Some version of “kids these days” has dripped from the lips of older generations for time immemorial. It almost seems inevitable that people get to a certain age and start looking at youth with the eye of judgment, comparison, and sometimes outright antagonism. Hence, pretty much every generation of elders has deemed the younger generation as lazy, soft, undisciplined, immoral, disrespectful, or otherwise “a problem.”

Since we’re supposed to learn from history, perhaps there’s something we can learn from this perpetual demonizing of youth. What if all those curmudgeonly criticisms of “kids these days” were just…wrong?

Examples of adults blaming youth throughout history

A video from History Hustle shares quotes from across the centuries illustrating this impulse to complain about the younger generations. Here are some highlights:

“[Young people] are high-minded because they have not yet been humbled by life…They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.” – Aristotle, 400 B.C.

“Our sires’ age was worse than our grandsires’. We their sons are more worthless than they: so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt.” – Horace, 20 B.C.

“Modern fashions seem to keep on growing more and more debased…The ordinary spoken language also steadily coarsened.” – Japanese Buddhist monk Yoshida Kenkō, 1330 – 1332

“Youth were never more sawcie, yea never more savagely saucie . . . the ancient are scorned, the honourable are contemned, the magistrate is not dreaded.” – Thomas Barnes, 1624

“The........

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