WRITE OR WONG?: Being a Teen in the Eyes of Adults

KAYIU WONG
Staff Writer

When you think of the word “teenager,” what words come to mind? To adults these days, the first thoughts would be negative, characterizing teens as wild, irresponsible and immature. While these complaints about future generations are prominent among our predecessors and nothing new, this intensity of doubt and concern has now grown into stereotypical “you’re just a teenager” generalizations.
While advertisement searching for The Moor Weekly, I presented myself to dozens of managers and cashiers. After a while, I noticed their disinterest, because I was merely a high school student. Yes, it could be that my sales pitch was not appealing or perhaps they really did not need advertising, but if I were an adult instead of a teenager, how would their perception of me change? To them, I was just a random teenager doing business with them.
Adults are not all like this, but in the bigger picture, being an adolescent today is labeled more and more with the words untrustworthy and childish. To our parents, our rebellious ways, impatient tone and eye rolling get old, but these actions should our only characterization. It is unfair that a first impression is based on biased teenage generalizations; we should be given the benefit of doubt regardless of our age.
Are we to blame generalizations on the fact that we aren’t given a chance, or have we failed adults’ expectations? Nonetheless, we still have the power to make what is believed of us inconsequential and unreliable judgement. Our behavior comes hand-in-hand with our growing up; negative perceptions and antagonism toward us as teenagers should not.