Hopeless

I have been a teacher for 5 years now, and I keep sensing a great deal of hopeless among this new generation of students that we are having. I fear for them knowing what lies ahead of them and most of all, the complete lack of clue. I do not know if it is because of their age or part of growing up, but the kids do not care about anything. If there is something that they do care about, it is about how to get an A without doing anything that would involve critical thing and writing. I have a student who even questions the necessity of going to school. It happened one time when I spoke to them about the importance of getting good grades in school, but as I am finding out that some of the parents are getting younger and younger, I keep wondering about what actually happens at home after school: tv shows? or videos games?I-Pod? cell phone conversations? . Does anybody have a better clue to address this generation of students? What i have been hearing is that, there you have them figure it out ( be a teacher, a mentor, a baby sitter, a counselor, sometimes play the parents role)