Are We Killing Young People

In the past months, my 13-year-old stepdaughter took 38 ibuprofen pills, was hospitalised and had to get her stomach pumped. My best friend’s stepdaughter took a bottle of pills and my stepdaughter's friend took his own life. They were all between the ages of 13 and 15. I acknowledge that there have always been mental health issues and indeed suicide but why does it seem like the problem is unprecedented? Why is the next generation so keen to die?

According to the office of national statistics in the UK 558 young people took their own lives in 2019.

‘’In 2017 the UK mental health services budget was £105,000,000 lower than in 2012.’’

The Independent, 2018

Our research revealed only 9 per cent of young people found it easy to get support, with many facing unacceptable waits as well as reporting barriers at every step of the way, from being referred right through to receiving treatment.

Young Minds, who are one of the UK leading mental health charities published,

‘’Our researched revealed that only 9% of young people found it easy to get support, with many facing unacceptable waits, as well as reporting barriers every step of the way, from being referred right through to receiving treatment’’

Marc Bush, Director of Policy, Young Minds, 2018

Spending on youth services has been cut by 70% in England and Wales in the last decade. That is a loss of over £1billion, resulting in zero funding in many areas.

CYP Now, 2020

What kind of message does this give to young people?

Gandhi said: ‘The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members’

It is obvious to me that as a society we are allowing terrible atrocities to happen to the next generation. Whether it be through cuts to services or allowing unscrupulous humans to take advantage of them in every aspect of their lives. I wonder what that says about us. Instead of understanding and caring most Judge and blame the hooded ‘gangs’ of today for the situation they find themselves in.

Bishop Desmond Tutu hit the nail on the head when he said. “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

The sound of young people’s voices are disappearing. Families are fractured, overworked and weary. Schools are holding pens with no educational value that is meaningful to their lives. Games consoles and the internet are their only escape. Young people are passed from service to service with no one taking responsibility for them. They feel this in their collective consciousness. They internalise being unwanted as being unlovable. They mirror the expectations that society has of them.

The way young people are handling this reality is to build their own communities. Mostly online. These communities speak another language that only they understand. These communities serve a purpose. They provide young people with the meaning and love they do not get from the real world. They feel understood and part of something.

These communities can be dangerous when left unchecked. Think of it like taking drugs. The reason people take drugs is that it is an escape from reality, an illusion of pleasure. There will always be a comedown, there is always a consequence but for that moment, those few hours they are free.

Young people are free to be themselves in the communities they create online. The consequences being that there are bad influences, false role models and vigilante laws and rules. What starts out as a common interest soon turns into competition, self-doubt and unachievable expectation. They then battle you, the grown-ups in order to get the latest products which will move them up the popularity ladder within their community.

These communities, like all others, have a hierarchy. They are led by the people with the most stuff, the most views, the most followers. Young people have unrealistic expectations of what their lives are. They see people their age who are famous on YouTube with top of the range stuff. Young people simply do not have the critical mind to question this. To them it is simple. If I get more stuff, I get more status.

Young people value themselves on stuff. We have done that to them. We have taken every other meaningful thing in life away. They have no other purpose in this society other than as a consumer.

They have no voice and no choice.

Henry Giroux wrote about the scrapheap of human waste. He was referring to how capitalism leaves vulnerable groups behind. There is always a group on the scrapheap along with our microwaves are old TV’s. With this generation of young people, there has been a slow decay of their rights, their responsibilities’, their place in society. Their only purpose comes from what they own.

As adults in their lives, this is our responsibility to fix this, not theirs.

We need to provide them purpose again. Add value to their lives. Give them hope. Give them skills. Show them real opportunities.

I am often shocked at how little young people know about the world. My stepdaughter said to her dad the other day; ‘I can’t come to your house today because mums not here and I don’t know how to pack’. ‘What do you mean you don’t know how to pack?’ I said, ‘You do not know how to get your bag out of the cupboard and put the things you need into it’.

Whose fault is this! Its our fault!

Young people fear judgement from their peers more than anything because than could mean exile from their only community. They cannot climb out of this hole that we have put them in without intervention. George the Poet wrote in his poem entitled ‘King Crab’ ‘Do you know what happens to the crab that tries to climb out of the bucket? All the other crabs pull him back down’. This is true for young people. If one does something different, they are judged, mocked and ridiculed. To a young person, this is quite possibly the worst thing that could happen to them, so they stay in the bucket. Remember when we were kids and we were taken to activity centres to do rock climbing and canoeing. There was always someone you did not expect that shone through as a leader. That changed the way you looked at them forever. With no opportunity to feel pride and purpose things will only get worse.

If we do not act on this soon I fear more young people will die, and we will have blood on our hands.