Teenagers

^ I understand that life is hard all the way around. My neighbor [before I moved] was 8, had a 23 y.o. mother and 4 brothers and sisters, all had been made with different men, she had watched her father jump off a cliff committing suicide, she knew what all the different drugs looked and smelled like because her parents delt them, a man she didn't know came and lived with them because he was running from the police after stealing a car, etc. and she was 8. I am blessed enough not to have a horrible life, my father died 3 years ago, my stepfather hates me and i'm diabetic, but I am so lucky to have what I do. I'm not saying that anyone's life is harder than anyone else's. I was responding to the adults that stated that "Adults have it harder than teenagers" [I know no oone said that specifically, but it's basically what was implied.] Life IS hard all around, no one said life would be fair. I thank the adults who are trying to help, but, everyone's situation is different. A lot of teenagers suffer, a lot of them don't. I'm fortunate enough not to have to suffer, but I've been surrouded my whole life with people who have suffered way more than their share. Everyone has different struggles that they have to bear, is my point. Adults, teenagers and children may have DIFFERENT problems, but it doesn't make the problems more or less important [unless the problem is a mundane kid/teen 'omg-i-want-that-toy-i-need-acne-cream issue], it just makes them different and everyone has their own way of coping and dealing. So no one should be saying their problems [not personally, but as a generation] are worse than any other generation's.

^^ and nobody was. But I have actually read around these boards that kids today "have it so much harder than kids before", that "cutting is something new", that "parents can't imagine what we're going through" so on, so forth. You guys can't fathom living on a lard sandwich and wearing a potato sack to school -- it sounds like The Grapes of Wrath to you (assuming you've read it) and you know that people don't have to live like that, so you don't, you *can't* understand that problem. What I'm saying to you is that things like cutting and parental misunderstandings are nothing new, they're just new to you.

So I've simply tried to explain that each generation has had trials, each generation comes with technology that the previous generation can't fathom, and yet the world keeps turning, people still live on.

Personally I feel like my generational gap is one of the biggest. You guys have grown up with computers, you've always had the internet, you've always had boards like this to find solace and friends. I remember woking on first generation Apple computers, green screen with a floppy disk, and learning how to write programs in Basic. I remember the huge, room sized computers with punchcards that had to be used that operated on binary. The internet became popular when I was a senior in high school. My parents and grandparents don't understand a PC, they have a hard time with it, they think I'm spoiled because I can sit at a computer and within seconds have anything in the world at my fingertips. I remember the space program being everyone's dream, and I watched the Challenger explode as it lifted off and everyone's dreams deflate, and the years we stayed on the ground because we were afraid. I walked the bridge from the newspaper to the internet -- all in my teen years. We went from rotary phones to bluetooth cell phones, all in my lifetime. I can adapt, I was there when the discoveries were being made, I can make the leap from one to the other. My mother cannot type on a keyboard, my grandmother fiddles with a cell phone but doesn't really understand it.

Being a teen is hard. We understand that. But what we are trying to get you to understand is that being an adult is hard too. We had a hard time as kids, the same as you do now. And 20 years from now your kids might be going through this and you'll try to do for them what we are trying to do for you.

I personally, at least. don't think I have it any harder than any generation before me, and I certainly think there are many generations before me that had it much harder in many ways. But in today's teenager generation, there are more drug-related problems than there were 20 years ago, but on the other hand, we have things like cell phones and internet. These don't, however, help lessen the degree of our problems. That's like giving my neighbour a cell phone and saying "Well you have a lot of crap going on in your life right now, but it's not as bad now that you have a cell phone to help you deal with it." and that's a bunch of crap.

I DO understand that being an adult is hard; they have it just a ba or worse than we as teens do. And I appriciate your attempts to get our ignorant population to understand more adult-related issues.

Nobody has called anyone here ignorant, and the thinly veiled sarcasm there is a little much and not at all appreciated.

Drug related problems are nothing new. Have you heard about Woodstock, drug abuse during any of our country's many wars, the Just Say No initiative that was started in the 80s? The AIDS epidemic that took off in the late 70s and was the cornerstone of the movement to get people to not use intravenous drugs? LSD, mushrooms, pot, and cocaine have been around for a lot longer than recent memory. Opium/opiate abuse has been around since the 1600s or even earlier. There is an alarming trend in abusing prescription and OTC drugs in recent years, but things like huffing have been around since aerosol cans were invented.

Child abuse has been rampant for generations as well. Music has been blamed for suicides and the decline of society since it became mainstream. Teen pregnacy wasn't invented in 2005. STDs have been around almost as long as people have been having sex. I could go on and on.

For the last time: nobody is saying that being a teenager is a walk in the park; nobody has tried to trivialize real problems, and nobody has said that being an adult is better than being a teenager, or vice versa. We've reminisced a bit, yes, but in doing so shown you that we remember having those problems and try to tell you how we dealt with it when we were teens. We're trying to help you learn how to put your problems in perspective and get you to understand that learning how to deal with your problems now is going to affect how you solve problems as an adult, and that for every problem you have now, someone somewhere has lived through that problem and came out stronger for it.

Vanya Hargreeves:

don't spam, mah dearest deb.

Sorry I deleted my comment by accident. Look, I hated my teens. You couldn't pay me to go back to them again. The emotional highs and lows, and the awkwardness that I suffer from to this day were definitely magnified at that time by the forced socialization (and subsequent alienation) of the high school environment and the "tough love" that my parents bought into. Whoever dubbed high school "the best years of your life" certainly didn't go through the bullshit I did.

I think that the well-meaning adults here are trying to teach you guys coping mechanisms for these very tumultuous times so that as adults, you will be better equipped to deal with what hits you, although no one is perfect. As Mom to a teenager, this is what worries me the most: that he could get caught up in something that will alter his life for the worse, because teens are both impressionable (the kid still in there) and angry (mostly the hormones) - not a good mix.

tabitha-
I actually wasn't trying to be sarcastic in reference to our 'ignorant' population, because a lot of the teenager population of the world is quite ignorant, myself included. I don't truly know what it's like to experience as much pain as many teenagers are faced with today.
I also do realize that teenagers today are faced with many of the same struggles that the generation before was, [and my drug statement wasn't based on any fact, I take it back. x] I typed that while still half awake, horrible thing to do in the discussion forum.] and to both Deb and tabitha, I do realize that the adults are trying to offer support and help for the teenagers who are facing the same issues that they faced as teenagers, and I thanked them for that in my last post.

^^ Thank you. I appreciate you clearing it up. I know things in print can be misinterpreted. I'm glad that you see what we are trying to do.

Well to me, alot of teens are judgemental and steriotypical. " never let them take you alive!" I always think about when people start talking. Honestly, don't let it get to you hun. Its you thats going to be overpowering them someday.

I, personally, dislike teenagers as a group, even though I am one.
Teenagers in my opinion thrive of gossip and drama, some are so full of themselves, they are so quick to act violent. Sometimes, 'Teenagers' is like my theme song, they really do scare the shit out of me.

^^ I 100% agree with you. God, I hate them so much. That's why High School is so freaking hard for me. Because I have to be around like 1500 of them all day every day. It's like...really? Is this retarded drama necessary?

I myself am 14, so I have come into the teenage years.
I've only begun to feel like a teenager of past few months. The boys are starting to become more idiotic than usual and the girls are much more vain, and I've lost some friends, and if it continue like this, I have unfortunately only one in my class back, so yes it affects me.
This has happened because a girl in my class (which me and my friend whos lef,t hates) she drink and she has already got one of our friends on it and is about to get another too, and now our friends is dropping us because we do not want to drink, and we will be perceived as outsiders. So you can say this framework pleased to think it is a typical teenage problem. Also yes, I have such crush on Frankie and Jared Leto ...

( im not sure all this is right, but I corrected it on google translate, and corrected that after I could we was wrong, Just hope its understanding to read)

no, i don't actually. not nearly as much as teenagers. i have a lot of adujlt friends and i love being with them so much more than teenagers. at least they don't purposefully create drama because they're bored with they're lives.

i'll admit there are some of those adults who forget they grew up, but i hate them too. they're worse than teenagers,

yep. they tell you you can work at 14, but really, who's gonna hire a 14 year old? especially if you are a smaller girl who looks a bit younger. And then you aren't really free. You are but you aren't. Like we have alota free time, but we have little or no money to do things and make use of that time. Plus, it sucks even more if your parents won't buy you certain things, like a computer and CDs. It just gets a whole lot boring. Boring=depressing

you know what i say?
screw people.
see, i hate almost everyone at my school.
they think that wearing skinnies and eyeliner are considered freakish traits.
but its me.
and i sure as hell wont be changing just to satisfy they very people i spite.
the people i dont hate? they accept me.

and if i may say this- cheesy as it might be-
you know the song, teenagers?
'they gonna clean up your looks, with all the lies in the books, to make a citizen out of you.'

people tell try and change you because they say being like them is a good thing. because being yourself sometimes isnt acceptable in these times.

dont change, hun. its the best way to be.
and if youre saying that staying true to yourself is like letting the bad guy win, you are sorely mistaken. changing yourself to be like everyone else is letting the bad guys win.

Darkromance:

yep. they tell you you can work at 14, but really, who's gonna hire a 14 year old? especially if you are a smaller girl who looks a bit younger. And then you aren't really free. You are but you aren't. Like we have alota free time, but we have little or no money to do things and make use of that time. Plus, it sucks even more if your parents won't buy you certain things, like a computer and CDs. It just gets a whole lot boring. Boring=depressing

While I can acknowledge where you're coming from, [and I thought the same way when I was 14], saying those kind of things are the things that make our generation's lives harder isn't true. Our generation and the previous generation both have had a lot of life-altering problems, but not getting a computer and CDs are hardly on top. Drugs, pregnancy, alchohol, cutting, STDs and AIDs, these are all problems that our generation and the previous ones have experienced. You're pretty lucky to have a roof over your head, food in your mouth, etc. I know it sounds like I'm preaching at you/to you, but you need to understand that 'being bored' is much better than 'being in the streets'. Please don't take this as a personal attack, I'm just trying to explain a point to you.

I dont generally think its tough being a teenager. I mean techincally "Teenagers" only started popping up in the fifties. Before that being 13 - 20 meant you were still a kid.

I think what I'm sorta throwing out there is "Teenager" is less about age but more about an ideology.

Death By Asylum:

I, personally, dislike teenagers as a group, even though I am one.
Teenagers in my opinion thrive of gossip and drama, some are so full of themselves, they are so quick to act violent. Sometimes, 'Teenagers' is like my theme song, they really do scare the shit out of me.

I'm the exact same. I can't walk past a group of teenagers without turning my ipod down so i can hear if they're about to chase me. I think they're as bad as wild animals in that they can be so unpredictable at times. Every time i feel like i know what somone is like, it turns out they're not. Maybe I'm just a bad judge of character, but one of the most recent revelations about someone shocked more than just me, so perhaps not.
And yes, I think adults are the exact same. I see people i walk past in the street spot me and start to look suspicious, or worried, and i couldn't punch my way out of a paper bag.

I think teenagers and adults have it just the same, but in different ways, but what annoys me about adults is that when you try and tell them what's wrong (in my experience), they tell you you're being a drama queen, attention seeking, ungrateful etc and that you can't be unhappy because you don't need to worry about the bills, looking after kids etc. No, perhaps not, but that doesn't mean we can't be dissatisfied with life and want to make it better.