Saturday, October 18, 2008

The Problems With Teenagers Today


This post is about teenagers in general but not all teens. From my experience, it's probably the way that about 75 % of them behave.

1. You can't tell a teenager that they are wrong. They think that they are always right, they think that they know everything and they think that you as a parent don't understand and you never what through they are going through. It is said that this generation of teens has it particularly rough. I don't see it. I don't see it at all. What is so rough about their lives? The fact that they have a car to drive to school, a cell phone to talk on, video games to play? The way I see it...teens today live a very *soft* life.


2. Teens think they are invincible. They think that things happen to other people and not them. They don't realize that out of the 5 million cases of AIDS that occur each year that half of those are contracted by young people ages of 15-24. You don't even hear about AIDS anymore and I don't understand why. Here's a link to the statistics.
http://www.until.org/statistics.shtml?gclid=CPKdo6nHsZYCFRKLDQoddnLHLg They don't think about Herpes either. It surely won't happen to them. Even though they take health class in school....something like this always happens to other people. Just because the statistics say that Nationwide that there are over 45 million people ages 12 and older, or one out of 5 (possibly 1 out of 4) of the adolescent and adult population are infected with HSV-2. (Herpes) Unfortunately the largest increase in this disease is currently occurring in young white males ages 12 to 19. I worry about this since I have a 13 year old son. Scary stuff. Have you ever seen those talk shows where they have teen girls on there and they are talking about how many guys they have slept with? And they are proud of it!!! Just look at it this way. If they sleep with 20 guys...there's a very good possibility that 4 or 5 of them have Herpes. http://www.herpesonline.org/articles/herpes_statistics.html
Not to forget teen pregnancy. Teen pregnancy has gone down over the recent years thankfully but it's still not enough. When 4 out of 10 teens become pregnant before the age of 18...to me that is still way too high. Other countries have much lower teen pregnancy rates than the U.S. I'm not sure why that is. Here's something I did not know...almost 80 percent of teens who get pregnant end up on welfare. I had no idea it was that high.


3. It seems as if teens there days are extremely lazy! They want to sit around and play X-Box games or chat to their gf or bf on their cell phone for hours and hours. How about getting an after school job? Or a babysitting job if you are too young? Parents always are in need of good reliable babysitters. Teens don't seem to have the motivation or discipline to go out and work. Which leads me to the number 4.

4. What happened to the work ethic with young people in this country? Russell and I have discussed this on many occasions. If you look at any workplace that hires teens....You will see that they call in sick often...they want weekends off, they slack off on the job and they want others to do their job. Russell was in charge of hiring drivers at his job in SC. It was very difficult to hire younger people to work. When he hired older guys...40 and above...they were all much more reliable. I see this in my job in retail as well. I see the young cashiers goofing off...trying to text on their phone, or flirting with the boys they see walking by.
Some teens seem to think that the world owes them....that the world revolves around them and everything should be handed to them. What's on earth is wrong with going out and working for what you want?

Don't get me wrong. There are tons of great teens out there. There are those that get after school jobs and even help out their families. My middle daughter Kristene got a job at the age of 14! She worked at a family owned pizza place and not long after that she was running the place by herself on weekends and even in charge of the older drivers! I think that's amazing. Then she saved up to buy her own car! You can't get much more motivated than that.
I'm sure that every generation has their problem teens. Just think....these teens are our future! Scary huh?

3 comments:

  1. No I didn't find out what happened. I just keep to myself.
    My son was just fired from his job for not being a hard worker and has not attempted to find another job. Oh well I wont give him money anymore. My daughter is really good at getting her dad to agree to buying stuff when he's drinking. I think it's funny.

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  2. Amen! My daughter is already started down the road of "why should I" attitude toward any sort of work. Schooling, housework, even cleaning her OWN damned room and washing her OWN damned clothes. She gripes at me about why can't I just do hers too, since I'm washing my own anyway. *shaking head* I remind her that I'm not always going to be around to do stuff for her (hell, I refuse some things now, like the clothes washing), so she darned better start doing some of it now while she's got me at to help her learn. She seems miserable living under our "incredibly mean" roof, but yet she seems content to live the rest of her life with Mom and Dad doing everything for her. After the point when she's supposed to be graduated, if she's still living at home, she'll be paying rent.

    Best of luck with the teens in your life. May they get a swift kick to the backside that prompts them to do a damn sight better in their work.

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  3. *Nods in agreement*

    Kids and teens have it easy nowadays. And it's made even easier for them by the fact that parents can get in trouble for so much as giving them a clip around the ear.

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