(Thanks to Evelyn for the news tip)
Well, nobody knows exactly why. All they know is that the rate’s gone up tremendously in ten years, 2007-2017, according to the government’s Center for Disease Control. Up 56% in those ten years. That’s among persons aged 10 to 14 years old (https://www.westernjournal.com/suicide-rates-among-children-10-14-years-old-tripled-experts-blame-social-media/).
So the Experts reckon social media’s the problem, because “teenagers are concerned about receiving enough validation from their followers on social media…”
Hmmm… Now where could kids ever have gotten the idea that their age-group peers, other kids, are the most important people in the world, and peer approval the most important and desirable thing in all the world? What could possibly have taught them that?
Then there are the perpetual Doomsday scenarios were bombarded with daily: climate change gonna kill us, world’s gonna end in 12 years, ain’t no God, ain’t no purpose to life, we can know nothing–“You” aren’t you, but just a collection of external characteristics that land you in this or that group. Has anyone suggested to these Experts that even without social media, our culture is, like, saturated with these depressing messages? All brought to us by noozies and Democrats and teacher unions and looniversities and all the rest of [trumpet fanfare] The Smartest People In The World.
Well, there is a God and He has counted the very hairs on our heads, there is a purpose in life, the world that He created is not going to fall apart because people have SUVs and toilet paper, or for any other reasons, and you are you because you are made in His image and redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God–which makes you pretty important!
Teach your kiddies not to listen to the Doomsday no-meaning-no-God crowd, not ever; and for heaven’s sake, take them out of public education. They need to be socialized and taught by their loving families, not by other kids.
Part of it, I think, is not just that they’ve been terrified by negatives — hey, we had nuclear attack drills when I was in school — but even more that they’ve been given no sense of positive possibilities, no cause for hope. Even aside from the banishment of the one true Hope from their schools, they also have no purpose for their lives. Marriage is bad (sexist, transphobic, or whatever), making a living is bad (capitalist), serving one’s Nation is bad (xenophobic), and everything else that previous generations could look forward to in shaping their future lives is bad — or absent or never even mentioned. So what are they going to be when they grow up? Is anything out there at all? They haven’t been given any real options. May as well exit now….
Well said!
Two points:
First, 10-year-olds are not TEENS, they’re CHILDREN!
Second, Public employees were not always unionized. The decline in schools really escalated after public employee unions were legalized (in the 60s?). Since then they have been gradually taking away parent’s rights and consolidating all the decision making at the state and federal level. Even those who disagreed with union policies have had to fund them with their dues. (Sounds like Socialism to me.) At least there has been a recent court decision freeing those who don’t want to join a union from being forced to pay fees anyway.
Courts have a huge impact on our culture as well. Anybody notice that we have been getting a better quality of judges recently? There is hope. It took a couple of generations for us to get this way. It may take another couple, or longer, to get the country back where it belongs.
And it will probably take a massive Christian renewal.
Please God!
If we Christians worked as hard for Christ as the bad guys work for their evil master, it’d be no contest: we’d get better in a hurry.
I would love to believe that, but honestly what people don’t realize is the reason teens are giving their life away because of the world they live in. teens are rejected and feel unloved by everyone. Our teens and young adults are in pain and are lost. I honestly don’t believe that God is the key to everything. Teens feel unloved because they lack the human love not Gods love.
Human love is the gift of God.
The law, God’s law, is thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Teens are welcome here–the more, the better.
As a former Orthodox Christian I do not see much love in our perverted world. What I see is a wold full of young adults and teens also known as Gen Z, who are hurt and lost. We look for peace in music and our friends who are also fallen like every other human. I do not believe that faith and hope in God is going to solve our problems. That is why there is so much peer pressure and so much pain.That is why our teens are killing themselves. That is why almost every teen and young adult addicted to drugs to alcohol. They are trying to fit in because they didn’t feel loved by anyone and they couldn’t find peace within a church.
Paying too close heed to God’s laws is *not* why the world is in a mess today.
Stick around here a while, take part in our fellowship, read what a lot of different people have to say, ask questions, listen to the hymns–really, current popular music is the very last place I’d look for peace: and my friends would be next to last–and just be, just rest: give God’s voice a chance to be heard.
No no, you’re definitely correct. Our world is a mess because people keep saying “seek refuge in God”. But when we turn towards God and try to rely on Him, He doesn’t answer us and it seems like He doesn’t care about us! Gen Z is a lost and hurt generation! I’m definitely gonna keep reading what people post and try to comment positive intel! But I can promise you that my thoughts aren’t gonna change
An open mind would definitely be a help.
I’m going to shut up now and see what others have to say. There are some very good people here. Listen.
Ok, I’ll give y’all a shot!
Shout-out to Marlene–are you the same Marlene we’ve been missing for months?
The more secular our society has become, the worse it has gotten. The Left likes to ridicule the morals and values of 1950s America, but we were far better off back then. There was no mass shootings like there are today. People could leave their doors unlocked at night. Drug use wasn’t rampant. And the dollar was worth a lot more. And even though there were still negative things like segregation and racism, black families stayed together and there wasn’t an epidemic of drug use, broken homes, absentee fathers, and incarcerations within the black community like there is now.
Everything began to change with the 1960s counter culture movement. God was removed from schools. Abortion was made legal. And it’s been steady downhill from there. If a person from the 1950s could time travel to our present they would be shocked at some of the things going on.
I guess a lot of us are time-travelers in a way, because we remember the 50s: we were there. All this evil dreck happened in my lifetime, right before my eyes–and I still don’t believe it.
Agreed. Actually, I grew up in the 1940s, in a South Bronx neighborhood that was about 60% black, with the 3d Ave “el” trains running past our schoolroom windows. But no one ever locked a door during the day; kids were safe to play in the street or go to the park several blocks away; and if we did something wrong in school, by the time we got home our parents knew about it and PUNISHED us — and that was true in black and white families alike. In fact, there was a “bad kids” class at my school, where the really bad kids had to go for discipline if they did something horrible — which was usually something like talking back to the teacher. Imagine “talking back to the teacher” being considered a terrible thing today, when kids are considered good if they don’t beat up or kill their teacher (or each other).
Like vandalize the radiator so they can throw the parts at the teacher… I saw that in a high school once. In fact, I was the teacher.
My wife & I have the same reaction as Lee describes. We watch a lot of news and are dumbfounded by how much Christians are under attack, and the ungodly, unAmerican alliance of the liberals with the MSM.. What used to be a good patriotic American now is the fodder for TV/Movie entertainment. No wonder young people are committing suicide when they are told working in a hamburger stand is for losers, when in reality it is a good first step in improving one’s status in society. The Welfare State has killed the virtue of honest work.
There was a poll not long ago in which a majority of teens said their goal in life was “to become famous.” Famous for what, nobody knew.
I would say that the Left’s doomsday scenarios are the root of this.
Not only are they committing suicide, but young children and teens seem to be far more violence prone as well, as we hear about shootings, violent bullying, and threatening violence on social media.
It’s terrifying to think about the hopelessness that children feel nowadays. When I was little, because I was homeschooled and was never on the internet, I was able to be a child. As I got older, I learned more about the world, but I had a Christian worldview to fall back on.
Even now, I think because of that, I find it shocking to think about just how absent God is from so many children’s lives. So many of them are as spiritually benighted as any New Guinea native a hundred years ago, and have never heard of the Savior. Their lives are empty, and they may not even realize it consciously, but they feel it and they have nowhere to turn to find the meaning and purpose in life 🙁
It’s heartbreaking.
Well said, Laura.
Our country’s big shots have done a fantastic job of protecting children from Jesus Christ.
Not that we ever asked them to.
Ailith,
I appreciate your comments and, truly, I’ve felt the same way at times. I’ll just add my two cent’s worth.
I would be the first to agree that many churches have failed to live up to the standards they claim to uphold. I could fill many pages with bed things I’ve experienced and bad things I’ve seen others experience in religious organizations. Religions are comprised of humans, it’s one thing to seek fellowship, but realistically, we will not have perfect experiences in any church. We need, instead, to place our trust only in God.
But how can we trust God when He doesn’t seem to answer? Let me explain from a real life experience, that happened just today. I manage a network with many hundreds of users and which spans four continents, s includes managing phones in a number of offices.
This morning, one employee was quite upset by a minor phone problem, and legitimately so. However, I was dealing with issues which could have idled many hundreds of people and that was the higher priority. While this person called, texted and submitted trouble tickets, my priority had to be making certain that everyone would be able to do their job, and to do so in the long term.
What does this have to do with God? It starts with an important premise, which is explained early in the Bible account. Mankind is in a fallen state. Everything that has happened since is about restoring all of mankind to the state they were in before the fall. Now, God is powerful and He could fix everything instantly. He could. I have no doubt. So why doesn’t He do so? This was hard for me, but after many years, I finally understood.
The Bible, from Genesis to Revelation is an harmonious whole and it is about legal authority. When God created the earth, He literally placed Adam in charge of this realm. Adam named the animals. Adam was the start of all human society, and he threw it away, when his wife was tricked into disobeying God’s one prohibition. The Flood, Babel, Abraham, the descent into Egypt, the Exodus, the history of the Jewish nation and Jesus’ appearance as messiah are all steps in recovering what Adam lost. This whom find salvation will be those whom voluntarily place themselves under Christ’s authority at the Second Coming. Only in this way will a legal form of government be established.
Now, this morning, I could have dropped everything and fixed one phone, but that would have been short-sighted. What was more important was solving a problem which had much wider ramifications. I took no pleasure in the fact that one poor fellow was having phone problems, but my greater responsibility was to the overall good of the entire company, so I did what needed to be done, then literally rushed to help this one fellow with his problem.
If God we’re to just treat individual problems, it would detract from His efforts to establish a literal kingdom which will bless all mankind. All the way back in Genesis 12, God told Abram that He would use Abram’s seed to bless all nations. That plan is still in effect, and for God to interrupt that plan would have much greater consequences than anything, any of us are suffering.
Our ultimate blessing comes when Christ is enthroned and then all of mankind will be blessed.