Times, They Aren't A-Changin'

Boys Eating Melon and Grapes (1646) Bartolomé Esteban Murillo [Spanish Baroque]

"Ah, there's too much of that sending to school in these days! It only does harm. Every gatepost and barn's door you come to is sure to have some bad word or other chalked upon it by the young rascals: a woman can hardly pass for shame sometimes. If they'd never been taught how to write they wouldn't have been able to scribble such villainy. Their fathers couldn't dot it, and the country was all the better for it."

--The Return of the Native (1878), Thomas Hardy

Reading older novels such as The Return of the Native, one finds lines like this and realizes that while some things change, other things never do. Older generations have always complained about the new habits of the younger. They have always thought them to be spoiled, undisciplined, vulgar, and not appreciative of what came before them. These are not new complaints unique to the 21st century. It won't be much longer until today's Millennials are complaining about the next generation's sense of self-entitlement, lack of context, and other general villainy.