Centerville High School

Centerville, South Dakota
Teacher: Mitch Russell

 

 

Choices
By Emily Rohde

 

 

Life is hard.  There is really no way to get around it.  Some times in life might be easier than others, but in the end, it is still difficult.  One period in life that is usually remembered by most people as their hardest is adolescence.  Why is this period so difficult?  I believe the answer can be found in our culture.

           

Adolescence according to the dictionary means “that period in life in which the child changes into the adult.”  In other words, an adolescent is basically someone who is “stuck” between stages.  This is often the source of the problems we adolescents face.  We are not children because we have more responsibilities and freedom of choice than children do.  We are not adults because we have less responsibilities and freedom of choice than adults do.  We are in between.  So what’s the problem?  The problem is, no one really knows where that line between child and adult begins and ends.  How much responsibility and freedom should an adolescent have?

           

This question is difficult to answer.  After all, many cultures don’t even acknowledge the whole concept of adolescence.  For example, in Samoa in the 1920’s there was no differentiation between the adult world and the world of children.  You were a child and then you became an adult.  There was no need for that awkward in between period.  Adolescents who lived in Samoa during this time period did not feel as much stress as adolescents do now in the United States.  Does this mean that our society should revert back to the old ways of growing up?  I don’t think it does.

           

Let me explain.  In many cultures there used to be rites of passage that children had to go through to become adults.  In fact, some cultures still have them today.  For example, a popular rite of passage for young boys was they were forced to kill a certain animal in order to be considered a man.  Many other rites of passage involved marriage or subjecting the body to feats of considerable endurance.  These rites eliminated the entire period of adolescence and thus eliminated many of the problems that now go along with the idea of adolescence.  Does that mean that our society should create a rite of passage for our youth?

           

Think about this.  If these rites of passage really did eliminate all of the problems that went along with growing up, why did we stop doing them?  I have often found that in my life, the memories of the past usually seem brighter and happier than they really were.  Is the idea of forcing a rite of passage on our youth really any better than the present concept of adolescence?

           

Rites of passage traditionally hinged on age.  For example, one rite of passage could have been that at the age of 15 a girl would be considered a woman and would have to get married.  It is possible that this girl would be perfectly happy with being subjected to this rite.  However, she could also be extremely unhappy.  We now know that each person grows at their own rate.  Maturity does not necessarily come at a certain age.  A 10 year old could be more mentally mature than a 20 year old.  Children do not deserve to be subjected to a rite of passage if they are not ready.

           

Therefore, I feel that even though adolescence can be a difficult time in a person’s life, it is necessary.  Freedom is something we have come to accept and believe in.  The entire existence of the United States is founded upon the idea of freedom.  The choices everyone must make in his or her lifetime will be difficult.  Our freedom can inflict unwanted stress on each and every one of us, especially during adolescence, but would we really have it any other way?  I know I would much rather be stuck with a difficult choice than have my entire life planned out for me.  We should be thankful for our freedom, not try to avoid it. 

           

Our culture is the way it is.  Life was much different for adolescents as little as 10 or 20 years ago.  The pressures these adolescents faced were much different than the pressures adolescents face today.  Our culture has become the way it has for a reason, but there are things we can do to ease the stress of adolescents today.  Simply helping children and adolescents realize that they are important members of society can ease a great deal of their stress by helping them to find out where they belong.  A single, significant rite of passage is not needed.

           

In fact, we actually already have several rites of passage for our youth.  Entering high school, getting a drivers license, and graduating from high school are all, in essence, rites of passage.

           

In our society, adolescents are under a great deal of stress.  It is all part of growing up in our culture.  It is true that crime and drug use is common among our country’s adolescents.  But, it is also true that not all adolescents engage in this behavior.  We must look beyond the bad and see the good in teenagers today.  Most adolescents are hard working in both school and their jobs.  Many are also involved in charity work and helping their fellow man.  I admit we could be more involved, and that involvement is something we can all improve on.  Adolescents do have the power to make our society a better place to live.  More of us need to realize that.

           

In conclusion, adolescents are dealing with the stress and pressures they are subjected to.  Some deal with them better than others, but we are coping.  Society could help adolescents more than it is and we should all work on that.  Adolescents need to be accepted for who they are, not who they were 80 or even 10 years ago.  Life is hard, but we’ll get through it.

 

Questions

 

1.         In the beginning of Margaret Mead’s 1961 Preface to “Coming of Age in Samoa,” she states “[young people] in the United States were becoming less than they might be.”  This is similar to the Army recruiting commercial.

 

2.         I think that several of the issues of the 1920’s are still issues today.  Issues such as “the importance of the language spoken in the home,” “familial pressures on children,” “misconceptions about race and color,” and “the effects of artificially separating children from a knowledge of birth, love and death” are all issues today.

 

3.         Yes, I agree that culture is man-made.  We are free to change our culture if we choose even though it may be extremely difficult.  There are hundreds of different cultures in the world.  There would not be such a large number of cultures if it was not possible to change a people’s way of life.  Culture is the way people use their surroundings and environment and the set of attitudes and beliefs that go along with a people’s way of life.

 

4.         Margaret Mead was advocating “greater knowledge and control over the civilizing process” in her writings.

 

5.         I think adolescents do want adults to recognize what is going on and enforce boundaries, to an extent.  If adults simply lay down the laws and expect teenagers to follow them, it won’t help because many students will rebel more than if they hadn’t had these rules forced on them.  Simply recognizing the problem is a large step toward finding a solution.  Strict boundaries and structure are not necessarily needed in many teenagers’ cases.

 

6.         I have not actually seen students at my school use drugs or alcohol because I do not allow myself to be in a position to witness them engaging in these activities.  However, I do know that many students in my school smoke and drink because I have smelled it on them several times, especially every day after the students’ lunch period.

 

7.         I don’t believe there is a simple solution for the “plight of the black teenager.”  I believe that the only real solution is tolerance.  The only way racism and prejudice can be truly eradicated is if each person of every race and age accepts in their hearts that all people are equal.

 

8.         Yes, it would be a relief if all I had to do was ‘go to classes and learn.’  I would have much less to worry about and school would be much less stressful.  I would not be happy to be home-schooled or attend a single-sex private school.  I feel that although public school may be considered to be stressful it does offer the opportunity to gain social skills that you could not really get in any other situation.

 

9.         I do believe that schools could actually be considered to be like prisons because they don’t really teach you life skills.  Although there are some classes offered that do pertain directly to things you can use in life such as typing and foreign language classes, many classes often seem pointless to take unless you are going to study the subject extensively in college.  The comment, “People in school are dulled by the remoteness to the real world.” also has some truth.  Much of what is taught in classes is taught under the context that it is simply required to graduate.  The reasons for learning this material are often not given.  Incorporating the information into real-life situations would eliminate the need for explaining these reasons and would give students a much better capacity to learn and remember the information.

 

10. The ‘bottom line’ does include some good points that I agree with.  For example, it is often true that adolescents would enjoy connecting with adults on a more frequent level.  I also believe that it is true that many kids will not listen to adults if they don’t want to.  However, these things are not true for all adolescents.  Instead of being written about all teenagers, the “bottom line” seems to be written about a stereotype of a teenager and really doesn’t even come close to applying to many teenagers.