Sir, – Imagine growing up in a world where the future looks very bleak, with the threat of ultimate climate disaster looming and little or no hope available. A world where communities are sacrificed on the altar of image. Where childhood is no longer a time of oblivious innocence because you are being fed a constant diet of depressing news in school and on social media. Meanwhile, grown-ups, the adults who are supposed to protect and take care of you, pay no heed and do little to ameliorate the situation. How the hell would you feel?
We are in the middle of a youth mental health crisis, with a growing incidence of depression, anxiety, addiction and suicide and a horrendous lack of adequate support services.
Affluence doesn’t appear to be making people happier and is killing our planet. Yet what are we doing about it?
It is time for the grown-ups to step up to the plate, get like the kids and wake up and smell the coffee.
Let’s clean up the mess and give our children their childhoods back. – Yours, etc,
RACHEL FARRELL,
Dundrum,
Dublin 14.