40 years ago, when I was in Yeshiva High School in Brooklyn, I was shocked by the language and behavior of public school teenagers on the public busses. by the time I got to college (yes I did go to college in NYC) I was immune to the language and dress around me. but it came at a cost that I did not want to pay with MY children.
When our girls, ages 1 & 3 were playing on our front porch one day, and a group of public school kids passed, talking using very inappropriate language, I went inside and called my husband and said we HAVE TO MOVE.
I did not want my children exposed to such language and dress. I did not want to expose my kids to inappropriate behavior, constantly explaining that WE do not do that, that WE do no say that, that WE do not act that way.
We moved to the suburbs where, quite honestly, these problems do not exist. Our children traveled on private busses to Yeshiva, our children played in our backyards, unexposed to the “other kids” and their exposure to the outside world was very, very limited until they were 16 or 17 and able to travel to the city by railroad. And boy were they shocked by what they saw and heard !!! However, they were older, and better prepared to handle it. But more importantly, they were able to easily differentiate between “us” and “them”.
I truly believe that parents need to find a way to keep their kids away from the pervasive “treif” environment found in public places. Perhaps taxi car pools instead of busses, etc. To this day, I find that I am not as easily shocked as my kids are by inappropriate behavior and language, and that is just not right.