What has happened to respect and innocence?

Most adults will admit that a 13 year old nowadays doesn't look or act like a 13 year old from 20 years ago and certainly not one from generations before then.
What has happened? Where did we go wrong? Is this normal evolution or a hideous mistake that has trickled down into our entire society through the years and forever changed our parenting skills and priorities for the worse?

My thoughts on this are that todays parents are complete and total slackers. You may work yourself to death at the office but as a mother and father you fail miserably. Todays parents have forgetten two important components in raising children, innocence and respect.

For whatever reason todays parents are far too busy to be further burdened by their whiney children. It must be that just letting your ten year old run wild is so easy...until puberty when it all comes crashing down on you and your child. Of course by then your children are nearly grown and it's too late to change your technique.

Anyway, I am sure that actually parenting your child for 18+ years instead of just 'growing' them would be far too much work for most of todays parents.

I believe our entire society has given up as parents. Partially because of the fear that thier little girls and boys will hate you if they can't wear thongs and pierce their tounges and wear belly rings, drink, smoke, drive underage and go ahead and hand your baby those condoms and birth control pills...it's so much easier to be their friend than their parent, right? Let's stop blaming magazines and television, after all who's responsibility is it to let your child see and reenact what they see in the first place?
It makes me sick to see little girls, barely budding, wearing pants cut so low their pubes show, if they HAD any! What are these parents thinking? Well, it's quite obviously they're not thinking at all or they would see how slutty their little girl looks and acts.

Boys are being reared just as awefully, don't fool yourself into thinking boys can get away with more because they're boys! Juvenille courts and reform schools are overrun with misguided boys.

Just remember your children learn their parenting skills from you not their friends, just as you learned it from your parents. Do your best to teach them well and do it NOW. It's really not hard to teach innocence and respect if you know what they are yourself.

Innocence- offering guidance in ethics and morals or the state of being unsullied by sin or moral wrong.

Respect- unbiased consideration and regard for the rights, values, beliefs and property of all people.
(including themselves!)

Just think how much better society would be when your children are having children and they themselves know and honor the meaning of these two simple words. Teach your children, love your children, cherish the time you have with your children and always respect your childs innocence and they will in turn teach their children the same.

I believe we can change our world for the better and it starts at home, with your child.