This is not really a new problem. I'm almost 68 years old- about 45 years ago a friend recounted to me a run in her kids had recently had with an authority figure.

According to her, her pre-teen kids were out and about with some other kids and came across an apple orchard. They climbed the fence, ate a few apples and then out of boredom had an apple fight. A man across the way came out and told them to stop.

One kid says, Is this your orchard? The man says, No. The kid says, Then it's none of your business.

My friend agreed with her kids that the man had no business scolding them, and didn't even seem to notice the inherent disrepect her kids had shown.

I was appalled- I had been brought up to feel that someone else's property was sacrosanct (Don't touch it, my mother would say in a store, it's not yours.) and had brought up my daughter the same way.

I think that my friend's kind of thinking is at the distilled core of what has gone wrong amongst so many 'normal' families.