Loving Our Teenagers
By REY FLORES
When our daughters were still little, my wife Mary and I swore up and down that we would never refer to our children as “teenagers” once they reached their teenage years. We both got it in our heads and pontificated to anyone who would listen that we would teach our children to be “young adults” instead of “teenagers.”
The term “young adult” seemed to carry a sense of responsibility with older generations — before the term “teenager” came into the modern vernacular. As children in past generations hit puberty, they also were expected to start behaving more like young ladies and gentlemen.
The Baby Boomer generation was the first generation to be labeled as teenagers. They are the children of the “Greatest Generation,” children who were basically spoiled by parents who had lived through or fought in two World Wars and had also survived the Great Depression.
Boomer children were given all the things their parents did not have. Their parents lived through hardships such as food rationing, air raid drills, and soup lines. Boomer children were the first generation to be given an allowance, perhaps for doing chores around the house, but many were given allowances just because their parents wanted to make their children’s lives as happy as possible.
These boomer teens were also the first generation to have their own soundtrack when rock and roll music came into the mainstream popular culture in the 1950s. Dick Clark on American Bandstand became their national spokesman as more and more households owned television sets.
Since then, it appears that with each generation we have permitted our young people to get away with fewer and fewer responsibilities and less and less accountability. I’m not saying all young people are lazy or disrespectful, but before the 1950s, I can bet that young people were a lot more courteous, responsible, and mature.
Today’s teens are more sullen, immersing themselves in all sorts of technology and gadgets, isolating themselves with a pair of headphones. If I were to paint a portrait of the modern teen, he or she would be wearing a hoodie and headphones.
While the boomer kids in the 1950s were harmless enough, it was when they entered college in the 1960s that they became more dissolute and rebellious. The Pill had just been introduced, rock music became more psychedelic, and drugs and the drug culture were snaking their way into the popular youth culture through movies and music.
The 1960s were such a detrimental time for our world. We quickly went from Leave It To Beaver to Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze. The sexual revolution was in full swing and the modern abortion-minded feminist movement was being led by radicals like Gloria Steinem. The civil rights movement went from peaceful protests to full-blown riots and looting in the West Side of Chicago and Watts in Los Angeles when civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and the more controversial Malcolm X were gunned down.
Forced integration was causing an upheaval in major American cities, forever changing the landscape. In Chicago, there was so much white flight to the suburbs that today you can visit a neighborhood that used to be a strong European ethnic stronghold and find it unrecognizable.
Boys’ hair went from crew cuts and pompadours to long hair and beards, while the girls went from beehives to long stringy hair with flowers and headbands. Rock music festivals became a huge bloated industry, further commercializing and brainwashing young people for generations to come.
Let’s not even get into the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, which we’re still suffering from.
Again, please don’t get me wrong. I understand and know plenty of great young people who are smart, faithful to our Lord, and very industrious, but what I am talking about here is an overall picture. It is unfortunate that the majority of people today of all ages, including me, have been negatively affected by this false sense of entitlement.
Generation X is the generation I am lumped into. In the 1990s my generation had a musical trend called grunge, which represented a bleak view of the world in both music and fashion. You had whiny bands and songwriters singing about how awful their lives were and how much life stunk.
One major figurehead of the grunge movement even went so far as to blow his own brains out in 1994. After achieving fame and fortune, he was unable to escape the clutches of a heroin addiction. I hated the 90s.
Today with two teenagers of my own, I see them struggling in a place where we all have been. I mean that frightening place between childhood and adulthood.
This is why I am trying to work this all out in my own brain and in this column. What can I do to help my girls, and eventually my four sons, go through their teenage years with the least amount of anxiety and unnecessary worry?
I often tell my wife that as parents, we are once more absolute beginners. Of course we know what it’s like to raise little kids; we were experts at that, but raising teenaged children is something new to us. My oldest is 16 already and I am just figuring it out that she is no longer my little girl whom I used to read fairy tales to. It is the same with my 13 year old. Both young women are as beautiful and as bright as their mother is.
For those parents out there still raising little kids, enjoy your time with them, because they grow up fast. For those of you whose children are now adults, I have no advice for you, but I would gladly take any helpful advice from you.
For those of you raising teenagers, I feel your pain, but most important, let’s feel their pain and help them through their struggles. Looking at my kids today and looking back at my own struggles as a teen, I can empathize, but mostly I can become the best father I can be for them. Let’s pray for each other’s families.
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(Rey Flores is a Catholic writer and speaker. Contact Rey at reyfloresusa@gmail.com.)
