Generation Z face a danger zone
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Hugo's pathetic parents are, needless to say, horrified beyond all reasonableness. They report the child assault to police, and the ramifications play out for the rest of the book - and now the ABC series, which has been rating its socks off the past five weeks.
The subtitle of the book is "Whose side are you on?" The answer marks you more profoundly than any ideological or political stance could.
Tsiolkas has mined the rich emotional nuggets of this fault line in modern parenting. Do you think Hugo had it coming or not?
The divide is between the perverse permissiveness of a Rosie and the fading art of discipline and boundary-setting which has shaped all human societies.
More widely, Hugo can be seen to represent Generation Z, the 20-year cohort of children born from about 1995. Unlike their altruistic big brothers, Generation Y, they are shaping up to be a worry - feared as a spoiled, narcissistic, egocentric, empathy-deficient generation.
They are the first genuine digital natives, born with a smartphone in their hand. For these "children of the web", effortless internet access is like the air they breathe.
Source: Herald Sun