Whatever you do, you can’t stop from growing up. One day you are a child laughing at your parents’ funny faces, getting mad when you can’t find your favorite toy, and thinking everything was just so simple and carefree because all you had to do was wake up. Next you are a teenager, trying to find out your little place in this big world; trying to deal with all the changes your body is going through. And you finally see all the things your parents have tried to keep you from.
Parents think we don’t have any experience in life whatsoever, but we do have more then they may have guessed (at least from a teenager’s point of view). They always say “We were your age once”. Yes, we all know you were, and we also know you weren’t born yesterday - even if you had been we wouldn’t change your diapers. We know you care a lot about us, but some things have chance since you were our age.
Teenagers make a lot of mistakes- remember we are not perfect. You have told us that we can learn from these mistakes, even if its while we’re smoking weed and in out stoned minds we think for a moment and realize what we’re doing is wrong. We will learn eventually, but we can only go as fast as our small minds will take us. Parents just don’t seem to see that. They give chances, but its going to take more then one before we get that click in our heads that says “Smarten up”. It’s not like we don’t have enough to think about, with out parents breathing down our necks, peer pressure, school, and what hair colour we are going to have this month, and what mistake we made last night.
Every year we get “the talk” (as if we didn’t know it all already).From school you get the condoms; they tell you how to put them on and everything about an STI. It seems teachers and parents alike think it foes through one ear and out the other. Well wrong again. Please, show us the picture of what genital warts looks like again, or further warn us what AIDS can do to us, what’s that again? Oh that’s right, IT LIVES WITH YOU! If school isn’t bad enough, we have out parents telling us “sex is bad”, or my personal favorite “Did I ever tell you, you’re allergic to sex?”. They sit there for hours on end, going on about how you should use protection, and that its not a good idea to have sex at out age. All they think we’re saying in out head is “Wow . . . Sex is so RAD!” No, you see “mommy” or “daddy” we actually think about what you’re saying. We know about protection, and how you don’t want to be grandparents at a young age. We know.
What is more important to a teenager that not having parents call you “buttercup” in front of all your friends? Well knowing ourselves, and where we stand as teenager in the scheme of things. School is the hardest place to be yourself, with the peer pressure of living up to the expectations of your gender; being skinny for the girls and macho for the boys, to name just two. We don’t know who we really are because of all the stereotypes in high school. You know what all the labels are: preps, jocks, goths, nerds, losers, and stoners. What a weird world where we have to name all the groups. The labels shouldn’t have affect on anything, but they mean a lot to us. On the first day of school, you walk in and have a million eyes watching your every move; rating you, giving you your first gold star of the year. That day is the hardest if you know anyone or just feel alone, ever in a crows. It seems like we’re pushed too much at school to be something we’re not. Having the guy/girl you’ve been crushing on coming up to you and telling you “you should sit with us” is THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD! Then you change to become like them and their friends; taking that risk of losing what beliefs you have, what friends you had, and where you stand, in terms of who you are. 63% percent of suicides each year are done by teenagers. Teens turn to suicide because they feel like they don’t fit in; they don’t feel loved enough, or like there’s no one to talk to. Do parents ever talk to their kids about this? We don’t like talking about it upfront, and sure we might tell them to get lost, but even just paying attention to their teen it is easily seen. Girls keep journals, and guys just try to be the big bad wolf and keep it all in. If we only had someone to come to us and say “what’s wrong?” or “I want to listen”, we might just turn off our little brains for a minute and say “okay . . . I’ll tell you”.
Parents, they’re our source of food, rood, and money. Of course we love them to death, yet never give enough thanks, so now I’ll say it. Thank you parents around the world. Teenagers can give the hardest time ever, but we don’t really mean to (ok maybe some of the time we think you deserve it). Alright, and the whole running up to our rooms and slamming the door and saying “I HATE YOU, YOU’VE RUINED MY LIFE” is a little harsh, but we mean it in the nicest way. We know that adults lives suck too, what with the bills to pat, putting food I the house we don’t starve to death, and if we need clothes we receive money, along with much more.
So I guess the life of a teenager isn’t all what we wished it to be; we have to deal with a lot of crap, learn a lot of stuff, and live with people we don’t want to live with. Seeing this now isn’t going to get us anywhere in life, but all we know is that we’re teenagers and we’re got to live life in the now. Like advice from our parents, we just have to see it through.