Who is a teenager?
According to an online website “A person between the ages of 13 and 19 is called a teenager.” Each and every one of us has to go through a phase that we call teen years. During these years physical and mental growth of a kid transpires. It is the time when we make the most mistakes and sometimes we learn from them, sometimes we don’t. It’s the time when every aspect of life gives out a new meaning and the world is brought in front of our eyes in a sharper focus. Being a teenager is a blessing and a curse.
It is a blessing because we get to do things which we were forbidden to do so when we were young. We get to enjoy our freedom; hang out with our friends, watch latest movies, buy cool outfits and throw parties depending on our parents’ money. It’s a curse because we have to go to school and college everyday (just kidding!). It’s mostly because our parents expect us to behave as adults just because we’re not kids anymore. They ask our opinions about matters and stuff but won’t take them into account because they think we are too young to give good valued opinions.
How unfair is that now?
Someone once said that life for teenagers of the 21st century is way effortless than for teens back in 19th or 20th century.
I disagree.
It’s not just one person but it’s everybody including our parents who think that we got it way too easy. Just because we don’t have to work at farms, milk cows, go to bed at 8 P.M. and help in harvesting the crops doesn’t mean life is simple for us. It takes a lot of courage to confront what we have to face today. We live in the society where competition is everything. We have to compete in everything from clothes to cars, from looks to money, from knowledge to grades and the list goes on. We are expected to study hard and get good results to make our parents proud. The geniuses can do that, no doubt but what about the others who don’t have a gift for memorizing everything written in the text book? For that reason they don’t get the appreciation they deserve from their teachers, parents and other people. True, in today’s world education is everything. If you have the best degrees then you’ll get the best job. But that is just one form of education. Some people have a knack for singing, some for photography, some for cooking great foods and many more. Talents are widely distributed among every individual. God made each and every one of us special. But in some countries being a whiz kid is everything. That shows what a mangled and contorted society we are a part of, and they still say we got it unproblematic, huh?
That is just one aspect of teenage problems. Another one is the intricate relationship between a teenager and his/ her parents. Making mistakes, doing adrenaline junkie stuff is an important part of adolescence. That’s how we learn but of course our parents expect us to be picture perfect. We like to listen to latest music; rock punk, pop, rap and hip hop but to our parents those are just things which give you headaches. I think they forget the fact that when they were of our age they used to listen to the music popular around those times and now that we do too they think it’s a waste of time. Talk about being unfair!
Due to the generation gap our parents don’t understand us and we don’t try to understand what they want from us. It all results in one convoluted relationship.
Another issue is teenage suicide. It’s very common among teens. Why? Because life is too difficult some kids so they take the easy way out. One reason of it is the pressure that our parents put on us. If one teenager wants to be fashion designer or a musician, he should try to be one but his parents expect him to be a doctor or an engineer because these are the professions with a lot of money. The teenager looking for ways to please his parents would thereby squash his passions and try to achieve something that he doesn’t love. As time goes by, he would realize just how much he detest medical or engineering field and that would make him loathe his parents. 30% of teenagers snap under such pressure and the result is suicide.
So much for an easy life.
Life isn’t fair. Neither for adults and nor for teenagers. My reason for this piece is to make adults understand that teenagers face as much problems as they do. Life’s an exam. You don’t always get to attempt the easy questions. There are hard ones too. So if people still believe that life is easy for teens I would tell them to look before they leap. Take a walk in our shoes before saying anything.