Teenagers are just learning adult social skills and their frequent social faux pas make them pains in the butt.
I was. My oldest sister was. My middle sister was pretty easy, as far as I could see.
Teenagers have always been pains in the butt. We have quotes from ancient Greece decrying how obnoxious their teenagers were and how much worse and more disrespectful they were than teenagers in the good old days. Our adults have little patience for social mistakes teens make, and we don't mentor them like the not-their-parents adults of some wiser cultures.
As a society, we treat teenagers as subhuman, and society tends to treat children as obnoxious, noisy unpleasantness--and parents who bring their children along with them as rude and inconsiderate for exposing other adults to these normal, average members of humanity.
Yeah, bored kids act up and we try to leave our daughter with a babysitter she likes if we know a mostly grown up gathering is going to bore her stiff. But we also explain to her that we think she'd be bored stiff and are trying to be considerate of her at least as much as we're having some adult time with our own peers.
When I was a teen, we noticed that the local ballpark had evenings where they'd hand out beer themed t-shirts and mugs to people over 18, and they'd have a special promotion for kids under 12, but they had nothing for teenagers. Ballparks and malls and many other places were not interested in attracting teenagers as customers.
That attitude is not uncommon.
No wonder teens are resentful. Society gives them messages all the time that they're just a nuisance and adult society really wishes they'd just go away. No matter where they are, retailers and neighbors are likely to consider their mere presence a "problem."
There are always some adults who see how cruel and destructive that attitude is, and how it sets up teens to be even more obnoxious. There are always plenty more adults who see the absence of teens in the public places they frequent as only their right and just due.
It's like a pre-civil-rights South where many whites considered it their right not to be offended by the mere presence of black folks in public restrooms or at their restaurants, shops, and hotels.
Tribal societies, with rites of passage at 12, or Jewish communities which have bar mitzvah and bat mitzvahs that bring people from childhood to adulthood and welcome them, have teenagers who generally behave well and are well integrated with the other people in their communities.
Old time American rural communities, where teenagers did an adult's level of farmwork in the fields and an adult's level of heavy farm chores had teenagers who were appreciated as valued workers and helpful members of the community. Their teenagers were better behaved and far less likely to be serious pains in the butt.
Imagine that.
When you're nice enough to treat other people as valued human beings, and with full human respect for their own goals and dreams, they reciprocate.
A dog doesn't care if it's master's a good person. It just cares that he likes the dog.
Our teens would be nicer to our community if we liked our neighbor's teenager as much as we like his dog.
Julie
