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Thursday, June 26, 2008

Guest View: It's Not Easy Being a Teenager Today

By Alec Vall

      The biggest problem facing teenagers today is that it is expected of them to act older than they really are. Whether it is because of their own choosing, or because they are forced to act older, depends on the person. But it is the biggest problem facing teenagers today; and, at the same time, the cause of the problem. Most teens are expected to go to college, to become responsible members of society quickly, and finally, be aware of how the world around them sees them as a person.
    Most teenagers today are expected to go to college to get a good education. To achieve that goal, they must get good grades and to do well in school, and to do that they must form good scholastic habits at a young age. So by the time kids are in first grade they are expected to start working toward their future. The pressure of college may not be as heavy then, but the effects it has on them will last a lifetime. Some take it better then others, but some do crack under the pressure and it makes a teenager's life harder than it needs to be. They start accessibly giving up their social lives to work on homework or extracurricular activities that will look good on a résumé.
    Being a teenager is something that no one ever fully likes. It is that point in their lives where they are supposed to grow up and start becoming an adult — for them to start taking on new responsibilities in their own life.
    This raises the level of stress that they must be able to deal with, like balancing homework and extracurricular activities for example, and it usually starts when they're young. It leaves no time for them to ease into the new rules that their life has in it. They're being asked to go from childhood to full-fledged adulthood almost overnight, and it's just not right expecting that from them.
    The most important point this essay will bring up about the troubles of being a teenager is trying to get the world around them to accept them, and not get labeled by one of the many names out there. There are a lot names for all the different people, and they have not changed much over the years: jock, nerd, prep, poser and emo. Some have been around decades longer than others, but they are all the same thing.
    The way the world sees them, and the thing a teenager never wants to be seen as, is as a nobody. It is humiliating for most, to have the world not even acknowledge that they are there. The fact that it is almost as if their own peers have no respect for who they are. It's not something that most can just live with.
    In all “reality” this essay doesn't say much; it is one opinion on what the biggest problem facing teenagers today is. All it talks about is how teenagers are forced to grow up fast and how for some it's not a good thing. Being 13 and having people expect you to act like you are an adult is hard. Teenagers need more time than the world gives us to still be kids, and let us worry about college and everything a little later. They are old enough to know when they need to buckle down and to understand what they want out of life without everyone around pestering them about it.
    Teenagers today are the future, and the future is tomorrow. Since tomorrow will really never come, just give us a little bit of a break until the tomorrow they must take over comes.
    Vall is 16 years old and will be a junior at East Mountain High School.
   

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