Has anyone else noticed that adults and life in general has been lying to us all our lives? Obviously not everything is a lie, but many things are. For instance, who decided that kids under their parents' care can't possibly feel things such as stress or love? I'm a kid still and I know what both of these sensations are. Sure, I don't know what it's like to have a love that results from marriage, but honestly how many married people do know what this is? Not all of them, that's for sure. But this is not the only kind of love! If you think that to love someone means to be in a romantic relationship, then you are missing out! I love my friends dearly, both guys and girls. To me, those relationships have been far more fruitful than all of my dating experiences put together. And sure, I don't know what it's like to be financially in charge of little people, but I do know how to take care of them and the pressure that comes from them looking up to you. I do this while trying to focus on preparing myself for my own some day, by getting a stable, decent paying career that I also love. That's pretty tricky.
I think teenagers everywhere are underestimated. The average adult just assumes that since we do not have as many years of experience as they have, we just can't know anything about life. They tell us things like "high school and college will be the best times of our lives" and that "we have so much freedom" which of course we take for granted. What I want to tell these kinds of adults is "hey, you know nothing about me!" And it would be true, they don't know what it's like to be in AP or IB classes these days or how much pressure we have to go to college. My teachers now will admit that school is much harder than it used to be and many colleges are raising their standards. And they probably don't know what it's like to be like a mom to six younger siblings at the age of 18 because their parents are seperated. Of course I'm not saying anything bad about my parents, but it is inevitable that there is some slack to pick up from both of them when now they have their own households to run by themselves. Now this is just stuff about me, I can't even imagine what other teens are going through. I wish I could say that I knew more about other people, more of their struggles and desires. In the entire span of my life I have mostly worried about myself and my family, which isn't bad, and now I'm wishing that I could have gotten more involved with others. I plan on being more proactive in friendships from now on, but I may have realized I wanted this too late for high school. Which is definitely unfortunate.
I hope this makes sense to anyone reading, and if someone feels similarly feel free to comment and share your thoughts. I'm off to try and collect my own thoughts and put them into some kind of action.
The writing style of this entry is very... you. I can easily hear your voice in my head reading this. It's all very true too. I understand how you feel completely and agree with every thing you say about how adults think that because we are young, we don't know much about life. My parents are the same way and it's true, school is much different today for you than it was for them. I really liked this blog post especially, because at the end, you say that you just talked about your life but you don't know about anyone else's life that could be worse or better than yours. That's really thoughtful.
ReplyDelete