The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they allow disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children now are tyrants,not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when eleders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
-Plato
“I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on
frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond
words… When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of
elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise [disrespectful] and
impatient of restraint” (Hesiod, 8th century BC).
And such patterns have probably been going in cycles for millenia. In fact, there’s a three-generation theory about that. Or maybe it’s more generations, I forget.
But certainly it is true that more kids worked in their teens 30 years ago than do today.