WI: A Teenagers' rights movement in the 1960s

Well it would have to came with some means of mass communication between teenagers.
Easy mode: Internet
Medium mode: Some print media
Hard mode : Armature radio counter culture - Super bonus points one time pads issued between regional/ school leaders to do some organizations of "some good and funny stuff".
Local PDs would be stunned.
 
"experts" claim it's for their own good.
If anybody really cared what "experts" say, nobody would play football, we wouldn't be so dependent on cars, nobody would spank their kids, sex ed would always be comprehensive, and the children of anti-vaxxer parents would be able to get vaccines without their parents' consent.
 
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Perkeo

Banned
Well, you already had the 26th Amendment passed in 1971, and we got rid of the draft after Vietnam. Other than lowering the drinking age, I'm not sure what else a teen rights movement could reasonably ask for.
The 19th Amendment didn't end the struggle for women's rights, did it? Nor did all the the civil right laws of the 1960s render obsolete the African-American Civil Rights Movement, did they?

And as for concrete demands, what about:
- better schools,
- access to college education
- more limits on the parant's authority (e.g. regarding financial issues) when they reach the age of 18
- sex education/legalization of consensual sex between teenagers
 
Yet they grew up to become Helicopter Parents.
We do seem to have swung to the other extreme.

My elementary school of 1970's Lewisham, UK and suburban Toronto must seem like the Hunger Games to today's kids. Lord of the Flies like Darwinism ruled the school yard. Teachers aggressively coerced compliance; effeminate boys or butch girls were not empowered to embrace their uniqueness, but crushed under homophobic slurs; the few minority kids were called every racially-charged insulting name their classmates' parents passed onto them; allergic kids were teased with PBJ sandwiches chucked at them in the lunchroom; underperforming or disruptive kids weren't accommodated or diagnosed with ADHD or whatnot, but were labeled as r#tards and kicked into the hallway and then forced to repeat the grade; your only hope to stop bullies was your older brothers, your own fists or weaponry. Today's helicopter-parented kids have no concept of that teacher from Pink Floyd's The Wall, but those bastards really did exist.

Looking back on my early school years compared to my young children's school experience, where today everyone is a special snowflake and differences are respected, embraced, celebrated and where necessary accommodated, I have to wonder what school was like in the 1960s. It must have been like Mad Max for anyone who didn't fit in.
 
The 19th Amendment didn't end the struggle for women's rights, did it? Nor did all the the civil right laws of the 1960s render obsolete the African-American Civil Rights Movement, did they?

And as for concrete demands, what about:
- better schools,
- access to college education
- more limits on the parant's authority (e.g. regarding financial issues) when they reach the age of 18
- sex education/legalization of consensual sex between teenagers

The difference is that women were never going to be accepted as the equals of men without activism and changes in social norms. (Male) teenagers simply needed to wait a few years. For Boomer teens, access to college education was already increasing significantly during this period. As for the last two items, I'm not sure how much of a problem they were at this time, but sex between teenagers seems hard to regulate, especially since grownups have always expected it, so they're unlikely to be to hard on teenagers doing it with each other. Better schools could be demanded, although only kids without access to quality schooling already are likely to clamor for it.
 
Aside from the voting age being lowered to match the military draft age, I'm not aware of any such movements.

I would say there was an unofficial movement in the 1970s. Though there weren't many formal changes in the law to benefit teenagers, a lot of the more discriminatory laws weren't so seriously enforced. There actually were safe shelters for runaways in some cities. Stores almost never carded for cigarettes and some bars would let anyone who reasonably looked like they could be old enough drink. Curfews were only enforced if you were suspected of something else and the cops didn't have enough evidence to bust you for it. The turn back to serious enforcement of these laws was a gradual thing from about 1987 to 1992. It started with MADD getting the drinking age raised and more seriously enforced. Then the high crime rate fueled by expansion of gangs to cities that didn't have them before caused curfews to be seriously enforced. Then the anti-smoking movement pressed for serious enforcement of the smoking age. The safe shelters that used to help those 12-17 have changed their target market to 16-24 with limited service to those 16-17. (Minnesota perspective.)
 
I'd like to point out that Pelosi said that she's ok with a lower voting age and Gingrich said that "adolescence is a failed experiement."

ISTM Gingrich is thinking more of "responsibilities" than rights. I think he advocates for more teenagers to work instead of - or in addition to - going to school, and maybe adult penalties for teens who commit serious crimes.

Pelosi is probably just thinking of tipping the scales more Democratic. I really doubt a lower voting age would translate into more of the rights the OP is thinking of without other major reforms.
 
The 19th Amendment didn't end the struggle for women's rights, did it? Nor did all the the civil right laws of the 1960s render obsolete the African-American Civil Rights Movement, did they?

And as for concrete demands, what about:
- better schools,
- access to college education
- more limits on the parant's authority (e.g. regarding financial issues) when they reach the age of 18
- sex education/legalization of consensual sex between teenagers


In divorce cases, 13yos and above to decide for themselves which parent to go with?
 
Stores almost never carded for cigarettes and some bars would let anyone who reasonably looked like they could be old enough drink. Curfews were only enforced if you were suspected of something else and the cops didn't have enough evidence to bust you for it.
Wasn't all of that also true before the 1970s?

The safe shelters that used to help those 12-17 have changed their target market to 16-24 with limited service to those 16-17. (Minnesota perspective.)
I'd think the opposite would be the case in a more protective society.
 

Perkeo

Banned
The difference is that women were never going to be accepted as the equals of men without activism and changes in social norms. (Male) teenagers simply needed to wait a few years.
Waiting a few years helps when the problem is getting laid and make your own choices how to spend your money. It does not fix
- school education (at the age of twenty, you either have or haven't had a decent school education, second chances are the big exception)
- access to college (dito)
- unwanted pregnancies (especially when there's no legal abortion)
- the side effects of being beaten up whenever your parents considered it appropriate - or even sexual abuse.
- and last but not least a very important point that I missed in my last post: conscription

For Boomer teens, access to college education was already increasing significantly during this period.
So did woman's rights, but that doesn't mean the women's rights movement became obsolete.

As for the last two items, I'm not sure how much of a problem they were at this time, but sex between teenagers seems hard to regulate, especially since grownups have always expected it, so they're unlikely to be to hard on teenagers doing it with each other.
IMO a strict but unenforced law combines the disadvantages of strict and lenient. That is why sexual abuse was hardly ever reported theese days. The laws exist for a reason and must be designed to serve a purpose.
 
The 19th Amendment didn't end the struggle for women's rights, did it? Nor did all the the civil right laws of the 1960s render obsolete the African-American Civil Rights Movement, did they?

And as for concrete demands, what about:
- better schools,
- access to college education
- more limits on the parant's authority (e.g. regarding financial issues) when they reach the age of 18
- sex education/legalization of consensual sex between teenagers
-Not really a "rights" issue, and already an issue shared by their parents. Not enough to generate a mass movement
-Kind of weird for the era when college wasn't expensive as it was now. Won't be able to generate a mass movement
-Um... already exists?
-I guess a campaign to lower the age of consent to 16 universally rather than having some states with a higher age could occur, don't think it could generate a mass movement though
 
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