Young show elders how to act sensibly
Much of the holiday news is bad. The road toll is still rising, drownings occur despite strenuous water safety drives. And normally the New Year arrives with drunken and disorderly scenes at resorts. Not this year. On New Year’s Day police everywhere reported no serious trouble overnight. For this, the young people of New Zealand should stand proud.
New Year has particular excitement for the young, as people begin to feel their age they are a little less likely to find the passing of another year to be an event of unalloyed celebration. But young people make it a big occasion, congregating in summer spots where there will be festive crowds, music and “excitement”, which in the past has meant too much booze and too much work to do for the police and first aid stations. Not this year.
Crowds flocked to resorts such as Gisborne and Wanaka and gathered in the centres of Auckland and Wellington for New Year’s Eve. Police reported no arrests at Gisborne’s Rhythm and Vines festival that night, though contaminated drugs discovered there on Saturday had brought a health warning from the Taira¯ whiti DHB.
At Whangamata, police had no trouble from about 1000 New Year revellers. No major problems occurred at Mount Maunganui among the usual large crowd there. There were a few arrests for disorderly behaviour in Nelson. In Christchurch the 1500 gathered in Hagley Park were well behaved. And so it was, around the country.
Good behaviour was apparent in other ways too. Less rubbish is being left lying around at Rhythm and Vines. Single-use coffee cups were not sold at Wanaka’s Rhythm and Alps festival and an organiser said the site was the cleanest he had seen it. Environmental ethics and personal responsibility, including with alcohol, appear to be characteristic of this generation.
Youth culture is constantly changing, every year a new cohort comes out of secondary school and enjoys five years or more of freedom from commitments as they find their feet in tertiary education and careers. It should be no wonder, therefore, that today’s young adults are different from those of five or 10 years ago. The bingedrinking habits of youth at that time might not be as prevalent now.
On average, young people have seemed more wary of drink-driving than parents for some time. They may be more careful in sexual behaviour. The teen pregnancy rate has been falling.
Slowly the values taught in schools about respect, co-operation and safety — personal, social and environmental — are producing more civilised and sensible citizens. A volunteer for St John at Rhythm and Vines, Kate Haddock, told the Gisborne Herald, “The culture has changed and people are enjoying themselves more”. She added, “I have a 19-year-old sister here. I don’t want her doing what I did at 19.” Many would say the same.
Now the older generations need to learn from the young, stop drinking and driving, take speed limits seriously, listen to responsible messages and make the holidays more fun for everybody.