnant, unmarried and a teenager was then, a social stigma.......now it is just a matter of fact and sometimes, convenience.

AOG

I think there's a whole load of reasons. Dominic Sandbrook (modern historian) has written a series of books chronicalling life in Britain from the 50s through to the 80s (I urge anyone with an interest in history to read them - I hated history lessons in school but this guy's writing style really draws you in, especially when he writes in detail about events you have lived through).

Anyway, in his book covering the 60s (White Heat), he puts forward the idea that the British became less of a collective society. People used to go to the same places on holiday, the same social clubs, the same football clubs, the same churches, belonged to the same unions, watched the same things on TV.

Bit by bit, the things that held people together began to see falls in attendance because of the rise of individualism. Communities began to dissipate because the things that made communities began to fall out of favour. Not completely, but enough...

The other thing that has affected the country is that we are so much more knowing, and perhaps, cynical than we were many years ago. Information is so much more readily available - and we have lost our trust in institutions, because evidence of rotten fruit is always out there.
Sqad makes a good point. When I was growing up in the 70s, a teen pregnancy was a major talking point. I remember a girl at my school who got pregnant at 16. We didn't talk about anything else for about two weeks. It was a huge scandal. I doubt whether it would carry the same weight now.

Another thing - I don't remember anyone living with their partner without being married in the early 70s. Now, I don't know anyone who doesn't live with their partner before getting married (or entering a CP).
Teenage pregnancies are now running at 44.6%, in 1976 it was 9% according to the Telegraph figures. Agree with Sqad -
But it still happened though didn't it? The difference now is that we support our young instead of sending them away and forcing them to put their babies up for adoption.

Question Author
em10

/// and for a long while for many it was make and mend do. ///

And people were happier then than they are today.

Take the Children, with a few different colours of crepe paper from Woolworths they would spend the weeks up to Christmas, sitting by their coal fires, busy making lanterns and garlands for their Christmas decorations, much better fun than buying them ready made from the local £1 shop.

With some pram wheels, a wooden soap box, etc, they made their own transport. A few cuttings from the hedge rows and they manufactured their catapults, and bow and arrows. All the four seasons were taken up in various pursuits, Carol singing door to door, snow shifting person's fronts for a voluntary charge, marbles, hopscotch, and whip and top around Easter, long walks, picnics, fishing and other outdoor adventures in the summer, and collecting different types of fallen leaves and pressing them in books during Autumn.

Today's children may have their technology, but are they not losing out in some way?
In the idylic, moral, law abiding, uptopic 1950s the number of teenagers having kids out of wedlock, doubled on the previous generation.

// 1951: Throughout the 1940s the teenage birth rate rose from 15.0 in every thousand in 1941 to 21.3. At the end of the second-world war the proportion of teenage births born outside marriage had almost doubled from the beginning of the decade to a third. By 1951, the proportion had dropped to 16% a proportion that remained largely unchanged throughout the decade. There was around one in six pregnant brides during the decade, the proportion being even higher for teenagers with one in four being pregnant on their wedding day.
During the 1950s illegitimate teenage births made up just a small proportion of all illegitimate births, at just under 15% with over half of all illegitimate births being to women over the age of 25.
1959: by the end of the 1950s the number of teenage births had risen nearly 50% from thirty-three thousand in 1955 to forty-six thousand, a rate of 31.6. The numbers of births to girls under 16 remained constant during the late 1940s and early half of the 1950s. From 1955 to the end of the Fifties, the numbers of under 16s giving birth more than doubled.
Do you really believe that children do not still do those things?
ummmm

\\\\But it still happened though didn't it? The difference now is that we support our young instead of sending them away and forcing them to put their babies up for adoption.\\\

Indeed it did......but it never reached the epidemic proportions of unplanned teenaged pregnancies of today.
If you asked the mother of an illegitimate child if attitudes to pregnancy had changed, she would say, yes and for the better.
If you asked women of that ilk who managed to wait until they were married before becoming pregnant, I think that they would say that waiting was worth while and pregnancy today was embarked upon in an irresponsible manner.
44.6%?!! How can you possibly believe that half of all teenage girls are pregnant?! What a stupid, moronic statistic.

The rate as of 2009 was 5/1000 of 13- to 15-year-olds, and about 50/1000 of 16- to 20-year-olds.

Sources:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/conception-statistics--england-and-wales/2011/sty-conception-estimates-2011.html

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/birth-statistics--england-and-wales--series-fm1-/no--37--2008/index.html

I'm aware this is the ONS and you may not trust it, but the ONS is more trustworthy with statistics than any newspaper.
Oh! dear....statistics coming under scrutiny......
Anotheoldgit, you seem reluctant to say what age you are for some reason. You said canary was too young to say what like it was for adults in the 50s so why is it you can say what like it was to be a child at that time when you were an adult?

Take it up with the Telegraph jim, I am reiterating what is printed whether you believe it or not is up to you, do I put a big question mark against government reports - you bet your bottom dollar I do.
"I'm aware this is the ONS and you may not trust it, but the ONS is more trustworthy with statistics than any newspaper. "

believe it or not i have a friend who works in the ONS........you think theyre more trustworthy do you....Hmmmmmmm
Why distrust the ONS and not the Telegraph? Just think about it for a second -- almost a half of all teenage girls pregnant. Can you not see how unbelievable that is? How ridiculous? How can you not blink at it and think, "there is surely something wrong with this figure"? And it is wrong. Granted there's likely to be an underestimate too in the figures from the ONS -- for starters one set of statistics I provided considers only live births and not abortions -- but there are reliable estimates for that, too, which approximately doubles the number of total pregnancies so we are up to maybe 10%.

Just -- please -- think about it. Half of all teenage girls pregnant. No. That is just so far out as to be wacky.
The responsibility comes when the child is born regardless of marital status.

A marriage certificate doesn't not affect ones parenting skills.
Question Author
ummmm

/// Do you really believe that children do not still do those things? ///

Yes.

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