Those pesky young people are up to their old tricks again: vandalising property, hanging around in packs, being a menace to well-meaning passers-by.
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It’s shocking, really. And it’s not true.
Young people, like those crafty enough to construct a skate park inside an abandoned Bendigo building, are not the public nuisance some would have us believe.
They are, however, angry with the lack of opportunity and the lack of faith their community affords them.
Too often they are maligned, marginalised and undervalued.
Generation Y has even been tagged “Generation Why Bother?”.
What a youth-driven initiative like pop-up skate park The Neighbourhood demonstrates is that despite all the put downs about their anti-social, social media-obsessed, greasy-haired habits, young people are actually carving an enterprising path through life.
Those behind the Bendigo skate site were using their hands to make, not hurt. They were using social media to rally their supporters, not to bully their detractors.
And the skaters are not anomalies. Even though the “young people these days” trope still gets trotted out, it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
Bendigonians aged 10 to 19 committed 350 less crimes in 2016 than five years earlier.
There are young people in this city starting businesses, contributing to charities and learning other languages.
Sure, The Neighbourhood crew might not have had permission to use the space, nor might it have been a safe place to skate. But it was safer than driving them apart, chasing them into their bedrooms and pushing them back online, behaviour for which they cop criticism in the first place.
If you want to know what young people are really like, talk to them.
Or talk to someone who knows them well. Ask teachers or mental health workers or sports coaches, people who work closest with those yet to graduate into adulthood.
They will tell you young people can be volatile, stubborn and cruel.
They will also tell you young people are compassionate, funny and insightful.
What makes young people angry is when they are not treated like citizens of a society that still expects them to be seen and not heard.
Mark Kearney, journalist