"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
ATTRIBUTION: Attributed to SOCRATES by Plato, according to William L. Patty and Louise S. Johnson, Personality and Adjustment, p. 277 (1953).
Bartleby.com
http://www.bartleby.com/73/195.html
==
I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint.
--- Hesiod, Eighth Century B.C.
==
"The world is passing through troublous times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress."
Extract from a sermon preached by Peter the Hermit in A.D. 1274.
I can’t speak to Hesiod, but Socrates and Peter the Hermit were actually deadly accurate, and should not be dismissed as simply proving every culture feels this way:
Immediately following Socrates’ statement, the Athenian Republic fell to a coup. Democracy was re-established, but Plato was citing him in a warning that this democracy could not last, and he was correct.
Peter the Hermit led the “People’s Crusade” against Islam, but was dismayed at what rabble he had attracted. (Although, I’m not familiar with the exact quote, and the date it’s attributed to is about a century after Peter the Hermit’s death.)