A number of parents from Friesland were at parliament yesterday to lobby MPs in their efforts to get bars and clubs to close earlier. The parents say their dear teenagers stay out so late clubbing that they spend all weekend sleeping. Some have even stopped doing sport.

Now that might seem like fairly typical teenage behaviour, but apparently not so. Nor is it to do with parents not being in control. Its all the fault of those bars and clubs for being open too late and those pesky local councils for giving them licences to do so.
If clubs shut at 2am rather than 5am, there wouldn’t be any problem.
The Friesland parents have gathered over 10,000 names on a petition calling for new opening hours – not just parents, but bar owners (probably exhausted), youth workers and even teenagers themelves have signed it. MPs, they said, were enthusiastic, especially those with teenaged children.
And it isn’t just a case of being strict and setting clear rules for your offspring, they say. The parents argue, and you can see the logic, that with clubs and cafés open until 5 and 6am, no-one goes out until 1am.
So even if you are a strict parent and insist that Jan is home by midnight, he won’t have found anyone to party with anyway. Still, at least he may come home early … because he’s bored.