The young puritans
They don’t drink, smoke, swear, take drugs or condone sex before marriage – and think their parents are a bad influence. So what’s made today’s teens...
ASK Georgia Vasey which aspects of modern life she disagrees with, and she can reel off a considerable list. Tattoos and piercings? An abomination. Drugs and alcohol? Ditto. Sex outside marriage is demeaning; bearing a child out of wedlock is even worse.
Swearing is so uncouth, and as for those shameless pop stars who parade their half-naked bodies to sell records? ‘I don’t approve,’ she says. ‘They set a bad example to girls and make men think that is what they should expect from all women.’
Georgia might sound like she belongs to a bygone era, governed by moral codes long since abandoned. But she is just 13 years old.
‘I would describe myself as old-fashioned,’ agrees modestly dressed and quietly spoken Georgia. ‘I wish I was born in the olden days. Life was better then.’
Of course, adolescent rebellion has long been expected; accepted, even, as an essential part of growing up. But a study last month found that Generation Z — teenagers born after 2000 — are the most socially conservative generation since World War II.
More than 2,000 people were questioned for brand consultancy The Gild on a range of issues, and their responses categorised by age.
Generation Z declared themselves markedly more traditional in their outlook on issues from money management to tattoos and drugs than those born between 1980 and 2000 (Millennials), between 1965 and 1980 (Generation X) and between 1946 and 1964 (Baby Boomers).
Only the so-called Silent Generation — born before 1945 — shared similarly old-fashioned opinions.
recent figures support the premise of a new, socially conservative breed of teenager. According to the Office of National Statistics, teenage pregnancy is down by 45 per cent since 2007; heavy drinking has decreased by 15 per cent in the past decade and over a quarter of people aged under 25 don’t drink at all.
A Department of Health survey of adolescents in 2013 found only 16 per cent have taken drugs, compared to 30 per cent a decade before.
So why this seismic shift? Where teenage girls are concerned, it suggests a backlash against feminism.
From the sexual liberation of the Sixties, to the alcohol-fuelled Ladette culture of the Nineties and the cult of the scantily clad Kardashian sisters sparked in the Noughties, women enjoyed self-expression in spades.
It puts today’s teenage girls in something of a quandary: how do you rebel against the accepted ways of the previous generations when getting drunk, sleeping around and dressing provocatively have already been done to death?
‘In order to challenge an increasingly liberal society, the only option for adolescents might be militant conservatism and a return to “oldfashioned” values,’ explains Dr elle Boag, a social psychologist at Birmingham City University.
Meanwhile, their middle- aged mothers appear unwilling to do any such thing, defying their advancing years by dressing and acting like
their teenage selves. This is an added deterrent to wild behaviour — it is hardly cool to mimic one’s parents.
Add in the fact that, thanks to the financial crisis, young teenagers are facing a more uncertain future than ever, it is perhaps unsurprising they believe, as Dr Boag puts it, that ‘ a return to traditional values will somehow resolve all problems’.
Georgia, a straight A student from County Durham, whose idea of an evening’s entertainment is taking to her bedroom with a good book, seems to agree. ‘It is a rebellion to
not go off the rails now,’ she says. ‘Being good is a way of being different and I’m glad I’m not under the pressure to behave badly that my mum was under as a teenager.’
Certainly, Georgia’s adolescence is in a stark contrast to that of her mother Trudy, 37, who was smoking and getting drunk on cider at her daughter’s age.
Now married to Grant, 46, a chef with whom she lives in a quiet village on the outskirts of Durham, with Georgia and their two younger children, Summer, eight, and James, three, she says: ‘We’ve tried to bring Georgia up well, but I believe she would hold these views regardless. She seems to have been born sensible. I can’t explain it.’
Perhaps she is trying to differentiate herself from Trudy, who still exhibits remnants of her rebellious youth. Tattoos cover her body — the first of which she had when she was 17; the latest, a bouquet of lilies traversing the length of her spine, was added just 18 months ago, much to Georgia’s horror.
‘She rolled her eyes and asked me what on earth I’d done,’ says Trudy, a supermarket team leader. ‘I don’t think she’s embarrassed by me, but she clearly didn’t approve.’
Indeed. ‘Tattoos are a pointless way of ruining your skin,’ says Georgia. ‘They are as unattractive as silly nose and tongue piercings.’
Georgia, who prefers to keep her 4ft 10in frame covered in smart dresses with high necklines and hemlines that hover on her knee, is more interested in ambition than appearance.
Hoping to land a place at Oxford before a career in forensic science, she says: ‘I like to study. I don’t want to throw away my education.’
Unwilling to describe herself as a feminist — she’s not able to articulate why but Trudy thinks it’s because ‘women already have power, so feminism isn’t an issue’ — Georgia sees boys as an unhelpful distraction: ‘I don’t want a boyfriend. They expect too much of your time.’
Sex will be off the cards until she marries. ‘It should be saved for someone special,’ she says, ‘ and I don’t want to have children until I’m married because the stable environment will make them happier.’
Which is ironic, given she was born out of wedlock.
‘Mum and dad didn’t get married until I was seven and I do think it would have been better for them to wait until they were married before they had me,’ she says. ‘Single parents do their best, but their circumstances aren’t ideal.’
Although her mum indulges in a glass of wine or two, Georgia — whose bedroom is decorated with posters of Zoella Sugg, 26, the beauty blogger famed for her clean-living lifestyle — is adamant she won’t experiment with mind-altering substances.
‘Being drunk makes you do stupid things,’ she says. ‘I hate cigarettes. None of my friends smoke and not many people my age take drugs — the ones who do are silly. They’re risking their lives.’
Unlike thirty and fortysomethings who stacked up debt as soon as they were old enough for credit cards, Georgia, like many Generation Z-ers, is thrifty.
‘I want to avoid getting into debt because then your money is not your own,’ she says. Her £14-a-month pocket money goes either straight into one of two bank accounts or is invested in premium bonds.
Trudy, who is both delighted by and suspicious of her daughter’s sensible nature, says: ‘Although I’m proud, I worry she could rebel later on if she doesn’t get it out of her system now.’
At 16, ella Collins- Godden might be on the cusp of adulthood but has yet to experience alcohol. ‘ The age limit is there for a reason — our
bodies can’t cope with the damage it does,’ she says. ‘I don’t understand why anyone would want to get drunk. I’ve never done drugs and never will — they’re dangerous. There are better ways to have fun, like baking cakes and biscuits.’
Ella split up with her only ‘proper’ boyfriend when she was 14, after four months together, precisely because he wanted to experiment with drink and drugs.
‘I’m not going to look for a boyfriend now. It’s a waste of my time,’ she says. If she did meet a boy, she wouldn’t have sex with him unless he proposed. ‘Definitely not,’ she says. ‘No. No. No. Sex is for someone you truly love.
‘I understand feminism means it’s a woman’s right to have sex if she wants to, but modesty is important. All my friends share the same views.’
What makes Ella’s attitude all the more surprising is how different it is from mother Sara, 45, a company owner from Shoreham, Sussex, who says: ‘She is naive, admittedly, but I’d rather she had her own morals than was sleeping around.’
Sara lost her virginity at 17. ‘I also experimented with alcohol, and although I didn’t take drugs, they were socially acceptable,’ she says. ‘My generation of women were given free rein to do what they wanted and a lot couldn’t handle it.
‘Ella has only seen me drunk once — one New Year’s Eve she had to take me to bed after a few too many glasses of Prosecco — and she looks on at other adults my age who get drunk in shock and disbelief.’
Of course, lots of teenagers follow the age- old patterns of behaving badly, which has created problems.
‘When classmates started smoking, drinking and taking drugs at 13, they bullied me for not doing it,’ says Ella. ‘They called me stuck-up and frigid.’ By 14, she was so unhappy she asked Sara to homeschool her instead: ‘I am happier away from their bad influence.’
Social media provides further cause for caution. ‘I’ve seen friends post pictures of themselves drunk on Facebook and get into trouble,’ says Ella. ‘Pictures stay online for ever and I don’t want to do anything now that could become a hurdle in the future.’
Ella — who has a part-time job as a nanny while studying for her Alevels and recently won an award for her charity work — saves her spare cash for ‘useful things’ such as journals and books.
‘Her generation has to be financially aware,’ says Sara. ‘It won’t be as easy for Ella to get on the property ladder as it was for me, and she knows she has to start saving.’
Does Ella worry she’s missing out? Not at all. ‘I’d far rather be squeakyclean than rebel,’ she says.
The boys growing up alongside these ‘squeaky-clean’ girls appear to be following suit.
Ryan Cowley, 16, from Amersham, Bucks, says the age-old competition to see who can get a girl into bed first has all but disappeared.
‘Dating isn’t a priority, and at my school there is no pressure to have sex any more — it’s not a race,’ says Ryan. ‘I believe sex before marriage is OK when you really love someone but sleeping around is not something I approve of.’
As if to prove it, he is only attracted to wholesome-looking girls: ‘ The ones who wear really short skirts and tops that barely cover them up when they’re out and about come across as a bit cheap, and for a girl to have lots of piercings is not attractive at all.’
His mum Angela, 47, a food safety manager, is married to Steve, 51, an executive chef for an airline company, and they have a younger son Oliver, 13. She says: ‘Years ago boys laughed about sex with their mates but it doesn’t seem to be cool to say you’ve done it any more.’
Angela says her son has been quiet since he was a little boy but nonetheless declares herself ‘shocked’ by how sensible he still is. ‘On his 16th birthday I told him he was allowed to drink and offered him a pint. He chose apple juice.’
Ryan says: ‘I don’t like the taste of beer. I can have just as much fun without a drink in my hand. As for drugs – they ruin your body.’
He puts his £30 a month pocket money into a savings account to fund his university degree.
‘I’d like to become a stockbroker,’ he says. ‘I want to buy a house and I know it will be difficult. I don’t want to ruin my chances in life by doing something stupid now.’
Of course, he is still only 16. ‘I feel lucky, but I would say there is more to come,’ says Angela. In other words, Ryan may yet go off the rails.
Because as admirable as these youngsters are, whether Generation Z will remain this sensible in years to come remains to be seen.