The issue with stereotypes against teens

A few days ago, I saw an article with the headline “why are teenagers such moody, lazy and selfish nightmares?” The second I read that my blood began to boil, just falling into the trap of their headline.

DISCLAIMER: I am not defending all teenagers. Correct, some teenagers are incredibly irritating but not all of us.

As I teenager, I am fed up of continuously hearing negative associations about teenagers. Not only are their stereotypes of teenagers as a group. Stereotypes of our expression and how we act.

This fairly recent stereotype has quickly become ingrained into our society. Shining a horrible spotlight on todays youth.

“Teenagers these days”

We are lazy.

We are rude.

We are arrogant.

We are disrespectful.

We’re a humiliation.

We have no hope.

We let society down.

We are worthless.

We are stupid.

We lack ambition and motivation.

We are useless.

Imagine someone turned to you and called you these things. You would be horrified.

So why is it okay if you say this to a teenager?

Teenagers these days are fed up of our society and our leaders and our supposed inspirations constantly critiquing our every move.

As a seventeen-year-old I have met a few people my age or younger who just don’t take life seriously, they constantly mess about and really do get on my nerves. Yet, so many people I’ve met are amazing, caring and genuinely inspirational, who certainly do not fall into the negative stereotypes enforced. So why do they deserve to be put into this category?

We constantly view the world through a negative lens. We never enlighten the good in people or society we always have to critique the bad.

The question I propose is why? Why do we do this? Why do teenagers have this negative stereotype?

I reckon it’s because we are forced to mature too early in life. We have to basically choose our life path when we’re in high school. We have to choose which field of occupation we want to train in by as young as 13. 13-year olds shouldn’t have to be under that much pressure and responsibility we should be able to enjoy our childhood and teenage years. Because we know every adult tells us that “being an adult is much more difficult” “I wish I was a teenager, they were the good old days” so why push us into adulthood that early let us live and we will mature naturally just like any other generation before us did. Maybe this is why some teenagers act the way they do because they reject this ideology of being forced to grow up. Therefore, they push this immaturity to their boundaries.

In school, we get taught the unnecessary things that realistically are not crucial to our lives. Why don’t we get taught the things that matter, like how to manage finances, how to pay bills, first aid, how to care for people, how to survive. We finish education knowing about Pythagoras theorem and Newtons laws on motion then we get thrown out into this big real world of adulthood not knowing how to fend for ourselves. We need to be taught things that matter and we need to be taught how to be an adult if you want our generation to ‘grow up’ and stop being childish. Teach us.

I’m obviously not a witness to teenagers throughout previous generations but like any area of society there will always be people who mess around, drop out, pay no attention and don’t take things seriously and this happens at all ages so why is it being coined again now just to teenagers?

Previous generations have had youth clubs and safe environments to go to. We don’t have that. Where are we suppose to go? Times are different now compared to previous times, society will inevitably change again within the next few years. Adults should keep up to date with society and comparing their childhood to ours is so unrealistic because we don’t live the same lives anymore.

Adults believe that because teenagers don’t show emotion we don’t have any. So, anything you throw at us, you think we can just handle it. It doesn’t quite work that way. We build this barrier against all the negative comments that are vigorously forced into our brains and store it inside until that barrier breaks and then we have a little tantrum because we’re fed up with everything around us.

For other stereotypes people would stand up and confront them but teenagers don’t because we feel unheard.

In a world where we constantly fight for kindness and equality, topics like these will get brushed under the carpet and will never be bought up. Until everyone learns that we all should be treated with kindness and respect, no matter our age, ethnicity, race, gender, religion or expression and any factor that may contribute to our lifestyles.

Thank you for reading,

Madison 😊