By Anushka Hooda
somewhere between bitter and sweet
Teenagers. People who are expected to behave like adults but are treated like kids. At the point when we were kids, we used to believe that teen life is tied with parties, huge friend groups and everything sweet and pretty. Be that as it may, there is something else to this young life besides what we anticipated. At the point when we entered this young stage, life changed. Totally. However much we adored this stage first and foremost. Now we simply wish to go back to our childhood and never grow up again. With the time, we understood that this stage has significantly more to it. Every one of the unexpected changes around and in us, may it be physically or mentally, it somewhere overpowered us. Now that we started this topic, we have a lot to discuss about what happens in a teen’s life. So we should start now. Shall we?
Pic credit: Pinterest
Peer pressure-
If a teenager is reading this right now then they probably know about peer pressure. May it be from our friends or our parents our sometimes, even our self. The standards that are set up for the ideal teen life are: being well known, going at parties, smoking, drinking, and being the ideal individual which everybody adores. The peer pressure to look “cool” and to be perfect, makes them feel less confident with who they actually are. They try to change themselves just to fit in the ideal teenager’s image. But that is not how it should be like. They have to feel confident and happy with what they are. And that is only possible if we try to change these ideal standards for a perfect life. Talking about peer pressure from our parents. They too want us to be perfect. Perfect. In academics, in other aspects, in short, we should be perfect in everything. According to them, they scold us or beat us for our own good. They need us to have a decent life in future that is the reason they compress us to score great. But they don’t notice that we have our problems too. I love how parents think that being a teenager is easy. “it’s not difficult” “it’s not stressful” you see if we tell them leave us alone they think its all because of our phones. “you’re so addicted to those phones” so they take them away. Or if we fail a test they think it’s because of our friends. So they blame our friends and they tell us they are bad influence. Or if we get a bad grade, they think it’s because we didn’t study as much. We didn’t try as hard. What they need to understand is that we don’t fail tests because we want to. We don’t make stupid mistakes because we like to. We don’t lash out or want alone time because we like it. It’s because we need it. It’s because the whole outside world like our friends and schools and teachers. They pressurize us. And our parents. We don’t need them to judge us. They tell us “when we were kids...” we get it. When you were kids your life was perfect. It was filled with rainbows and sunshine and little kids playing around. But it’s 2022. Times have changed and we have changed and they need to understand that. They need to understand that we have a lot going on other than just studies and we cannot discuss everything with them. If we try to talk to them about our friendships or anything else, they think we are spoiled and all these things are distracting us. “friends are not important. Focus on your studies”. And then they wonder why we don’t share our problems with them. They think they know everything about their child. But they are wrong. The happy and cheerful child they used to know is long gone. We put on a smile to show that we are happy because its easier to fake a smile than trying to explain how we feel because we know that at the end of the day, it will end up with them scolding us. If we try to talk to them about our mental health, they think its an “excuse” because we don’t want to study. They tell us we should go to school because it gives us “education”. But yet so many years of education and no one taught us how to love ourselves? We don’t discuss our insecurities, our mental health, our problems with anyone. Which makes us introvert or we may call it “depressed”. Parents think depression is when a person is going through something very tragic. But the truth is, depression is feeling empty, it’s like you don’t know what’s wrong but you still want to cry. There is no such reason for being sad but you still feel like your life is falling apart. You just want to sleep all day and talk to no one. Parents wonder why we are on our phones all day. Because the strangers on the internet comfort us more than our parents ever did. They don’t judge us if we tell them that we feel insecure or we feel depressed. They try to look through our point of view and help us. “You’ll be okay” these words. These 3 words can make a big difference. It can save someone. We just need our parents to look at life through our point of view. Maybe then it can make a bit of difference.
Pic credit: Pinterest
Beauty standards-
Beauty standards. What are these beauty standards? Actually, no one knows what these “beauty standards” are. We, teenagers see these fit and beautiful people on internet and get insecure of ourselves. We are convinced that beauty is flawless skin, perfect features and a slim and fit body. But nobody is perfect. Even the girls you see in magazines have their flaws. People on social media show their perfections not their flaws. And that is the problem. We need to love our flaws. Flaws are pretty too. The thing to remember about beauty standards is that they are made up. People will talk about you no matter what. People are expected to reach an unattainable beauty standard yet when they get surgery to reach this standard they get criticized. So why don’t we just ignore those made up beauty standards and love ourselves the way we are. Girls with curly hair straighten it. Girls with straight hair curl it. White girls get spray tans. Dark girls are encouraged to look whiter. Thick girls are told to lose weight. Thin girls are told to gain weight. I’m starting to wonder if the standard of beauty is anything but “what you actually are”. Before, people used to hide their freckles. But now, they have started selling products to make fake freckles and people actually buy it. Why? To fit in the current definition of “beauty”. These standards will change after every while. We don’t have to fit in these standards to look beautiful. We are beautiful the way we are. Society’s rigid beauty standards are flawed. Not you. You are a beauty. Screw the standard.
Pic credit- Pinterest
Education system-
If we talk about the education system, most of the teenagers will agree that the education system needs to change. Yeah, they educate us, they help us to build a better future but the way they pressurize the students is definitely not how it should be. Have you all ever noticed how schools blame social media for depression in teens rather than themselves because of how much pressure they put on students? Students are treated according to their grades. They teach us Pythagoras, trigonometry and basically everything except for what we actually need to be taught. Schools never talk about mental health. They just lock us away for 12 years, and then when we turn 18, they expect us to make life decisions, even though we know nothing about how life works. The fact that students commit suicide because of falling grades shows how much pressure is put on young adults to figure out what they want to do in life. Schools should stop teaching that failures are unacceptable. We can fail and try again. If a teenager is reading then they will agree that social media has taught us more about feminism, gender, sexuality, and mental illness than schools ever did and it should not be like that. These things are very important for us to know. Students want to stay at home rather than going to schools and yet schools never think that their system is flawed. They still think that kids these days are lazy and good for nothing. According to schools if you are bad at art or music, then that’s okay because not everyone can do it. But if you’re bad at maths or science then you are dumb or you don’t try hard enough. That is how damaged our education system is. And this needs to be changed.
Pic credit- Pinterest
Emotions and appearance-
Usually, teenagers are confused about certain emotions. Certain things. And they start to believe what they are taught. They start to believe what society tells them. For example, according to society, if a man cries or shows his emotions, then he is not masculine enough. Or if he has long hair or no beard, then he is gay. Boys are taught that they should not cry. But crying or showing their emotions does not make them any less of a man. They are humans too and they can show their emotions. They can have long hair and can have no beard. It’s up to them how they want to look like. Same goes with girls. They can have long or short hair. They can wear short dresses. They can act the way they want to. Boys are taught to think that they are superior. But that is not how it should be. Everyone is equal. Girls are strong too. And both boys and girls can express their emotions the way they want to. Society tells us to stand for ourselves and fight for what we believe until what we believe is different than what they believe.
Pic credit- Pinterest
I, as a teen, tried to unravel and voice out the thoughts of my fellow teens with this piece of writing. As a teen, I always wanted the world to know what goes on in my mind and today I wrote down some of my thoughts and hopefully the teens will relate to it.
By Anushka Hooda
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