A Teen's Appeal to Mothers

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Mothers listen up. If you've always wanted to know what goes on in your daughters minds then here is your chance. If you read these words that I am expressing from a teen daughter's point of view and you really want to know what is going through my head than please work to understand what I am about to say. I realize that times have changed and social life today has grown knew meaning sense your teenage days. The world today is so pressured, so obstructed and so unclean that I wonder how I make it through. I know too that it is unfair for me to speak for all those I am speaking for. I know not what my peers find most important in their lives or what causes the greatest hardships, but I can speak in generalization. Understand too that I did not live what years I have in the time that you did. I am speaking for now. Reciting what I know to this day. What is perceived and what is unknown.2

Today's teenagers are raised to think about what life is to become for them, not to live for the now. Responsibility is crushed and crumbled so it can be integrated into our lives discretely and unnoticed. This is a more effective method used to incorporate what knowledge will be needed for the oncoming futures soon to be faced. Parents today do everything they legally can to protect and shield their children from what they don't realize we already know. Curfews and rules are set to keep us in line and safe, but really no one knows which friends do drugs and drive fast. The ones who have the bad backgrounds are usually frowned upon and often those are the hardest working and the ones who need us the most. There is so much to experience in todays free world that no one can make it alone.3

Teens need other teens and yet many a time it is those who we are surrounded by that will be the ones to pressure us into all the hardships that tow behind a social life. Dating seems so minor and like 'puppy love' to mothers, but really from a teen girls point of view, love, or however close we get to it, is what our worlds revolve around. It seems so petty, but really if we couldn't focus on that what else would we spend our time on; school? Social lives bring up so much crap that at least both teens and mothers can agree are worthless and time consuming. So why do we waste our time with it? Because it makes us who we are. It rounds our personalities and lets us become the people we will leave high school as.4

Teens change all the time and you may not think it to be for the best. Sometimes you as mothers can't understand just where we are coming from. Individuality though is such a wild concept to ponder on. In high school two people can be so much alike but have that one trait, that one look, or the one saying that sets them apart from everyone else in even the largest groups. Trends used to be so big but now everyone wants to have their own. They want to be expressive and never have to hide from the world that they are pushed in and out of day after day. Many a times we will feel singled out or really just want to disappear. Solitude is much needed in a place where everyone is so spoken and focused on. The spotlight is always shining. It just matters if you want it on you.5

Really though what is needed from mothers, from anyone who would take the time to read this voluntarily, is the respect, trust and measured attention that all teens feel a yearning for deep down. Understanding us is hard and we know too because it is not so easy to interpret you either. We are different ages, raised in completely different mind settings but really we are so close at heart. We laugh, our blood runs smooth and we all want to be heard. A voice, no matter how small, knows what makes us tick, what can set us off and what we never will say to certain peoples faces. Why? Because. Because is an unacceptable answer in school, but really what else could I say. I do things because that is what makes me me. I say what I think to say and I think what I want to. This right has been given to the world and as long as I want I will take advantage of that. No one may understand me but mother please try. I make a promise to meet you half way as every mother and daughter should. I make a promise to try and understand, as I hope you will too.6