Teenagers are often characterized, as people who don
’t know anything and that don’t know what they are doing.
Teenagers are often characterized, as people who don’t know anything and that don’t know what they are doing.
I really dislike the fact that as teenagers we are not seen as good people. To grown ups we are labeled either as “drunkies,” “druggies,” “slums,” “lazy,” “good for nothings” “or just nobodies.”
Not all teenagers are the same; many of us actually work our “butts” to get what we want and the respect some of us deserve. Age doesn’t mean anything. You can be a grown up of fifty and be lazy living off welfare. While a teenager of seventeen is working two jobs at a time trying to make ends meet.
How can people expect us to behave like adults if they don’t treat us as adults? Many teenagers are sometimes taken advantage because many grown ups think that they can manipulate us.
Or maybe we’re at a restaurant. We wait to be attended on, but no, we are the last. Why, because many people think that because we’re teenagers we should always be served last and adults first.
“Hey, who was first in line, me or her?” I say, oh, but until then they actually begin to notice us.
Grown ups can be stupid and lazy; that is a fact. Many teenagers can be intelligent and hard working, but no – no recognition for them. Why? Because they are teenagers.
I really hate how many adults look at us and don’t ever expect anything good out of us. How they judge us, only by the way we look. If we dress a certain way, adults easily mistake us as “gangsters” because of our low jeans and the way we walk; “druggies” or “drunkies” because of our piercing or tattoos. Or sometimes just because we color or cut our hair in a certain way, they quickly judge us when they don’t know anything about us. I find it very naive on their part to do that.
But there is a way out of this. In order to change the way adults look at us, we as teenagers need to show that we can actually take the responsibility of being adults. I know many students who only party, get drunk and do it all over again the following weekend. It’s really sad that, just because of people like these, all teenagers are seen as a threat to society.
Today’s youth are getting worse every minute that goes by. Every day I see younger girls wearing less clothing than I would ever imagine a girl dare to wear in the public. Small skirts barely covering their behinds, along with a shirt that doesn’t even cover half of their stomachs. I’m not sure weather it’s the youth’s fault, why they act the way they do, or if it’s the parents who actually don’t teach them morals and dignity as they’re growing up.
Growing up as a teenager in today’s world is a lot more difficult than what I hear my parents and grandparents telling me about from their teenage years.
But again, not all boys and girls are the same. Still, we have to go through all of the “discrimination,” which our fellow friends and classmates have brought against ourselves. I guess that as teenagers, we will have to suffer through this stage until we reach an age where we will have to realize our wrongful actions and our concluding consequences. I guess we have to be patient and wait to be treated as some of us should be. That is with dignity and respect.
Cindy Hernandez is a senior at Live Oak, ASB commissioner of diversity in ASB and features editor on the student newspaper, the Oak Leaf. She alternates writing for Teen Perspective with Courtney Gavin. Contact Cindy at ed******@*************es.com/
