The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager (QUOTES)

This article by Hine describes the teenager as a social construction. Historically, teenagers have been treated as this "alien life form" that is SO much different than adults and SO much different than children. Hine describes the phenomenon of teenage drug use, sexual relations, juvenile crime and many other rebellious behaviors that teenagers engage in due to their social environment and treatment received by adults. Here are three quotes that I particularly liked in the reading:

1.)  Page 8: "If you take a romantic view, young people "fall" in another way; They grow up. They cut their hair (or remove their tattoos), give up on their youthful idealism and fade into the grey mass of adult society. Still, another notion of the "fall" is implicit in the fears and complaints that adults have about young people - especially now that teen-bashing is such a popular bipartisan activity." 

- This quote,  in the opening few paragraphs, explains the notion of the teenage "fall". When the teenage clock runs out, teenagers automatically have to shed their youthful mentalities and become a jaded, pessimistic, realistic adult. Magically. Adults complain about teenagers, in what Hine refers to as "teen-bashing" which makes sense because teenagers are seen as inferior due to the fact that they're just young enough to still be dependent on their parents.

It's TOTALLY just a phase!

2.) Page 14: "By giving birth at the prom, the young woman had violated the old-fashioned meaning of the prom as a celebration of the end of a protected, almost childish mode of existence. But her act also undermined the more recent tendency of young people to use the event as an aggressive assertion of maturity. She proved herself physically capable of bearing a child, but not mentally, emotionally or morally mature enough to handle it. She had, in a word, shown herself to be a teenager."

-This quote described the 1997 incident of the teenage girl giving birth at her school's prom and leaving the baby in a trashcan afterwards. Teenagers are seen as these people who aren't old enough to be adults, but can demonstrate adult behavior like bearing a child. Society knows this, but they also see teenagers as inferior (morally, emotionally and mentally) therefore they get treated as so. This news story blew up the headlines (I remember it and I was 7years old at the time) and became a national example of what a teenager is. Sad, right?

Look at these two hotties at the prom!! Looking good!

3.) Page 17: "Teenagers spend much of their lives dealing with people who don't know them as individuals, and under the control of institutions that strive to deal with people uniformly."

-This is a short quote, but I liked it because I think that everyone can relate to the part about uniform institutions. High schools push for all students to achieve the same, dress the same, act the same and hang out together and have a WONDERFUL time. This, simply is not true. High schools are diverse, filled with gay kids, straight kids, artists, musicians, athletes, math-letes and so on. Uniformity makes the adult world comfortable in a society that is very worried about the future. Teenagers are our future. We need to treat them nicer. Don't H8.

In the next class I'd like to talk about why Hine thinks that teenagers are social constructions. Are there examples in the media vs. examples in real life that connect? How does this relate to the teenage thought process & experience? Let's chit chat on Tuesday.

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