Something many people just do not understand is: Being a teenager sucks. It really does. Adults do not understand or remember what it is like to be a teen. It is a lot harder than they think it is, that is for sure.
Teenagers are expected to do so much, and all they want to do is have fun, and enjoy being young. If only they had the time. The pressure from both society and parents is overwhelming. Teens are expected to do have part-time jobs, while helping around the house, going to school for seven hours a day, doing homework; all while maintaining a 90 % grade average. Easy, right?
To all the adults out there, slow down and listen for just a second. You go to work for what seven-eight hours a day? Teenagers go to school for seven hours a day. Okay, so this is about fair. Teenagers spend two hours (on average) a night doing homework, adults probably spend the same amount of time doing house work. What about everything else? Where does the part-time job come in? What about the chores around the house? When do we get time to ourselves?
You are only young once, yet you have to waste your youth trying to grow up faster than you should be. If society, or parents, took some of this pressure off, it would make functioning daily less stressful. This would at least make teen-hood less repulsive.
If you really take the time to look, you would see how busy us teens really are. Still, I must point out that society views us as lazy kids that will get nowhere in life. Are you serious? Just because of our age, we are viewed lower than adults. This is not fair.
I can assure you, there are just as many dumb adults as there are dumb teenagers. So why are we seen to society as lazy, stealing, cheating, untrustworthy people?
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www.guardian.co.uk
www.uthealthleader.org
I do agree that there is a lot of pressure on teenagers nowadays, and I believe that it just gets worse with each new generation. In our society today there is a lot of pressure from the media and corporations for children and teenagers to grow up way faster than they should. I see younger kids and think that we seemed way younger at x age (but that could be me remembering wrong). However, I think that we are pressured and overworked at every stage of our life, even into adulthood. (Teenagers don't have to do bills and taxes, etc.)
ReplyDeleteI think one of the reasons is that our society has this ingrained workaholic mentality - for example, if you go to other countries (I'm thinking European countries), the people seem to be much more relaxed and not so concerned with the constant work/rat race.
When you say teenagers do not have to pay bills and taxes, I disagree with this. There are more and more teenagers being forced to live on their own as time goes on. I've been living on my own since I was 15, so I know all too well about adulthood and overworking myself to the bone. Also, most teenagers pay their own phone bills, and help out buying things around their house, if they do still live with their parents.
DeleteI find that the biggest expectation on teenagers is that they have made up their mind about the future. This is incredibly frustrating because this decision shapes the rest of your life and adults expect it to just be "made". Do you think this expectation of teenagers is too large?
ReplyDelete@Renee I wouldn't necessarily say that our society is workoholic in nature. Compared to Eastern Europe, yes absolutely. But if you look at Asia or South America or Africa then I would say they are far harder workers than us.
I do think this expectation is too hard. A lot of people are being pressure into finding what they want to do for the rest of their life while they are still in high school. But at this point you do not know enough about life, or even yourself sometimes, that you cannot make this decision.
DeleteThe biggest thing that my parents throw in my face is what you mentioned. "When you work for 8 hours, then you can complain" or some variant of that. You don't think that school is hard? It's like they forget what it was like to be in school at all. And then you're right, I spend the night in my room doing homework and reading and they get mad at me because I don't spend enough time with my family. And my mom guilt trips me for not seeing her for a few days because I work through the week, yet she expects me to pay for my own education. It often feels like I can't win. Oh the joys of being a teenager!
ReplyDeleteIt is hard being a teenager. We have an overwhelming plethora of problems, but I think we need them in order to help us grow. Yes, I agree that we do have many problems. We are too pressured at times (look at the suicide rate among teenagers in Japan). However, I do see where parents are coming from, my parents at least. They have to worry much about paying the bills, having enough money to pay for our education and raising us into reasonable adults etc. And they have really hard jobs too. My parents have to work in factories and always come home exhausted. In my opinion, academic work is a whole lot easier than manual labour. So, to compare school to actual real work is unreasonable. We should only judge adults after we know what it really is like being one.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you 100 %. If often depends on the case. In your case, you are not expected to pay for your education, and probably do not have your own job. If you are relying mostly on your parents then you really cannot complain. It's if you are working twice as long as your parents, that is when you can complain.
DeleteActually I am paying for my education. Every summer I have a full-time job working 40 hours every week at a factory. So, I can understand how hard my parents have to work in order to pay for the bills and put food on the table.
DeleteBut I understand your point. It is hard to balance work with school work and actually having time to enjoy your life.