No matter how it tries to forget, or hide it, society resembles the so-called teenager: full of petty prejudice, perpetuated with cliques and an incessant need for acceptance and success [5]. Why, then, does society place teens in a separate section, a group both “studied and deplored” as if there were something special to learn from them (Teenage Mystique)? Why does the world beg to differentiate itself from the youthful state it once was--from the youthful generation that it will one day be [4]?
Imagine, for a minute, high school life. Jocks rule the cafeteria. Nerds study in the library. Administration lays down the law. Teachers are the enforcers of academics. Everything is in its place [7]. Society eerily resembles this artificial model: celebrities wield immense social power; former valedictorians still study up on ways to improve the world’s welfare and well-being. Politicians dictate the best ways of living rightfully. Langston Hughes in 1951, before the civil rights acts of the 1960s, realized that there really was not much of a difference between his old, white professor at Columbia, and himself--a young black man from Harlem. The difference between a person who probably does not appreciate all his given constitutional rights, and a young man with and exceeding stretch of mind but more greatly diminished legality -- between a man probably blind to see the future’s potential, and a man who already realizes it [6].
Teenagers live in two worlds: the world they fit in now, and the world they must eventually mold into. When these worlds collide, society screams Armageddon. This hell-fire reaction is wholly unnecessary, especially when considering the artful blending many teenagers use to maintain the youthfulness of their generation when circumstances force them into sticky predicaments normally reserved for “more mature” or “more capable” persons. This is a highly pessimistic view of teens, focusing on only what they are not rather than what they are [2]. What they are is their main strength and distinguishing factor, their forte, and difference [3]. It is their youthful strength. Darnellia Russell: basketball player, high school student, and teenage mother. Even in the face of adversity, she never let go her passion, she kept on playing when the world told her she could not. Her stubborn, youthful pride let her remain strong, let her stay on top.
The world seems to think that teenagers are ill equipped to last in the “real world”, an interesting perspective given the trials the throw at them for the sole purpose of getting them ready. Now, more than ever, teens are pressured with a plethora of problems: they have to get good grades, raise money for college, and immerse themselves in extra curricula, while maintaining some scrap of sanity and a healthy social life. All this to ensure they succeed the previous generation with intelligence and maturity, to enter into power with an understanding of what it means to be a citizen of the world. With all this insurance for a well-read society, the world still believes that teens have no place in the world… yet. They are not capable of anything… yet. They cannot be trusted… yet. Yet, teens think and feel the same as adults, they have the same apprehensions, and they deal with the same grief, as clearly shown in Sylvia Plath’s diary entry and JD Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye. The mythological teenage vagrancy exists only as these apprehensions and grievances (a common theme among the youth of society) intensify with the pressure of the world to fit, or exceed, a certain standard [9]. Teens--from the intense pressures society forces on them--feel the need to break from the structure and rebel: they deplore unnecessary work the same as adults--no more, no less [8].
The worldview on teenagers needs reconstruction. Unfortunately, the world is utterly uncreative. It would be easier for the world to take something society already knows and understands: itself, and reflect it onto the younger generation. After all, the artificial utopia created in the 40s and 50s eerily resembles the “real world”--prejudiced, sectionalized, loving, lusting, striven to excellence, perpetually ill-equipped, forever yearning for more [1]. Whether “established” society embraces its adolescent twin or it continues to cast off the youthful generation as something unfinished [10], the truth will always be certain. The society of teens mimics that of the world in general. Therefore, society must, at least should, have a reverence for these creatures no difference from general society except in that teenagers determine the future, the present generation’s legacy.
