Ruffian Teenagers

Lately I have been thinking that teenagers are almost always up to no good. I think this sentiment comes mostly from the recent thefts at our home (See my post from May 26th), but also from articles like this.

It's frustrating to me that I'm starting to feel this way because I know that not all teens are up to no good, and it makes me feel like an old fogey sitting on his porch in his rocking chair saying "Back in my day kids new their place!". As recently as a decade ago, I was a teenager. I don't completely remember what it was like, but I do remember doing some very responsible things as well as some stupidly irresponsible things.

I'm having trouble excusing the kids at the Ottawa marathon like the race coordinator apparently has done. His fix for the problem for next year is to "ask the city for a straighter course" and to "draw a solid blue line for runners to follow". I don't mean to state the obvious here, but how about "Getting someone other than teenagers to do the monitoring of blockades"?! Let's place blame where blame is due. The kids shirked their responsibilities and, as a direct result, chaos ensued (on the relative scale of a marathon, anyway). How about holding the kids responsible for the havoc they created? I'd almost suggest that we hold the parents responsible, but I think that is the problem: The parents are always taking responsibility for their kids actions and, therefore, the kids never learn responsibility.

When it comes to things like censorship and such, I'm sick of hearing the cries of conservative mothers saying "think of the children.... won't someone please think of the children?!" You know what? One thing I distinctly remember about being a teenager is being more fully aware of the things being censored than the people doing the censoring. Every word I heard that was bleeped on television was a word I knew and, likely, used. Let's stop fooling ourselves that, by sheltering kids from stuff we feel is inappropriate, we can make them the kid we want them to be. They're gonna find out.... and they're gonna find out a lot sooner than you want them to! I must have been in kindergarten or first grade the first time I called my brother a "fucker". I didn't know what it meant or even where I learned it, but I knew it was what people said when they were angry. Had someone told me that this was an inappropriate word, then - possibly - I wouldn't have used it.

Kids (teens, in particular) aren't as innocent as we think they are. Once we as a society realize that, then maybe we can start having kids be more responsible and stop letting them get away - sometimes literally - with murder.