While surfing TV channels, I found the movie “Breakfast Club” which came out some years after I graduated high school. It is about teens spending a Saturday in detention and how they come to know each other.
While I am way past my teen years, I can still remember what it was like for me. I was not popular, athletic, or super smart. I wasn’t weird enough to shake my dandruff onto a drawing, but I was also not artistic enough to draw. Despite all of this, I can still identify with most of the characters. A person’s teenage years can be both terrifying and exhilarating. Teens are full of hope and possibilities, but with that comes pressure to become adults.
By junior year of high school, they must figure out what comes next. Will they continue their education? If so, where and for what? If not further education, how will they earn money? I have heard of parents who kicked their kids out of the house upon high school graduation. I have also known parents who did not push their kids at all once graduated. I try not to judge because what is right for one person may not be right for another. As a parent, it is difficult to know what to do.
When my children were teenagers, I watched “Breakfast Club” again as a mom, and it scared me. We only get to know the characters’ parents through the eyes of the teens, but it appears that only one of them abused their child. The rest of them may have honestly thought they were being good parents, or they were so wrapped up in their own lives that they didn’t care as much as they should. I read once that it doesn’t matter what kind of parent you are so much as how your kids perceive you. How did my kids perceive their dad and me? I am still not sure which was harder—being a teen or raising them. I am not exaggerating when I say it was a relief to be done with both phases of my life.
It seems to me that today’s teens have it harder than past generations. Social media, school shootings, and fentanyl poisoning are stresses that weren’t issues before. These are in addition to the stresses of just growing up.
So, if I meet teens as clerks in stores or restaurants, at church activities, or anywhere else, I try to be patient and kind. Even under the best of circumstances, they are going through a difficult time of life.