OC HIGH: STUDENT NEWS AND VIEWS : Teens Don’t Need All Those Labels, Thanks
I can’t say that I am the average teen-ager, nor am I an extraordinary teen. But let me ask you: What kind of a teen is average or extraordinary?
What I do know is that while I like high school and some of the freedoms teen-agers have, I think that some of the restrictions placed on my age group are totally unjustified.
Because of my age, I’m subjected to a 10 p.m. curfew, shoddy service at restaurants, a dress code at school and the constant assumption that I’m doing something wrong (I’m not allowed to walk along the beach with my boyfriend after dark).
These happen not because I’ve done anything wrong but because of the few jerks out there who have harmed others, had children while in high school and done other things that our society disapproves of.
As a result, teens are often thought of as destructive, disrespectful, unruly sex fiends, lovers of blasphemous music, drinkers, party-goers and slack-offs in school.
My big question is: How can such a “democratic” society segregate an entire group of people and place a label on them, a label not all of them deserve?
I know that I don’t deserve this label. I get good grades--good enough for the California Scholarship Federation. I’m on the mock trial team and the junior varsity gymnastics team. I’m a member of the International Thespian Society and drama club.
Not all students are like me, and I’m not like all students. I have friends who do a lot more, and friends who do a lot less.
Why am I confined to the rules of this group? And who makes the rules? That’s a question I can answer: The adults who think they know what’s best for me, while in all actuality they haven’t been a teen-ager for at least 20 years.
How could they possibly know what’s right for my generation? They’re so out of touch, yet they dare to place another label on us. They call us Generation X. Some will say it’s a term for confused twentysomethings. But I think Generation X can apply to me. I deserve a label other than a child of a Baby Boom couple.
I think our generation has a lot of leeway to decide what to do and to become what we want. Some say we’re soft, we don’t know how good we have it and we haven’t had to go to war or even dodge one.
But our generation has to deal with pollution, overpopulation, AIDS, the national debt and overcoming the labels our so-called mentors apply to us, like slackers, losers and whiners.
Frankly, we will become--if we aren’t already--one of the hardest-working generations, dealing with new problems and the ones the past generations have left for us. Just wait and see.
