“You Teenagers Think You’re Invincible.”

I can’t really say I agree with the concept of adults being superior to any other age(as you can tell, my writing features a lot of things that I disagree with).

As a child, we are told what to do and how to do it, what and what not to say, who we should be friends with, where we shouldn’t go, what we cannot do, etc. We are ‘told off’ for not helping wash up, ‘grounded’ for not being home on time. I recognise that many rules that we abide to as a child are teaching us how to survive. Teaching us how to be good people. But the bad thing is, we shouldn’t have to tell our children to be home before dark. We shouldn’t have to tell them about ‘stranger danger’. It’s sad that in this world, we can hardly trust anybody but ourselves.

By the time you’re just 12, you’re at that funny stage of questioning your childhood and near future. “Does santa really exist?”, “Do I want to play with dolls or talk with boys?”, “Do I watch the ‘cool’ late night shows or childrens TV?”. That sort of thing.

After a year or so of that, you enter that too-old-for-half-the-things-you-want-to-do-but-too-young-for-the-other stage. And here I am, too young to be an independent individual but too old to spend my days fingerpainting and going on play dates. I don’t like the feeling that people ‘own’ me. Teachers punishing you for talking(what happened to freedom of speech??), adults thinking they can tell you what to do, just because they are a little older and more grey-haired than us. Did you know that everybody has the human right to say NO? Did you know that everybody have the right to be respected as an equal, and to express their own thoughts and feelings?

What is it that makes us(teenagers) obey their every command? This is my life, my body, my future and if I choose to do something with it that shows how I express myself, then there shouldn’t be a problem with that. What’s the deal with ‘parental consent’? I think I can decide for myself what I would like to do.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not oblivious to the fact that sometimes what we want isn’t for the best. As a two-year-old, I’m not going to know that if I toddle towards a fire I might get burnt. That if I hit somebody they might not like it. But anybody who is older than you will turn their roll of ‘guidence’ into a roll of dictatorship.

At my school, we are not allowed to go to the toilets in lesson. I understand that this could be reasonable. But we also cannot go inbetween lessons, or even before school starts. Surely going to the toilet is one of our human rights? It feels like such a long time when you need to go for over an hour. Surely that’s unhealthy? Surely we cannot be expected to concentrate on GCSE level Spanish while needing the toilet. I know the subject of toilets seems off topic, but again it is a way that adults seem to think they can control us.

You treat us like children but expect us to act like adults.
Right here I am going to say that where there are situations that I wish to be left alone with, my parents are not as harsh as I know some people’s are. They don’t punish me by taking my phone away or grounding me. But I do not give them a reason to punish me anyway. It’s okay if my room gets a bit messy. It’s not the end of the world if I forget to do something that they told me to.
Despite this, I still know many of my friends that have experienced the opposite with their parents. There are people I know that feel worthless simply because of the way that their parents have treated them. I’m not saying that any of the things I’ve been told are true, but I am saying that this has come from somebody I strongly trust, and I recognize their situations in many ways.

My main aim with this post was to assure everybody reading this that nobody owns you! Listen to the advice you are given from other people. Learn from your mistakes. But don’t let anybody control you. You have the right to be respected.

We are invincible because we believe that it is possible. We haven’t lost our minds to the downwards pull of ‘growing up’ yet, and so even though you didn’t fight it- Don’t take that opportunity away from us too.

Shmelted×