In Defense of Teenagers

Okay, so this one has been in the works for a long time. 
This is a thing that I'm quite often angry about, but it's complicated (kinda), and I wanted to make sure I worded it correctly. I don't even really get into discussions with other people about this, because I want to make sure that everyone gets my Serious Opinion. This is for all the people that I said: "Hold on, I'll write a blog post about that" to. 
"What's it about then?", I hear you ask. Well kid, this is about a lot of things, but it mostly comes down to teenagers and adults. How adults handle teenagers, if I'm more specific. Adults are saying a lot of things about teenagers. They're called "The Me Generation". They're moody and should be treated like children except when they shouldn't be. This might not seem like a big deal to you, but to me it is. A lot of decisions that teenagers themselves have no control over are made by adults that genuinely believe these things, and I feel like this is Very Bad. 
I think that that's the biggest intro that I've written so far. I mean, it's not that big in general, but you know. My blog posts aren't very long.
In any case, I'm going to talk about these three exclamations (opinions? mistakes? dumb people?), and explain why I feel this way.

First up, "The Me Generation". This one is usually in the context of another discussion, about phones and pictures. I'll call the people that believe this myth Group A. Now, people in Group A are often people who don't really understand how phones work. They probably believe that when you're talking to your phone, or typing on it or whatever, you're actually talking to the device. This is not true. There is actually a person on the other side. You're communicating. With a person. Yes, this is done through a device. No, this does not mean that you're talking to a robot. Seriously. It's not actually that hard to understand. How old are you.
Yeah, yeah, I hear you laughing. "Nobody actually thinks that." you say. "That's how phones work." But lemme tell you, people do. I thought they didn't, but turns out, they do. Namely, my french teacher. My friend and I were talking to her about how cool the future was, and she panicked because she was scared of the future. She said she was scared that nobody would communicate anymore, and that we would just be alone, in a house, with our machines, and never go out. 
I'm not really sure why she thought that. I'm a little worried about her.
Clearly, if anything, teenagers are being more sociable. I'll be the first one to say that the whole social network mess isn't always great (she said, as she made a post on a social network and than promoted it through other social networks), but that isn't part of this discussion, so shh.
The other context of The Me Generation is that teenagers take too many pictures of themselves or something? I'm not even going to put a lot of effort into this argument, because really. I don't even get why this would personally offend you so much as to complain about it. I'm only going to say two things: memories and 17th century portraits. I'm sure you can figure out where the rest of this argument would be going if I cared enough to elaborate on that, but I don't.

Next, "Teenagers are moody". This partially has to do with hormones, and has always been said a lot about teenagers. It's basically their thing. But I keep noticing that teenagers are really cynical nowadays. I've had conversations about  how hopeless the job market is. "Yeah, I like that, but there's no jobs in that area anyway", "I guess I could study that, but with the job market the way it is it'll take me years to get a job" and "This is hopeless. I can study all I want, but I won't get a job anyway".Those are just some common exclamations. And that's just one subject. Teenagers are starting to get more conscious of social issues earlier and earlier. I feel like that's the explanation for the extra cynical, sarcastic and angry teenagers we've been getting. A lot of them are angry because the world isn't doing that great in every area. 

Then, last and most importantly "teenagers should be treated like children except when they shouldn't be". Everyone seems to be confused about the maturity of teenagers. This is understandable, because so are teenagers themselves. The biggest problem about this is not that teenagers are either treated like children or like criminals that you should be very wary of (I've received my share of "oh god there's a teenager is it going to attack me"-stares myself) in any situation (though, I guess that is a problem, just not the one we're talking about right now). The problem is the whiplash inducing 180° turn that happens as soon as teenagers become eighteen. You go from having to ask to go to the bathroom to having to make major decisions about your future. Suddenly, everywhere adults are asking you what you want to do with the rest of your life, and if you don't have an answer, you should hurry the hell up because you gotta decide as soon as possible. Do you want insurance? What kind? Do you want to stay insured with your parents, or do you want to start paying yourself? In that case you should probably get a job. And you should do it as soon as possible. Actually, if you're eighteen, you should have already had one or two jobs, or your cv will look empty and no one will want to employ you. Do you want to become a donor when you die? Do you want to vote so you can help decide the fate of the country? No, you say you've got enough decisions to make for yourself? All right, if you wanna be useless. Jeez, no wonder teenagers are so stressed these days. 

To be fair, that's not only due to that weird teen-to-adult transition. Oh no, school plays a big part too. Don't even get me started on school. Actually, do get me started on school. I'm pretty sure that this topic happened because I was angry about decisions made about school in the government. Yeah, that was it.
A ridiculous amount of pressure is placed on teenagers in school. Everyone is constantly mad about having to study subjects that they'll never have to use again. Tests should be harder, so they'll actually have to study, because teenagers are stupid and lazy. That one is easily provable by grabbing the example of the basic maths test that's happening in the Netherlands. It was introduced because students weren't good enough at calculating. There were a couple of half assed "classes" in which you got to practice, but not a lot was explained. Then there were a lot of questions that were definitely not basic math. Then everyone, even those without math had to take the test. The test happened. The institution that took the test determined it was way too hard. Next year, you can't pass your exam if you don't pass that test. I worry for these people.

So, really, what I want to say with this post is: please be kind to teenagers. Life is hard and fast and confusing.