Madam, – Orna Mulcahy paints a wholly negative picture of Irish teenagers (“Fair is foul-mouthed among Dublin’s gilded youth”, Opinion, February 27th). And although there is a hint of tongue-in-cheek, her article remains a specifically ageist diatribe, and classist, too, implying that bad language really only becomes an outrage when it’s found among “our most privileged teenagers”.
As a post-primary teacher I work with teenagers all day. I would agree that they are less careful with language than we were in my day, but that in this they are a product of the adult Irish culture in which they grow up (whether in Dublin 4 or elsewhere).
Could I offer a positive alternative to Ms Mulcahy’s view? Typically, teenagers I encounter boast certain excellent qualities which few in my middle-aged generation can claim to have had in their teens: a natural, unaffected openness to difference of race, colour, religion and sexual orientation – gay students feel safe enough in the school environment that they come out. They have a generous social conscience and are always ready to fundraise, campaign or otherwise expend time and energy on advocacy from the point of view of compassion.
Above all, they are imbued with a healthy irreverence and a fearless willingness to question our institutions, so that there is little chance of them cowering in ignorant submission before the State, the church, the banks, or education the way so many of my generation did.
Moreover, all of this makes them good company.
They are not all like this and they are not angels. Some indeed – shock and horror – use the F-word. But I think we would be better recognising their qualities, and foreseeing how today’s teenagers might transform the future of this screwed-up little country, than incarcerating them in one of Ms Mulcahy’s finishing schools to learn table manners and elocution. – Yours, etc,