We got some books about what makes teenagers tick. (I also got one for the girls about how to deal with the parents of teenagers: Yes, Your Parents Are Crazy!) The one I’m enjoying most right now is Get Out of My Life, But First Could You Drive Me & Cheryl to the Mall? It’s very funny and very truthful. But my favorite quote is from Why Do They Act That Way? Here it is:
Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.
The author?
—Socrates, 5th Century, B.C.
substandardTim
and we all know what happened to that cilization.
there is a serious lack of morality in just about every aspect of our society today.
Jeffrey A. Carver
True, although that wasn’t my point. My point was that, as any teenager will tell you, adolescents have always been in rebellion against their elders. It’s part of growing up.
substandardTim
yeah i hadn’t misunderstood your point really, i was just affirming my belief that the stereotype is nonetheless accurate i guess.
But also I suppose I was speaking more to society as a whole. You can’t call what some teens do rebellion when they were never raised with anything decent to rebel against. It’s more like they are living their lives by the only example ever given them.
i apologize if that’s not all coherent. i just got home from work and have been up for 24 hours. sleep. must. come.
“in perfect orbit they have circled as the light of many worlds falls softly on their skin and days here pass like minutes. one moment of brilliant daylight will shift into the next. a flash of dark behind some distant lost moon. and then it is over. like the pause before waking, sleep is replaced by light and life and hope.”
Sue
When our oldest became a teen I wondered how we were going to make it through the coming years. My mother’s advice went something like this… “You’ll survive. You’ll do your best. They may challenge you at every step, like you did when we were raising you. They grow and mature. It’s what people have been doing for thousands of years.”
Our two oldest are now away at unversity… somehow we all survived with most of our sanity intact.