Instead of Sweden gaining on the kindness curve and regaining our footing when it comes to courtesy, the contemporary generation seems to have gone quite the opposite - with today's example one of hundreds I've been witnessing over the past seven months since I opened my eyes to some of the problems facing my society today.

Whereas we still may welcome the rest of the world's weak, their poor, and their war torn through a social system second to none, we won't offer them a place at our dinner tables, in our educational institutions, or in the heart of our economic prosperity. As a matter of fact, we started doing that with our own long before the Iraqis, Kurds, Serbs, and Africans chose to make this wonderfully landscaped and open country their homes as well.

Folks may be welcomed, taught how to say tack så mycket, var så god and hej då — three words for thank you, you're welcome and good bye -- but they won't gain an appreciation that ours is a country that really does care they are there, and they are not to be faulted.

I've seen an alarming trend with my neighbourhood youth, one which has seen them slower to act in kindness and quicker to act out of dispassion and spite.

Unfortunately, my local kommun stopped really caring some time ago, and today's parents — my previous schoolmates — have blamed the education system and the government for the state of failure facing our kids today. We've taken less responsibility to be mentors and caregivers, and have shifted the obligation to civics class instructors.

If we continue heading down a path of indifference and hoping someone else will even out the averages, Sweden, which is rich in tradition, will become poor in culture as those who really want to take time to put the word care into action, and will become fewer and fewer with the passing of every day.