All Comments on 'Being America's Youth'

I must say that this is very powerful... Not much else to say. Amazing use of perspective.

As the parent of a 14 year old girl and a 12 year old boy, i was very interested in your perspective. My 14 year old is very involved with her first boyfriend, and god I wish I had both the control and the ability to lead them gently and gradually into the adulthood they are dying to rush into. Although this your article is more about alcohol, your approach would work for much more. The only thing you forget, is that you were convinced during your teenage years, that the adult able to teach you to be an adult was an idiot who could have no understanding of your point of view.

that's definitely a good point, i would've never thought that any of the idesa i suggested were good ones if my parents had presented them to me... on the other hand, looking back when i got older, i think i would've truly apprecaited their value, as i do with many of the things that they did for me. i'm not saying that in the moment, the teenagers willb e like, "YES! this is exactly what i want!"

but how often should you give your teenagers exactly what they want anyway? =P

I am impressed with the words that youth are not prepared to life, this is also the case in China. The youth are called "new generation of human being",because they are as rebelious as their counterparts in the USA.

I'm a 32 year old man and everything I know about how to operate as an adult I've had to figure out on my own. My parents were two amazing people (intellect-wise), but I had to learn everything about fiscal responsibility the hard way (fucking up and paying for it). I loved both my parents more than I could say, but as they were both children of alcoholics, they demonized booze and left me totally unprepared for the reality of it when I joined the army. I spent 6 years in a drunken stupor because I did not know how an adult was supposed to drink, all I knew was "as much as you can, as fast as you can." I have a 9 year old daughter that I am trying to raise with a realistic view of what life will be like as an adult, but I am constantly fighting against what she is being exposed to at school, on the TV, the internet, etc. I hope that I can give her a real sense of how the world works without completely ruining her childhood. Thank you for expressing yourself in such a cogent, realistic manner.

I'm 25, and I almost never encounter other people my age who understand what you've explained so well here. Thank you for "getting it," and even more so for voicing it clearly and forcefully!

I completely agree with this. It's incredible how many parents expect their kids to suddenly know exactly what they're responsibilities are and how to carry them out once the clock strikes midnight and they turn 18. I'm lucky because my parents have slowly taught me how to keep track of paying the bills, dealing with my money. They've let me make mistakes- overspending, over-drafting- and have made sure that i know how to avoid going that route. So i completely agree with what you wrote, parents need to teach their kids how to survive once they're legally adults, otherwise we'll just have a lot of big kids running around in huge debt.

Very good article!<br><br>

"Your children are not your property. They are the arrows you shoot at the future." Khalil Gibran.

I don't know if I got the quote right, but this is the gist of it.<br><br>

I completely agree that it's madness to expect children that never have had the opportunity to learn to cope with life's challenges and disappointments to turn into responsible adults overnight. Parents and teachers have the sacred duty of preparing children for life, and the only way to learn about life is to live it!<br><br>

Parenting has a lot to do with respect. I think that as a parent one should respect the child as a person.

That certainly does NOT mean giving in to every wish! Pampering and spoiling a child gives it a clear message: "you're not capable of doing this yourself." That's deadly for a child's self-esteem. And I strongly believe that a healthy self-esteem is needed to grow into a responsible adult.<br>

No, respecting a child means granting it both freedom and responsibility, expecting it to perform a few duties suitable to its age and capabilities, praise the child for a job well done and express disappointment when he/she performs less than he or she can. Children have an acute sense of the worth of their performance, and they (rightfully!) resent both undeserved praise and undeserved critique. And they respect a parent - or teacher - more when they are granted the respect of attention.

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That is how my parents raised me, my brother and my sister. It worked pretty well, I dare say. All three of us are fairly succesful in life - good education, good jobs, good friends, getting along well with neighbors, and a strong sense of family belonging.

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About a year ago I had a relationship with a woman from overseas. She had a 4 year old son. The relationship didn't last - sad story, no villains, only victims - but for a couple of weeks they were living with me and I was at least partly responsible for the little boy.<br>

I treated him as a person. I expected him to behave like a four year old - almost five - I praised him when he made progress, I chided him when he relapsed. I played along with him when he was playing in his fantasy world, baking imaginary pancakes in an imaginary kitchen and so on. I listened to his questions and answered them as well as I could. I was strict when his behavior called for strictness, lenient when the situation called for leniency.

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Of course, I made some mistakes too. But immediately after realizing that I made a mistake, I apologized to the kid and cleared up the mistake.<br>

Apologizing for a mistake did not diminish my authority. On the contrary. The kid knew very well that I had been wrong, and by apologizing and rectifying I made sure he knew that he could trust me and rely on me, gaining his respect by respecting him.

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In those few weeks that he was living with me he made tremendous progress. He almost completely stopped wetting his bed at night - quite an accomplishment for a 4 year old boy! - he got a far better grip on his temper, his play grew in complexity, and he made friends at kindergarten.

Those few weeks confirmed to me that treating children with respect and expecting them to live up to reasonable standards is a good way to prepare them for adulthood. Those few weeks also confirmed to me that one of the greatest joys in life is aiming those arrows Gibran wrote about, letting them go and watching them fly.

I felt this a lot when I was a teenager. Many of my classmates were resonating with the same idea - why weren't we learning enough about life skills? why wasn't there a compulsory subject on fiscal matters, like there is for computing? Why did we know nothing about anything important, and yet we were on the cusp of adulthood? Were we meant to somehow learn by intuition the responsibilities of adulthood? Or have some 'common sense'?

Thank you for writing this. It's brought to surface one of the most important issues in the world.

I have been you. I unfortunately racked up 6 credit cards while a freshman in college and ended up declaring bankruptcy by the age of 24. I went wild at 19 after finally getting out from under the thumb of my stifling parents and ended up doing a weekend in jail. All of this could have been avoided with some teaching. Even though I know I can only blame myself for getting into trouble in the first place.

I'm typing this comment in March of 2009, after the USA banking implosion and economic bust. I agree totally with what you wrote -- today's youth are not taught the important things in life. School has always been about theory, and not practicality. Unfortunately, most curriculums focus around what the pundits "think" should be taught, not what is best for the youth.

The heart of the economic troubles mirror what you wrote -- today most people (not just the youth), expect the big house, fancy SUV and all the perks that suburban life bring. The banks collapsed as a result of bad "sub prime mortgages". What does this mean? It means banks were lending money to people to buy houses that they really couldn't afford to buy. Blame who you want -- the republicans for not watchdogging the banks better, the democrats for forcing the banks to lend to anyone who wanted a loan (all in the name of trying to stop discrimination). The reality is, WE are to blame. We wanted the big house, two fancy cars, computers, plasma TVs, etc. etc, etc. Shame on us. My grandparents are probably rolling in their graves.

The last few generations haven't been through a real economic crisis. The last real recession in the U.S. was in the 1970's. We've had a few bad years here and there, but nothing like we are seeing now. Our grandparents (or great grandparents, depending on your age) lived through the Great Depression. During that time the stock market lost 90% of its value, unemployment in the U.S. hit a whopping 25%. That's one out of four of your neighbors unable to feed his family. We're talking bread lines thousands of people long.

I very much doubt we'll see that this time around, but that situation taught our elders to live below their means and to save for a rainy day. Those aren't just cute sayings for them -- it was a scary reality. I hope that this current economic situation forces young people to realize that financial success can be fleeting, and that true financial stability comes with living below your means and saving up.

Next time your wife or husband says "let's buy that big house a few neighborhoods over", or "I'd really like a lexus SUV with all the bells and whistles", think twice.

By the way, if you think the mortgage crisis is bad, economic pundits are saying the credit card crisis looming on the horizon is ten times worse.

All in all though, good story -- hopefully it'll make people think about raising their kids to be more self-sufficient.

I completely agree with you. I'm still in college and I'm not sure if I'll be prepared when I finally get out: I don't know what a deductible is either.

they always say high school is the best four years of your life, but that doesnt do justice to the huge wall between graduation and the point where most of us are screwed. Id say 80% of this essay matches up with the conclusions ive drawn on life 6 years after graduation.

I graduated from high school last year and now I am living in China on my own for a year. Now this is an extreme choice, and I have had to grow up a lot in a short amount of time. I definitely wish my parents had not sheltered me so much and had let me fall a little more. For the most part I have done pretty well. I have a full time job, an apt, and almost completely support myself. I have been pretty good about watching my money and dealing with freedom to drink. In China I can legally drink so I have been trying to not let it get out of hand. I did have an older brother who taught me how to drink the right way and so far I haven't taken it to an extreme here.

However I realize that I have many shortcomings. I lack a lot of self motivation. I had a lot of trouble with job interviews and doing what I need to do without having pressure to do so. My reaction is still to call home when things go wrong. Tell my mom this is hard and I don't want to do this. This essay really spoke to me, and I think I want to extend this to two years. This time with a more realistic idea of how things work and standing more on my own two feet. Not expecting my mom to pick up the pieces of my messes. I just messed up my visa extension and it could have been a very expensive mistake. Thankfully the police let me off with a warning but this could have cost me half a month's salary to fix and forced me to ask my mom for more money.

Honestly this was amazing. You shouldn't be working at a health insurance agency - you should be writing full time! Or be a politician! Except writing won't get you anywhere in life, and you're far too realistic for politics. Such is society. I applaud you for expressing in prose what the youth of America thinks, but usually cannot express as eloquently as a talented writer like yourself - at least the youths that understand what life is actually like.

The Thoughts of a 16 Year-Old Woman

It sounds like the issue is communication more than anything.

Not at the content. That I completely agree with.

No, I'm kinda shocked that, of all places, I found something this...insightful...on Literotica.

Seriously, what the hell is the world coming to when PORN SITES are more educational than our schools are?

Oh wait, that's right -- it's coming to crash down around the current generation.

Mine.

Well, I am not an American, but an Indian. And in 2015, urban India pretty much resembles America today, and the countryside resembles America…in 1930. I did well in high school( I mean in tests) and got admission in a good college in the city. Coming from the countryside( where nobody gives a fuck about plastic money and online shopping) to the city (where if you use cash to buy a gadget the shopkeeper almost thinks you are not ready to use it) was a bigger change than you think it is. Thankfully, my parents did not give me a credit card, they gave me a debit card…and I have managed to finish it’s balance in the first 15 days of the month and had to loan money from my roommate just to buy a decent meal ( though I did not run into a real debt, a silver lining). My parents thought drinking is a social taboo; and my classmates think if you don’t drink, you are not cool enough to hang out with. So, after all those all-night-long parties and cool debates and drama meets, I am so underprepared for my semester exam that I don’t think I will be able to pass even if I read 24 hours a day. So, here I am, surfing porn sites 14 days before my semester exam and come across your essay and learn that my problems are not exclusive, actually they are universal and people can deal with them. I can’t really say how much that means to me.

P.S- I still don’t know anything about tax return and insurance (cause my parents still do those things for me) but after reading this I will make sure I know everything about those before I graduate…I really don’t wanna screw up that bad.

yes today teens are out of control only as parents we do not teach them the right to act we give them every thing but one thing true GUIDANCE give all the toys to keep them out of our way

Yo same

excellent observations! I have thought for a long time (and I've been around a long time) that the entire educational system that parents experience and their children experience is designed to re-enforce and prolong the status quo and to hide the nature of "real life" from the young. Why? Because it's messed up and complex.

Basic economics should be taught beginning in middle school, Alcohol should be gradually introduced with appropriate precautions and education etc. The whole culture needs to wake up or the status quo will remain.