Are Teenagers Evil?

Great Debates
21

Sorry for double posting, but I forgot another aspect…

As far as why today’s teenagers might appear more reckless or dangerous or what-have-you then previous generations, there are fewer things to experiment with now. Strauch says that teenagers need to do things that are risky. That is part of the way the human mind develops. Older generations might remember it wearing leather jackets and harrasing the owner of the soda pop stand (or so TV tells me). Or more commonly, racing cars or something along that line. However, she says that many of those risky excursions have been eliminated in recent decades, and that has caused modern teens to explore into sex and drugs. As far as clothing, I would imagine that it is just a new way of rebelling that is different from how our parents rebelled. (Leather jackets are soooo 30 years ago). If anyone is interested in more concrete examples than my memory can provide, I’ll scan that chapter for some more examples.

22

I too, as a teenager, got tired of being followed around in stores and got tired of being looked at suspiciously where ever I went.
After a while I realized that it just comes with the territory. There is just a natural distrust of teenagers. Teenagers overall seem to make unwise decisions that hurt other people and not just themselves (i.e. underage drinking and driving, vandalism, theft, property damage, etc.) which contributes to the distrust of teenagers. Does that mean that all teenagers do stuff like this? Ofcourse not, but that is the perception. In response to the OP, do I think teenagers are evil? No, they are just testing boundaries. That is just part of growing up and learning how to be an adult.

23

Not sure what happened there. That was supposed to be all one paragraph. :smack:

24

Not misremembering, just young. There was a whole cottage industry that sprang up in the 1950s to address the problem of “juvenile delinquents.” Some of the notions even made it onto the Big Screen with movies such as Rebel Without A Cause and The Blackboard Jungle (which were not, themselves, pioneering efforts, having followed several movies featuring the “Dead End Kids” from the 1930s). (Before the “Dead End Kids” evolved into a comedy schtick as the Bowery Boys they appeared in movies as actual toughs).

Advice to parents: How do you handle teenager?

When s/he is thirteen, nail her/him into a box with openings for food and air.

When s/he is sixteen, close up the holes.

The “problem” with teens is that they are neither child not adult and, in some instances, they combine the worst of each. Imagine the havoc that could be raised by an irresponsible 9-year-old who had the size and strength of an adult. There is no real brake on impetuous behavior, and that behavior can have serious consequences. Even when the behavior is mostly benign, teens tend to have fewer social inhibitions (as they test out the barriers of social constraints a.k.a. repression), so they are likely to trample over older folks’ views of propriety.

As teens “try out” various personae, looking to discover who they are and how they fit into society, quite a few of them will rebel against social constraints in various ways. When they do this in the presence of older folks who do not know many teens, the geezers (following the natural human habit of generalizing) are liable to impute that behavior to teens as a group instead of to the individuals observed.

(Beyond that, society, as a whole, has relaxed many of its more rigid conventions, so that it is more difficult for teens to actually discover where the boundaries are. I am old enough to wince when I hear a server or sales clerk refer to people as “You guys.” It still strikes my ear as disrespectful. Yet it has been in general use for so long that I hear this from 30-somethings and even older people, so it is unlikely that many teens consider it too casual or disrespectful, at all. (Knowing that, I do not get upset when referred to in that way, but I suspect that some servers have lost tips from people older than I am.))

Of course, it is entirely unfair to distrust every teen on the grounds that some tiny percentage of the teen population will actually be a danger. It is also unfair to either presume that teens will be rude or to assume that actual rudeness encountered in teens is representative of all teens (or even deliberate).

However, as gusnspot has pointed out, from time to time: the world is not fair, it is round, mostly.
Now, in one regard, I am also at a loss to explain the reactions toward teens by some adults. Every year there are a few stories about some teen or another being suspended from school for wearing a spiky/bald/brilliantly hued/oddly shaven hair style. In recent years the school adminstrators have been my age (simply because people my age are moving into those positions). I always wonder, when I read the stories, what the principal or superintendent looked like when he graduated in 1967 or 1970. Don’t these twits realize that their shoulder-length hair at that time was actually more offensive, socially, than dreadlocks or a clean-shaven skull are today? For these folks, I suppose it is simply a control issue and if it was not the dress code, they would find something else to get uptight over.

25

I love teenagers.

I have a 16, 15, and 13 year old.

I love their energy, their enthusiasm, and their originality.

And I love their cool clothes and multi-colored hair :smiley:

No wonder teens clam up with most adults. Get the hair out of your asses ya old farts. What other time in your life can you get away with that sort of self-expression? Why not celebrate it? They’ll be shoved in the friggin’ box soon enough.

I rarely have any big problems with my kids or their friends. They don’t come home drunk or stoned (my middle boy is steadfastedly"straight-edge") and aside from the usual sulkiness and angst, we get along just fine. I treat them as human beings, and I get the same in return.

I can’t believe that some of the people that were rolling around naked in the mud at Woodstock or shoving safety pins thru their noses to The Sex Pistols became such pills as adults. Sheesh.

I’m helping Emo Boy do his hair blue today. It’s gonna look kewl. Then my daughter and I will decide if it’s worth sitting through KISS to see Aerosmith this summer. (We’ll decide yes, because we NEVER miss Aerosmith when they play.)

I enjoy the hell out of them.

Alot of what I’ve read in this thread had made me sad.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” is going through my head.

26

I am fifteen.

Teenagers ARE evil. Take it from me, a dissindent on the inside. High school is a rotting, mephitic cesspool of wanton stupidity, and teenagers are useless blobs, born to waste space and ANNOY ME.

But you could say I’m a tad misanthropic, in general. I mean, if you wanted to. And I’m sure you don’t.

27

What are bondage straps?

28

What are bondage straps?

29

Bondage straps on pants are just straps that clip onto different points of the pants… Kinda like suspenders, but attached to hooks on the pants.

30

I don’t get it…do you have pics of any?

31

My teenaged children are evil, mean, selfish and lazy…the apples don’t fall far from the tree. They can be loud and obnoxious but to my knowledge, they’ve never shoplifted or stolen. Again, just like me.

32

Teenagers lack impulse control. That’s mostly physiological. More of their decisions seem to track through the amigdyla than through the cerebral cortex. As they mature, this usually changes.

33

I am missing out on a whole lot of teenage adventures apparently.
I have never been hassled by the cops.
I have never been followed around a store.
I have never seen people pull their children away from me.

I have raced cars (I must be some crazy retro “Rebel Without a Cause” style guy).
I have never had sex or done drugs.
Only 326 days to change all of that, before my carefree teenage years end, and melt into my carefree early twenties.

A comment about kids who say the cops are always hassling them: there may be a reason for it. That reason may be something other than “Pigs are dicks.” In my teenage years, I have had exactly four encounters with the police. One was when I called them. Another was when I was driving in a public parking lot with no headlights (we were going to go steal something, and you’ve gotta be stealth). The third was when I was racing my car (and, by virtue of being polite and respectful, got written up for only 82 mph, rather than the 87mph he caught me at, and no mention of my unsafe lane changes or the fact that I was engaging in a speed contest). The fourth was when I was riding with my friend (at about 1 AM on a Tuesday, so we were the only folks out) whose car had illegal lighting (which he had been previously ticketed for and not yet fixed). Moral of the story: Everytime the police were involved, there was a reason. Either they were requested, or something illegal was going on. I find it hard to believe that every other teenager in the country is being persecuted by the police because of his age.

I am glad to see other people acknowledging (that spelled right? It looks weird) the unadulturated evil and cruelty of junior high kids. They are at this horrible age where they have learned a bunch of bad stuff, but not enough self control to restrain themselves.

34

Are Teenagers Evil?

Yeah. People fear that which they cannot understand. We should all just get along.

35

The thing about SOME teenagers that bugs me is that they think they’ve got everything figured out. How can a 16-year-old know-it-all know anything? Plus, many forget that they aren’t grown. You may have hairy pits. You may be able to drive. But that does not mean you have the right to give your parents a hard time. As long as you live in their house, eating their food, you’re a child.

I don’t like thinking back on my teenage years. I was a “good” kid but I still didn’t really appreciate my parents and the nice home they had provided for me.

36

What really gets me annoyed is the fact that, on a day to day basis, a lot of people act like they know everything. But then they can turn around, point back at their teenage years, and say “Look how far I’ve come! I was so foolish back then!”

Being a know-it-all, in my never humble opinion, is more a matter of personality than age. We were foolish then, we’re foolish now, and we’ll be fools til the day we die. The best you can do is notice that ahead of time rather than waiting for hindsight to kick you in the ass.

37

I anticipate having difficulty phrasing this well, and won’t spend too much time trying to get it right, but here goes.

I sense a different attitude from teens today that I recall from when I was a teen in the 70s.

Here’s an example. Last Friday, the jr high in town had early dismissal. I had occasion to go downtown for an errand. I was surprised at the number of kids hanging out downtown. Most surprising to me was the noise. Groups of 6-10 kids were standing around, at times running around, and yelling at each other. I was in one store, and kids would dart into the store, and then knock on the windows from inside, to get the attention of their friends outside, and then run back out.

I did not see significant evidence of these kids patronizing the stores or restaurants. Struck me as odd for them to treat a business district as a hangout or playground.

Writing that down, I guess it could be considered the equivalent of my generation’s “cruising.” And tho I never did, I understand kids have long hung out at malls.

But - I perceive a lot of teenagers today who have an attitude of entitlement. Sorry, but IMO kids hanging out are - uh, for lack of a better word - second class citizens compared to people going about their jobs or doing errands.

In one respect, it seems almost selfish. Kids feel they should be able to act how they want where they want, no matter if it bothers anyone else.

I recall my friends and I trying to keep a low profile. We did not wish to draw much attention to ourselves. We didn’t feel any great urge to express our preferences and entertain ourselved publicly. And we did our hanging out in schoolyards, parks, alleys, and fast food places. Of course, we thought that adults - even strangers in some cases - had a certain amount of authority over us. And we did not want word to get back to our parents that we were “acting up” in public.

Sorry if I’m not explaining myself well. I keep meaing to talk with people older than me, and hear from them what - if any - differences they perceive between teens when I was young and today.

Here’s another aspect - to some extent the actions of today’s kids reflects on their parents. If today’s kids are falling short of their parents’ generation, perhaps today’s parents are falling short compared to their parents.

BTW - I’m 42, and my kids are 11, 13, 15. Angels all. Seriously, many folk might consider us pretty strict with our kids in many respects. When we have asked them if that bothers them, they say they appreciate that we have reasons for our rules and are consistent in their application. We do not allow them to just hang out downtown, and require that they tell us where they are going, who will be there, and what they will be doing. My youngest just dyed her hair red.

38

A know-it-all teenager would say something like “in my never humble opinion”. So thanks for proving my point. :smiley:

39

Teenagers suffer from original sin like anyone else. If you want to be saved you have to do something to improve your native condition. That’s said without regard to baptism.

40

lol… I was waiting for the religious spin…

I’m 16 too, but I’ve never run into the stereotypes around here. The drugs, weapons etc. all takes place as usual, as well as the mass stupidity… I honestly cannot begin to fathom how stupid some people are…

My favorite stupid quote is from this girl who was taking a careers test: “Hey, look, there are no jobs that need a brain…”

LOL>>>