Thirteen

My wife and daughter accuse me of taking every side but their's on a regular basis.
"You should have been a lawyer" they say. ""you defend everybody".
Well I don't think this is true. I get put out with people and disappointed as much as the next guy, maybe I just don't say anything. I don't ignore it, I just try not to make the same mistake twice. But with this being said...here I go again.

I was reading a post on Facebook, made by a teenage girl, about how hard she was "trying". Her words. She basically said that a lot of kids were bad because their parents let them slide. She, unlike most, was held to a higher standard by her parents and was happy to "try hard and please". The post made me proud when I read it and I told her so. Kind of rare to hear a teenager not complaining. But the longer I have thought about this it has made me kind of sad.

I am old enough for my college transcripts to be 'in a box in the basement' somewhere at GCSU, and not online like the others. I don't know how old you have to be for this, but I qualify. Tales from the crypt. But I also remember very clearly being thirteen. That year was about 3 years long if I remember correctly, starting when I was about 11-12. I remember fun things like girlfriends and vacations, but I also remember some of the parts that were not so fun. I could list a few, but it was really just the uncertaintity of most everything. Everybody blames it on chemical changes in your adolescent body, and while I feel sure that is part of it, I think there's more. You are kind of in a time warp. You really don't fit anywhere. Some people will treat you like you're already grown, and some will treat you like you're a baby. A push-me-pull-you. Now you are sure that my transcripts are in the basement.

I hear parents tell their children all the time how lucky they are to have all the modern trappings. The old stories I heard about the barefeet and the snow and the twelve miles (uphill both ways) to school have kind of died out and been replaced by "I didn't get a cellphone until I was in college". But they are both supposed to mean the same thing; you have it easier than I did when I was a kid. Yes, it is easy to get in touch with anybody at anytime, but does that make being a teenager any easier? If you think they are lucky to have networks that program cartoons all day, try to watch a sitcom with them on network television at 8:00. You will be embarrassed if you're lucky, pissed if you're not.

I really think that being a teenager in the "information age" is tougher than being one when I was. Those poor boys on the Youtube video that's going around today. Headlines: Fat boy makes bully pay! If you haven't seen it and small kid punches a much larger kid in the face and taunts him repeatedly. The larger kid finally has enough and slams the bully to the ground. The bully gets what he deserves! But this, thanks to modern technology, is out there for the world to see. The lesson that these two boys just taught each other on a playground in small town USA is being viewed by the world. Trust me that it will have a different effect on both of them than it would have 30 years ago in obscurity. I smell a lawsuit!

I say let's cut them some slack. It is not any easier being a teenager today than it was when the wagon took me to school. Sure, they don't have to dodge buffalos and watch for indian attacks like I did, but being 13 is as hard as it ever was. Harder. You will still be disappointed, mad and clueless, but remember that they are "trying".