Today's Kids Are Much More Well Behaved and Conservative
Every few years, parents find new reasons to worry about their teenagers. And while there is no question that some kids continue to experiment with sex and substance abuse, the latest data point to something perhaps more surprising: the current generation is, well, a bit boring when it comes to bad behavior.
By several noteworthy measures, today's teenagers are more cautious than the generations their parents belonged to. Consider the headline number: the U.S. teen birth rate fell to 34.3 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19 in 2010 — the lowest level recorded since tracking began in the 1940s, and down 44 percent since the 1991 peak, according to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. Between 2006 and 2010, 57 percent of girls aged 15 to 19 said they had never had sex, up from 49 percent in 1995. Among those who are sexually active, contraceptive use has improved, with more teens using highly effective methods.
The trend extends beyond sex. Fewer 12th graders binge-drink than in previous decades, and fewer teens smoke. The declines cut across racial groups and most states — the improvement holds whether a state teaches abstinence-only sex education or a comprehensive curriculum.
The explanations researchers offer are encouraging rather than alarming: girls waiting longer to have sex, better contraception, and teenagers who have absorbed years of messaging about the real difficulty of being a teen parent. The "immortal, invincible, and infertile" adolescent self-image is still there — but the behavior it produces is milder than it used to be.
None of this means parenting got easy. But the moral panic that greets each new generation deserves an honest look at the numbers — and the numbers say today's kids are, on average, doing considerably better than their parents' generation at avoiding the risks that scare us most.
Sources
- CDC: Teen Birthrates at Historic Low — Education Week
- Teen Birth Rate Reached New Historic Low in 2012 — Live Science
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