Selected Essays & Creative Writing
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Excerpts from a Teen’s Term Paper
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I consider myself an average teenager. But who’s to say what “average” is? Am I average? Is the girl behind me in Algebra more or less “average”—because we are completely different. There are so many different types of people, to stereotype a generation into one essay is unfair and impossible. All teens do not have the same prerogatives as me. This essay is not the result of a scientific experiment. Teenagers are not robots—all programmed identically without variables. In an effort to keep it from being completely biased, I’ve included quotes from other teenagers like—and unlike—myself. Still, the reader must keep in mind that this essay contains the opinions of just one “average” teenager speaking for a generation. —Melissa, age 16
The person I vaguely remember being and the one I feel I am rapidly becoming are so completely different, it’s more than a little frightening. I look in the mirror and see a stranger. I hear foreign words spilling from my mouth, stemming from either inane or insane thoughts. I find myself in situations straight out of some cheesy “After-School Special,” experiencing clichés I thought they had made up.
Life has begun to spin around me and, in its chaotic flurry, problems and conflicts have arisen.
I have traumas as superficial as “Omigod, how can I make him like me?!” . . . serious issues involving smoking, drinking, drugs and sex; peer pressure . . . and major decisions that will affect my future—and ultimately, the future of the world. It’s a scary thought that today’s youth, which delights in loitering and being belligerent, will one day inherit the nation. Most of us don’t think—about inheriting it, I mean. That’s the essence of being a teenager. Everything is fast and now. We live for today because tomorrow seems just too far away to imagine.
But don’t condemn us quite yet. With the sudden onslaught of problems screaming for attention, we teens have no time to think about tomorrow. We are trying to find our way through a society corrupt with hypocrisy, searching for an identity—a piece of our own—between a child dependent on its parents and mature individuals dependent solely upon ourselves. It is a lot to handle, and today’s generation has it harder than any before. Try to understand our struggle.
“ . . . We’ve got these chains, hanging ’round our necks, people want to strangle us with them, before we take our first breath. Afraid of change, afraid of staying the same . . . I go to school, I write exams. If I pass, if I fail, if I drop our does anyone give a damn? And if they do, they’ll soon forget. It won’t take much from me to show my life ain’t over yet . . . All across the world, people going mad. In their mothers’ cars, kids are feeling sad . . . Recycle, reuse, resent and refuse, our parents’ ideal and view . . . With high schools built like prisons, she can’t find a way to live.” —Barenaked Ladies. Maybe You Should Drive. “Everything Old is New Again,” Sire Records Co. (1994).
I had planned on refraining from saying anything cheesy, like “adolescence is a time of change,” or even using the word hormone. But it looks as though I may be forced to. At this point in our lives, we teens are searching for an identity—which can be defined as a sense of self-image, increased by the awareness of one’s own uniqueness as well as similarities found in others. A person’s identity is created through his or her values which, during adolescence, are in constant change and sensitive to cultural and social variances. A teen’s values are affected by the time and place, as well as by who is around. Teenage years are a time to experiment with opinions, begin making decisions and changing your mind at will. We teens are hypocrites by right. And with this sense of “soul-searching” and conflicting thoughts, a teen’s head is in constant turmoil.
This can be both exciting (actually becoming someone!) and aggravating (constantly second-guessing who that someone might be). All teens handle this incredible stress in their own way, and parents and friends can be either precious help or just another chaotic part of the problem.
“Youths are segregated from adults by the economic and educational institutions created by adults. They are deprived of psychological support from persons of other ages—a psychological support that once came from the family. They are subordinate and powerless in relation to adults, and outsiders to the dominant social institutions. Yet, they have money, they have access to a wide range of communication and control of some. And, they are relatively large in number.” —Presidential Council on Youth, Reagan Administration. Quoted in “Teen Drug Use and Abuse.” (New York: Rosenburg Publ.), (1983), Page 64.
Most of us kids shudder to think that our parents, relatives and teachers were ever our age—experiencing mid-terms, first kisses and broken curfews like we do. We have to wonder . . . What happens when you hit thirty? Are all of your childhood mistakes forgotten, and do you remember yourself as the perfect child, only to expect the same perfection from today’s generation?
Most of us teenagers feel some sort of pressure to live up to an adult’s expectations. We feel pounded with someone else’s values, concerns and hopes for our future—our being the operative word. I am sure most nagging parents have only the purest intentions, but this stress adds to an already confused prerogative. Most teens worry that their parents are disappointed in them.
Prior to puberty (here’s another word I would rather not have used), children trust their parent’s opinion above anyone else’s—even their own. A child may break the rules, but does not challenge them. That is to say, a child does not disagree or find reason against the rule. But at adolescence, the growing need to form one’s own opinions often causes a teen to break a rule with reason. True, most aren’t good reasons; but this may be because the intense desire to disagree is so strong, any reason is considered adequate in a teen’s mind.
Conflict between teens and adults result when the adult continues to treat the teen as a child, punishing without asking why the rule was broken. The period of adolescence is crucial in developing an identity. Being winged by a parent only causes a greater desire for us to challenge parental-influenced beliefs and develop new, personal, separate beliefs.
“Oh, the quiet child awaits the day that she can break free, the mold that clings like desperation. Mother, can’t you see I got to live my life the way I feel is right for me. Might not be right for you, but it’s right for me.” —Sarah McLachlan. Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. “Elsewhere,” Arista Records Inc. (1993).
Communication, ultimately, is the key to having a working parent/teen relationship. There is a major lack of communication between parents and their teenage children. Our parents will say we are difficult to talk to, that we never confide, or confide only sometimes or seldom.
So, why aren’t we “talking?
Most teenagers see talking to parents as not constructive because conversation is blocked when a parent makes a statement like, “If you ever [fill in the blank], I’ll kill you.” This is not ridiculous paranoia—parents actually do say this.
For example, if confronted with their teen’s drug problem, it is not unlikely for a parent to threaten bodily harm. Some parents threaten to “get rid of” a child if they don’t behave. Most yell. And almost always teens are punished in some way for no mater what they do that is considered wrong. If this is how parents react, why would any teen wish to expose themselves to it? We teens are admittedly frightened by the result of confiding in our parents.
We know parents do care. For instance, they are concerned about us and the effect drugs have on us. They worry marijuana is harmful to a teen’s mind, and that it induces apathy and depression. They don’t tell us not to use drugs “because I said so,” which is a parent’s favorite expression in our eyes. Their logic makes sense, and the use of it is a step forward to real communication.
If parents want talking to work, it must be non-threatening and meaningful. A parent must back up rules and opinions with solid reasons, and they must clear up hypocrisies. For example, most children of smokers will tell you that their parents would disapprove if they knew their teen smoked.
Parents must also allow us to state our case. This shows us that the parents have respect for our opinions Allowing us to express ourselves also gives us a sense of trust, another major component in a good parent/child relationship. Many teens believe their parents have no trust in them. We want to be trusted, and most of us do not like lying. But sometimes parents make the truth hard to spit out. Lying is a skill many teens practice and are very good at, to the point where parents think their child is a completely different person than the person they really are.
The truth behind a lie can sometimes be simplified. For example, a teen may get drunk at a party—not a good thing, but sometimes an honest mistake made when one little drink led to another, and you were having a good time and didn’t even realize you were actually drunk until it was too late. The teen may think never again and would like nothing better than to just go home—but to avoid a parental confrontation, the teen sleeps over a friend’s house instead, and never says anything to the parent about being drunk. It can make you feel pretty lousy having to “lie” and not tell the whole truth; to, in fact, hide the truth to save yourself. And the stress—pulling alibis together, mending complications, etc.—just isn’t worth it. Odds are, you get caught after the simple lie has become a major conspiracy. Then, the parent is usually more concerned with the lie than the initial sin. And confrontation is a given.
Of course, many teens avoid arguing and lying by avoiding conversation altogether. They simply do not tell parents where they are going, what they are doing, anything. They remain distant and aloof.
- A sixteen-year-old friend of mine said, “Parents have no idea what their kids do. They know they go to the bathroom and wake up in the morning, but that’s all.” Whether or not it is true, it is a telling sign of lack of communication that a teenager feels it is true. It should be said, just because a teen is secretive, it does not necessarily mean he or she is on drugs or holding up convenience stores. All teenagers do need a certain amount of privacy to breathe.
- Another friend, now eighteen, told me, “I was keeping a journal for about six months, and then my brother read it . . . I had mentioned something about feeling depressed, so he went and showed my mom, and my mom got really mad at me—just for writing how I felt. So, I don’t keep a journal anymore. It’s not worth it.”
There is a fine line between concern and invasion that should not be crossed. We teenagers should be allowed space to investigate our feelings, fears, ideas and dreams. We need the space to sort it all out, and gentle guidance when we ask for it. It is a fine line for parents to walk.
REBELS WITHOUT A CLUE
I’m going to clear up a big misconception adults have about teens. When we get into a group of four or so, we do not automatically begin to discuss ways to piss you guys off. Loitering in Burger King or your front yard, waxing your curbs, standing our ground by being unnecessarily rude or sarcastic is not something we plan—it just sort of happens. We are not tools of the devil.
Some parents seem to discourage any social interaction between teens. Most teens think their parents object to the friends they keep. Peer relations are essential for a child to develop independence, and friends have a major impact on the child’s values and identity. When a parent puts a teen off limits from a certain friend or group, it is only likely to encourage deception—the teen feels lying is the only option if he or she wants to continue the friendship.
Because of emotional immaturity, teens have peers they either “love” or “hate.” As we mature, we eventually are able to see the good and bad in both close friends and “enemies.” Most teens have one or two close friends they call “best friends” with whom they feel they can share problems and concerns. These confidants are crucial. They serve as “psychologists,” of sorts, each helping the other deal with experiences they are not willing to share with parents. Best friends tend to be less judgmental towards one another because they have a good understanding of each other. But, like all relationships, even close friendships shift and change, either gradually over time or over a specific issue.
I want to be the perfect daughter, but I also want to be normal. I want to go to the party on Friday night, but my mom said “No.” I want to talk to my parents about sex, school, friends and boyfriends, but I don’t want what I say to work against me in the future.
I want to be happy but, sometimes as a teenager, I feel alienated from society, my parents, and even my peers. Most importantly, much of the time I feel unsure of myself.
The future of a teen is either narrowed with insecurity, or it is limitless with optimism and acceptance of the physical, mental and emotional changes we have to face. Being a teenager is an unavoidable, rather short-lived fact of life.
“It’s all just . . . a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes . . . so, I take pleasure in the details, you know, a quarter pounder with cheese (those are good), the sky about ten minutes before it rains, the moment when your laughter becomes a cackle . . . and I sit back, and I smoke my Camel Straights, and I ride my own mount . . . ” —Reality Bites. Universal Pictures, 1 hr. 39 min., quote by “Troy Dyer” played by Ethan Hawke.
My advice to both teens and adults is to accept, talk and listen to each other. And try to sit back and enjoy the ride.
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