What is it like to be a teen?

It was a short 7 years ago when I could still call myself a teenager and even then I hated the word. I was 19 and to be associated with the moniker of "teen" or "teenager" was insulting. It was a term that assumed immaturity, inexperience, and stupidity. There was, and still remains, a stigma that clings to the teenage years that allows for mistakes and smoothing of the rough edges. It is a learning stage.

When I was 19 I was in college and trying to live on my own. After the brilliant sparkle of my eighteenth birthday wore into a dull and meaningless event (other than being able to 'legally' buy cigarettes-even though I didn't smoke; and the government could send me to fight and die for my country, yet I couldn't drink alcohol) I wanted to be in my twenties. I could feel that magical 21st birthday on the horizon even though I had to dredge through 20 to get there.

I have no idea what it is like to be a teen in modern times. I read news stories about facebook, myspace, staged and videotaped school fights between girls arriving on YouTube, text messaging during class, cyber bullying, and the list goes on...I feel so distanced from today's adolescents and I am beginning to understand how parents have trouble connecting with their kids. If there was anyone that could create a bond with a teenager you would imagine that someone in their mid twenties would be a perfect candidate. On the contrary, I can see that being a very difficult task. Role models for our teenage generation are only those they see in the media: young adult actors and actresses that have no moral compass, popular internet videos, magazine covers, and the like. When I think about being put in the shoes of a teenager today I am scared to death. School shootings, sexual predators, terrorism, war, not to mention all of the other idiosyncratic teenage drama: puberty, sexual maturation, the desire for independence, scholarship, peer pressure, abstinence versus promiscuity, popularity...you get the point.

Our adolescents need strong, stable role models in their lives. They need consequences, boundaries, humility, and purpose. So many parents have no relationship with their children so the kids seek guidance from tv, radio, cd's, the internet, magazines, and movies. Wouldn't it be great if our kids were posed the question, "Who do you want to be when you grow up?" their answer was "my Mom" or "my Dad" instead of Lindsay Lohan, Kobe Bryant, Britney Spears, or Paris Hilton.