6 ms·

Wow, how things have change from when I was a teen in HS in the early 90s. I was a 'responsible' one because I had a job. Few people thought about 'getting in'

Wow, how things have change from when I was a teen in HS in the early 90s. I was a 'responsible' one because I had a job. Few people thought about 'getting in' (IIRC the valedictorian went to the AF academy), but otherwise we all just wanted to graduate and go to one of the 2 big state schools or the local college. I was smart enough, i.e. paid attention in class, that I never had to study (that caught up with me in college). Weekends were spent hanging out at the beach and trying to find someone to buy us beer. Parties were common and there were the occasional fist fights, but nothing too serious. It was definitely a simpler time. I think the documentation of a persons entire life from birth has removed the opportunity for kids to make mistakes and learn while they are young. It's unfortunate because I did a lot of dumb things as a kid, and while none of it was too serious, I was able to learn lessons without having it necessarily follow me around the rest of my life. Now they are all just entertaining stories.

vostok 7y ago
I would guess that more of this difference is explained by class/social factors than by the passage of time.
- nostrademons 7y ago
  Entirely possible, but there's also potential selection bias. I was a teen in the late 90s, and was friends with a lot of the druggie/stoner/party crowd. By and large, these people do not have kids, because they can't afford to. A good many of them are dead now, either from overdoses, or drug-related accidents (like crashing their car while going 100 mph while high), or suicide. The 55 years of American history post-WW2 was a bubble, where people could get away with a number of not-very-adaptive behaviors because the whole country was on top of the world. The last 20 years has rapidly exposed this as a bubble, and the folks who were swimming naked when the tide ran out didn't leave offspring to be part of the next generation.
  - cmrdporcupine 7y ago
    The post 9/11 period has markedly less tolerance for rebellious behaviour (anti-sociaL or otherwise) than prior to that. I feel like there are things we did back in the 90s with warehouse and squat parties and underground raves and political occupations and mass blatant MDMA use that could result in far more serious treatment by law enforcement in this era than prior to it.
  - Gibbon1 7y ago
    Kind of reminds me of the kids I grew up around in San Jose back in the 1960's and 70's. A lot of them thought they could party, skate through school and then go work for FMC or some such just like their dads. If I had to guess 75% of them have long ago left California because they couldn't cut it. At least in the Bay Area teens appear to be way more buttoned down and smart than my generation. Don't get me started on the boomer generation. My teachers said my and even more my younger sisters generation were a very welcome relief from those guys.
    - Joof 7y ago
      I've always felt that this is a misconception. My friends did a ton of drugs, had parties and participated in hobbies, especially in college. Now they're all Engineers, PhDs, Doctor's and Entrepreneurs. They just happened to work hard at school too. They don't have kids cause they're busy, so it might be as bad. But no, it's because they're rowdy kids doing 'bad things'.
      - Gibbon1 7y ago
        > They just happened to work hard at school too There you go. > But no, it's because they're rowdy kids doing 'bad things'. Did your friends rape girls at parties and steal cars?
  - samatman 7y ago
    That's anecdotally interesting, but the numbers don't bear it out: there's a consistent negative correlation between degree of educational attainment and number of offspring.
    - nostrademons 7y ago
      That negative correlation exists only between social groups, not within social groups: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3449224/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3449224/ If you look at only populations who were likely to go to college in the first place - say, white (formerly) middle-class two-parent households, which is what the bulk of my high-school friends were, there's a positive correlation between educational attainment and fertility. Simpson's Paradox strikes again...
- woodandsteel 7y ago
  No, things have gotten much harder for those who are not born to the very rich. I know, I went decades ago to highly-ranked high school, and it is amazing to me, and sad, how much harder students who want to get ahead have to study. And then there is the other 2/3 of society, who have been going downhill economically for decades.
smt88 7y ago
I went to HS at the #1 school in my state in the early 2000s, and my experience was like GP's, not yours. Nothing s/he said was surprising to me.
- nkozyra 7y ago
  I have never really heard high schools referred to by a ranking event though I went to high school at the same timeframe you did. Is this common? What's the measurement? State testing methods? Seems nebulous.
  - kube-system 7y ago
    Yes, any ranking on subjective criteria is nebulous. But it's definitely not uncommon to rank school performance. State testing is the easiest data to use because it's typically public information.
  - discostrings 7y ago
    Now what's the matter buddy, ain't you heard of my school? It's #1 in the state! People have been true to their schools since at least 1963.
  - smt88 7y ago
    At the time I went to the school, there was a national ranking that used a variety of factors, including number of IB/AB courses per student, (P)SAT/ACT scores, and GPA. I absolutely don't think the ranking was meaningful, but it at least says something about how many of my classmates had affluent parents who put a lot of pressure on them to succeed.
esoterica 7y ago
Things haven't changed that much since the 90s, you were just belonged to a very different demographic than the parent commenter.
- woodandsteel 7y ago
  No, that's not true. Decades ago I went to a high school that included a large number of that demographic, and things were far easier.
ptero 7y ago
Based on what I heard from other folks (I am an immigrant and have no first hand experience) your experience seems pretty typical in early 90s. There were of course different setups, but I do not think it is primarily based on class or income. They were schools that pushed kids, but they were statistically rare. In 1990, being up until 2AM several times a week doing school projects would be considered insane. Now, while not universal, it is not unheard of. But I think you hit the nail on the head mentioning the current "your life is on file, no mistakes allowed" setup. To me, it is critical to let kids try things, including stupid things, and learn from their mistakes without having those mistakes affect every job search 20 years later. I think the pendulum will eventually swing back, but the generation growing up in the current setup will have to try the same stupidities and learn similar things as adults, at a much higher cost. My 2c.
- Vrondi 7y ago
  In the 1990s, being up at 2AM to do a school project would have gotten most kids punished, because they weren't allowed to be up that late on school nights, and doing so for a project meant you hadn't been keeping up with your homework and were cramming it in at the last minute, because you'd been slacking.
alexhutcheson 7y ago
As I mentioned in a reply to a peer comment, the environment you describe is still the norm in most of the US. By contrast, there's a very high-pressure atmosphere in many of the "superstar" metro areas of the US. Many of us here on HN grew up in other places and moved to these "superstar" metro areas, so the contrast appears even starker that it would be if we were comparing the same places over time.
_throwaway882 7y ago
Hah I'd say that my experience was more in line with yours than anything close to the OP. Went to HS from 2008-12', couldn't have given 2 shits about school and was just trying to get some weed and get laid. Similar mindset with all my friend since we all just wanted to go to the state school. High school (and I'd argue undergrad) for 80% of people is a joke and a waste of time and for me was a time to learn how to network without networking. Always felt kinda funny sitting next to people in my hs,college, and now workplaces who had 'done everything right' their whole life but lo and behold were in the same place doing the same thing for the same pay. But thats probably just me being a douchebag more than anything
mydongle 7y ago
I think you're right. Back when I was in high school(not too long ago, I'm only 23 now), you could screw up and maybe become the joke at your school, but you can simply move somewhere else and become someone else. Or you'd graduate and move on from all of that. Now kids grow up in an environment where much of their lives take place online, where dumb things you've said or done are available somewhere, forever, to be used against you. Is it any surprise kids are the way they are when they are shown that even something they said 10 years ago can be brought back and used against them to destroy their lives?
Nasrudith 7y ago
Teen in the 00s here. It happened befor the documentation - really I think to a degree it was the related intersection of "juvennile delinquient" moral panics, crackdowns, zero tolerance, and general frankly batshit paranoia where the definition of being a "good guardian" amounts to operating a panopticon which ignores life traumatizing bullying and blames the victim yet freaks out at anything which goes against their precious norms even if perfectly legal. Granted the latter bullshit has a long legacy in American culture.

vostok 7y ago

I would guess that more of this difference is explained by class/social factors than by the passage of time.

nostrademons 7y ago
Entirely possible, but there's also potential selection bias. I was a teen in the late 90s, and was friends with a lot of the druggie/stoner/party crowd. By and large, these people do not have kids, because they can't afford to. A good many of them are dead now, either from overdoses, or drug-related accidents (like crashing their car while going 100 mph while high), or suicide. The 55 years of American history post-WW2 was a bubble, where people could get away with a number of not-very-adaptive behaviors because the whole country was on top of the world. The last 20 years has rapidly exposed this as a bubble, and the folks who were swimming naked when the tide ran out didn't leave offspring to be part of the next generation.
- cmrdporcupine 7y ago
  The post 9/11 period has markedly less tolerance for rebellious behaviour (anti-sociaL or otherwise) than prior to that. I feel like there are things we did back in the 90s with warehouse and squat parties and underground raves and political occupations and mass blatant MDMA use that could result in far more serious treatment by law enforcement in this era than prior to it.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  Kind of reminds me of the kids I grew up around in San Jose back in the 1960's and 70's. A lot of them thought they could party, skate through school and then go work for FMC or some such just like their dads. If I had to guess 75% of them have long ago left California because they couldn't cut it. At least in the Bay Area teens appear to be way more buttoned down and smart than my generation. Don't get me started on the boomer generation. My teachers said my and even more my younger sisters generation were a very welcome relief from those guys.
  - Joof 7y ago
    I've always felt that this is a misconception. My friends did a ton of drugs, had parties and participated in hobbies, especially in college. Now they're all Engineers, PhDs, Doctor's and Entrepreneurs. They just happened to work hard at school too. They don't have kids cause they're busy, so it might be as bad. But no, it's because they're rowdy kids doing 'bad things'.
    - Gibbon1 7y ago
      > They just happened to work hard at school too There you go. > But no, it's because they're rowdy kids doing 'bad things'. Did your friends rape girls at parties and steal cars?
- samatman 7y ago
  That's anecdotally interesting, but the numbers don't bear it out: there's a consistent negative correlation between degree of educational attainment and number of offspring.
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    That negative correlation exists only between social groups, not within social groups: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3449224/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3449224/ If you look at only populations who were likely to go to college in the first place - say, white (formerly) middle-class two-parent households, which is what the bulk of my high-school friends were, there's a positive correlation between educational attainment and fertility. Simpson's Paradox strikes again...
woodandsteel 7y ago
No, things have gotten much harder for those who are not born to the very rich. I know, I went decades ago to highly-ranked high school, and it is amazing to me, and sad, how much harder students who want to get ahead have to study. And then there is the other 2/3 of society, who have been going downhill economically for decades.

smt88 7y ago

I went to HS at the #1 school in my state in the early 2000s, and my experience was like GP's, not yours. Nothing s/he said was surprising to me.

nkozyra 7y ago
I have never really heard high schools referred to by a ranking event though I went to high school at the same timeframe you did. Is this common? What's the measurement? State testing methods? Seems nebulous.
- kube-system 7y ago
  Yes, any ranking on subjective criteria is nebulous. But it's definitely not uncommon to rank school performance. State testing is the easiest data to use because it's typically public information.
- discostrings 7y ago
  Now what's the matter buddy, ain't you heard of my school? It's #1 in the state! People have been true to their schools since at least 1963.
- smt88 7y ago
  At the time I went to the school, there was a national ranking that used a variety of factors, including number of IB/AB courses per student, (P)SAT/ACT scores, and GPA. I absolutely don't think the ranking was meaningful, but it at least says something about how many of my classmates had affluent parents who put a lot of pressure on them to succeed.

esoterica 7y ago

Things haven't changed that much since the 90s, you were just belonged to a very different demographic than the parent commenter.

woodandsteel 7y ago
No, that's not true. Decades ago I went to a high school that included a large number of that demographic, and things were far easier.

ptero 7y ago

Based on what I heard from other folks (I am an immigrant and have no first hand experience) your experience seems pretty typical in early 90s. There were of course different setups, but I do not think it is primarily based on class or income. They were schools that pushed kids, but they were statistically rare. In 1990, being up until 2AM several times a week doing school projects would be considered insane. Now, while not universal, it is not unheard of. But I think you hit the nail on the head mentioning the current "your life is on file, no mistakes allowed" setup. To me, it is critical to let kids try things, including stupid things, and learn from their mistakes without having those mistakes affect every job search 20 years later. I think the pendulum will eventually swing back, but the generation growing up in the current setup will have to try the same stupidities and learn similar things as adults, at a much higher cost. My 2c.

Vrondi 7y ago
In the 1990s, being up at 2AM to do a school project would have gotten most kids punished, because they weren't allowed to be up that late on school nights, and doing so for a project meant you hadn't been keeping up with your homework and were cramming it in at the last minute, because you'd been slacking.

alexhutcheson 7y ago

As I mentioned in a reply to a peer comment, the environment you describe is still the norm in most of the US. By contrast, there's a very high-pressure atmosphere in many of the "superstar" metro areas of the US. Many of us here on HN grew up in other places and moved to these "superstar" metro areas, so the contrast appears even starker that it would be if we were comparing the same places over time.

_throwaway882 7y ago

Hah I'd say that my experience was more in line with yours than anything close to the OP. Went to HS from 2008-12', couldn't have given 2 shits about school and was just trying to get some weed and get laid. Similar mindset with all my friend since we all just wanted to go to the state school. High school (and I'd argue undergrad) for 80% of people is a joke and a waste of time and for me was a time to learn how to network without networking. Always felt kinda funny sitting next to people in my hs,college, and now workplaces who had 'done everything right' their whole life but lo and behold were in the same place doing the same thing for the same pay. But thats probably just me being a douchebag more than anything

mydongle 7y ago

I think you're right. Back when I was in high school(not too long ago, I'm only 23 now), you could screw up and maybe become the joke at your school, but you can simply move somewhere else and become someone else. Or you'd graduate and move on from all of that. Now kids grow up in an environment where much of their lives take place online, where dumb things you've said or done are available somewhere, forever, to be used against you. Is it any surprise kids are the way they are when they are shown that even something they said 10 years ago can be brought back and used against them to destroy their lives?

Nasrudith 7y ago

Teen in the 00s here. It happened befor the documentation - really I think to a degree it was the related intersection of "juvennile delinquient" moral panics, crackdowns, zero tolerance, and general frankly batshit paranoia where the definition of being a "good guardian" amounts to operating a panopticon which ignores life traumatizing bullying and blames the victim yet freaks out at anything which goes against their precious norms even if perfectly legal. Granted the latter bullshit has a long legacy in American culture.