Youth full

The stereotype of the teenager is one of attitude, rebelling against authority, and overall brashness. Loud music, no regard for tradition, and the love of causing nothing but trouble. In my experience, since I write this in the last week of being a teenager, this hasn’t always been the case. I’m a rule follower, was always the teacher’s pet, and never snuck out or partied. Sure, I play loud music. I was raised by two metalhead older brothers and a classic rock dad who grew up in 70s California. My most listened to songs during high school were Eve of Destruction by Barry McGuire and Blowing in the Wind by Peter, Paul, and Mary. Reminiscent of your youthful protesting days?

My generation gets a lot of flak for that, and I’m sure yours did too. Your picketing and leaflets have become our social media campaigns. While we can argue about the effectiveness of them, one thing rings true across generations: teenagers believe they can change the world. I usually hear this statement said condescendingly, with an eye roll from a parent tired of the vigor, freshness, and spirit of this youth. When this was said to me in high school, I wanted to fight back, claiming that I didn’t believe it and I wasn’t the naVve child they were making me out to be. But I was, and in some ways, I still am.

I wish I had a better response to that statement back then. Although I’m still in my youth years, I’ve lost some of the spirit characteristic of this time. I wish I could go back to those days, where I unabashedly ‘fought the man’ in my own ways, when I would write petitions and collect signatures all without my parents knowing so I didn’t get that demeaning statement thrown at me. I miss the lack of responsibilities, the freedom of thought, the ability to make mistakes that don’t carry drastic consequences.

Despite the bad reputation of youth, the United Nations is one such group that recognizes the immense power of the teenager. International Youth Day is celebrated every August 12th since it was started in 2000 and revolves around a theme relating to cultural and legal issues that youth face around the globe. The purpose is to engage youth in advocacy and awareness of these issues and to empower youth to organize for themselves. This year, the theme will be about food systems and protecting the environment with sustainable agriculture. What underlies each International Youth Day is the belief that these social movements, although not specific to only the teenage experience, cannot and will not be successful without the mobilization of the youth population.

The United Nations is not the only organization that knows the power of the teenager. Marketing campaigns specifically target teenagers who are full of insecurities and instabilities that these companies can profit from. We’re emotionally vulnerable, which makes us more likely to feed into these social movements as well as to blanket ourselves in products that will seemingly give us the confidence and security we’re missing. I won’t sugarcoat and say that the high school years are easy. These months are spent worrying about things that won’t matter once you graduate but seem like life or death in the moment. But if teenagers understood the power they hold as spirited, emotional youths like marketing campaigns do, then the United Nations would have an easier time mobilizing us. And so would you.

The next time you pass a teenager in the parking lot, where their riding their skateboards into traffic and playing their music too loud, remember when you were that age. Were you full of rebellion and "naive" positivity? Were you insecure and anxious, too? Did you fit the Hollywood stereotype of teenagers or were you flying under the radar, just trying to get by in life? These are formative years that everyone passes through, and no one comes out the same as they went in. The child becomes an adult, mostly through trial and error. So, they make mistakes, tend towards naivety, and we can’t help but be frustrated. But we can love the youth for where they are at and how far they have to go, and also for the vigor, freshness, and spirit that we’ve lost but they haven’t.

"Teenagers believe they can change the world." I didn’t know how to respond to it then, but now I do. Teenagers do believe they can change the world. From childhood to adulthood, the world opens up around you and it is in this period of youth that we become aware of all of it, the good and the bad. We spend our childhood looking forward to middle school, high school, and beyond. And when we see that it isn’t the perfect picture we imagined, we want to change it. We want it to be everything we envisioned and more, without the negativity and suffering that we hadn’t factored in. We were naive for not considering the consequences of adulthood, yes, but we were children. We still are. And so are you, even in your eightieth and ninetieth years. You are still that curious child. You are still that loud, spirited teenager. Those parts of you haven’t disappeared, even if they are buried under yearly tax deadlines and mortgage payments. So why do you want that part of me to disappear? If you could go back there and see the world with rose colored glasses, wouldn’t you?

Yes, I believe that I can change the world. Maybe it’s not in the large scale, massive social rebellion that I had envisioned in high school, but that doesn’t mean I’m powerless. My presence and my absence change the world. Yours does too, but the saddest thing I’ve learned as I inch towards adulthood, is that you can’t see it anymore.