Teens - Adults Should Let Teenagers Live Their Lives

Adults Should Let Teenagers Live Their Lives

A common phrase that adults can testify to hearing from any given teenager is, “You don’t understand!” This proves a struggle between the youth and the adults that quite possibly is never-ending. Adults make assumptions about kids, based on the way they dress, which pushes kids farther and farther away. In the essay, “Goths in Tomorrowland” by Thomas Hine, he emphasizes the beliefs that adults began the idea of youth alienation from older societies and the teenagers keep it that way. Donna Gaine’s essay, “Teenage Wasteland,” discusses four teenagers who were mocked and misunderstood by adults and reporters alike. Jon Katz lets the kids explain themselves about their seclusion from society and the misconceptions about them in his column, “More from the Hellmouth: Kids Tell About Rage.” The fear that elders show towards young people is merely a fear of the unknown. Adults are worried about the younger generations because of their misunderstandings of the youth culture, their failure to accept youth into the adult society, and the instigation provoked from young people.

Misunderstanding of youth creates the gap between adults and teenagers. Many teenagers spend their whole teen experience searching for someone to just understand them. A lot of them do not even make it through this experience because they give up feeling that no one knows what they are going through. Parents also fear for their kids because they do not understand them. A boy named Evan best explains this in “More from the Hellmouth: Kids Tell About Rage.” He says, “People fear what they don’t understand, and let’s face it, the world [. . .] isn’t something most people can understand [. . .]” (Katz 81). I can reme...

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...es and it will be like that until the end of time. Adults do not completely understand teenagers and they never will. It is just the truth of being either an adult or a teenager. No one can understand both. Adults refuse to accept youth inside of their world and youth refuse to be a part of their elder’s world. It is a vicious cycle. Adults have to learn to let teenagers live their lives; even when they feel like protecting their children

Works Cited

Gaines, Donna. “Teenage Wasteland.” Reading Culture. 4th ed. Ed. Diana George and John Trimbur. New York: Longman, 2001. 63-66.

Hine, Thomas. “Goths in Tomorrowland.” Reading Culture. 4th ed. Ed. Diana George and John Trimbur. New York: Longman, 2001. 68-73.

Katz, Jon. “More from the Hellmouth: Kids Tell About Rage.” Reading Culture. 4th ed. Ed. Diana George and John Trimbur. New York: Longman, 2001. 78-83.