Mia Macon

Am I A Fool or Just A Teenager?

I looked down at the pavement under my feet. I felt the small red backpack bouncing up
and down my spine. Tears streamed down my rosy cheeks. I had decided to leave. Gone for
good, off to start a new life. I had left an apology note on my parents pillow. After the fight we
had just had, I knew they were better off without me. I made it halfway down the street my house
was on, when I heard the sonorous sound of my fathers vintage jeep behind me. When he pulled
up, I explained I needed to leave, and I was going to take public transportation to wherever I
might end up. He instead offered to take me to a bus stop, however the second I climbed into the
stopped vehicle, my only response was indeed -

“Let's go home.”

I was 7 years old. As I’ve grown older, I still feel the same yearning to escape, to start a
new life, to escape the pressures life throws at me, but instead, I’ve found new ways to co-exist
with this feeling, although it never truly goes away. As a young child, I found no faults with my
reaction to the fight with my parents. I wasn’t aware of the consequences that could be associated
with my actions. I was still (and still am) developing a sense of logic and understanding. From
ages 10-24, our brains are in a developmental stage in which we are prone to make bad
decisions, experience new emotions, experiment with our changing bodies and surroundings, and
most importantly discover our own personalities and morals. Yet what many fail to realize is that
for a child, the society they are raised in can have just as much of an impact on how they view
the world, how they experiment, and even more so how they want to be a part of that world. If
the children are the future, why is it so common to speak as if the current state of the world is
already in such shambles, and how does that impact the development of the growing
generations?

While our minds grow and change continuously, so does humankind and the way the
world works. Times have changed since 1960, hell, times have changed since 2002. The way we
function as a society is nothing like it was even 10 years ago. With the advancements in
technology, the uprising of human rights movements, the societal change in expectations for
adolescents and young adults, an entire pandemic, and countless more events, being a growing
teenager is no easy task. As a teenager myself, I am not unknown to feeling this unspoken sense
of pressure from not only my personal life, but the world around me. The stresses of having to
take accountability for the state of our planet and our society in only a few years seems to be an -
if you will- hidden element many adults don’t take into account when speaking around or
directly to an adolescent.
“Did you see the headline? The polar ice caps are melting.”
“There was a riot during a protest, several died.”
“A child was shot for riding his bike due to the color of his skin.”
“She was raped”, “they were convicted,” “carbon emissions are at an all time high,” “that
animal is now extinct”, our planet is dying.”
These are all things I have heard and I'm sure others my age have as well. It’s stressful.
It's terrifying. It makes me personally feel as if the world we will soon be responsible for is
already being torn to shreds. Now while this can be overwhelming at times, it’s also possible to
find positives within the mess. I am also grateful for the knowledge of the happenings in the
world, because without that knowledge I would have much less of a voice, and much less of an
opinion. If knowledge is power, and power can be peace, then I do have a hope for a better
future, yet whether I believe I am speaking positively or negatively, I do not always feel listened
to. When speaking with countless adults, attempting to share my well thought out opinions on
the inner workings of the world, In many moments when having a conversation with an
individual or group of those older than myself, I have begun to feel as if I am under a sea of
water, and the words coming out of my mouth are nothing more than empty bubbles reflecting
the light off the surface.

For many of the generations before my own, the mantra for adolescents and children was
to be seen and not heard. To not to speak unless spoken to, and to not voice their opinion unless
they would like to be ridiculed for their foolishness. In modern day, it is almost impossible to
keep an adolescent from developing their own opinion and thoughts on the issues surrounding
the world around them. The exposure to the world's issues has increased dramatically with the
media, and with that, a sense of vulnerability has opened up within thousands. Controversial
subjects are submerging the growing generations into a whole new mindset. I find myself
questioning the phrases, the actions, and the people around me on a far more extreme level as I
grow with my age. I find it can be exhausting. I find growing up exhausting. When studying the
theories of development in the ideas of Piaget and Erikson, I noticed the pattern of levels, stages,
in a way that was common between the two. The way life is categorized into periods in which we
develop has caused a person's image to be clouded by their age and less their own person.
Growing through these stages makes a person more capable of their ability to function as an
“ideal human”. For a teen I am still in the midst of these stages and it begins to feel as though
these steps are becoming larger and more difficult as I begin to truly understand them. To be
honest it's at times as though I'm walking on the floor of an ocean and slowly beginning to feel
the meters of pressure building on top of me with the added sense of sensibility. Maybe it is
because of the media and the phones many of our parents seem to blame, or maybe it is just
because finding your own identity is incredibly difficult, however no matter what we blame,
adolescence is very much, non-refundable. I’ve found myself told to have a voice, but still be
seen for something I am not. So I suppose you could say we are still seen and not heard, just in a
different way. The mask I have created displays this feeling of tension between the growing child
I see myself to be, but also the fool I feel I have unwillingly been put into the role of. I’m sure
not every teen feels the way I do, as we are all our own individuals, yet with the increase in poor
mental health, and suicide being the second leading cause of death within generation Z, I’m sure
my opinion is not uncommon. It’s hard to see those, among myself, struggle so much with their
growing brains, questioning their want to be on this earth at all- at such a young age.

When speaking to adults, such as my own parents about matters such as the strife of the
teenage race in modern society, the common point I seem to hear is a classic: “I was a teenager
once too. It was no easier.” This is completely true, completely relevant, completely reasonable.
In August of 1929, the event known as the Great Depression hit the US Nation like a tornado,
severely impacting the childhoods of our great grandparents and grandparents generation. In
November of 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall marked a fall in communism and a change in
education, politics, and perspectives for many of those born into Generation X, every radio and
newspaper broadcasted this to those around the world. In an interview with my mother to better
understand the history of adolescence, she speaks about this being one of the most influential
events for her generation, even growing into her own adulthood. September 11, 2001, every tv
channel was turned to the tragedy of the twin towers, a catastrophic event that affected our
country and the way we progressed as a civilization, for the young generation Y, also known as
millennials, it changed the world they were raised in entirely. On June 29th, in the year 2007, a
small device known as the iPhone was released to the public. At the time it wasn’t necessarily
predicted that in this modern age, we would all have a far more advanced version of this tiny
device in our pockets, or that such a thing as an app like instagram would gain 1.3 billion users.
In 2006 the Me Too movement began, as an attempt to raise awareness and solidarity for woman
who had fallen victim to sexual harrasment and assult, backed by the media the hashtag was used
more than 19 million times on just Twitter alone. In 2013 the trending hashtag for BLM (black
lives matter) began circling countless social media apps, later leading to being one of the largest
movements in US history with protests all over the world. In March of 2020 the idea of a disease
named COVID-19 began circling the public, virtual and in real life. This sickness that was joked
about on tiktok for a month, became a global pandemic resulting in quarantine and isolation.
Apps like Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, FaceBook, Snapchat, etc have millions, billions in some
cases, of users each and have kept families and friends connected in times like this. In 2001, the
reason the disaster referred to as 9/11 made such an impact is because it was shown to the public
on every platform. Every channel on tv was turned to the footage, the radio stations were
broadcasting the event; it was pumped into society with the power of publicity. With the world's
access to social media, there are no boundaries. The publicity is not only pumped, but more
fire-hosed into everyone's feed and minds, whether the information is true or not. It’s as if a
building with countless rooms had it’s walls completely knocked down and we are now
surrounded by a chaotic, busy, mess of information, good, bad and everything in between, with
an occasional cat video thrown in the mess. Personally I have been aware of the majority of
political rumors, court cases, climate crises, and whatever else because of the general access to as
much information as one could possibly want. I have seen animals bludgeoned, people shamed,
read articles on scandals on lead levels in the air… yet I have also seen spaceships on the moon,
timelapses of flowers, learnt about cures for diseases and stayed in contact with friends 3000
miles away. So when an adult asks “what's so different now?” I simply respond with “it's
impossible to be oblivious.”
In a world with un-measurable knowledge it's easy to feel like an ant on a mountain. Overlooked,
underestimated, overwhelmed, yet I’d ask to grow up in no other. There are still challenges as
there have been and will always be facing the current world, but also the freedom to be who I
would like to become, and I would trade that for no other. The day I’m seen and heard, truly seen
and heard, is a day I look forward to. No matter where I stand on the events of the world, by
many I cannot be seen as more than a fool, this battles my sense of humanity, makes me question
my own conscience, for good and bad. So I ask once more, am I truly a fool or just a teenager
growing in an ever-changing world?

Work Cited:

Dean, Brian. “TikTok User Statistics (2021).” BackLink, 11 Oct. 2021,

www.google.com/url?q=https://backlinko.com/tiktok-users&sa=D&source=docs&ust=16

38412281940000&usg=AOvVaw3lweWR375n_fgS_0dGsZg6.

Pruitt, Sarah. “14 Major Events of the 2010s.” HISTORY, 23 July 2021,

www.history.com/news/2010s-decade-major-events.

Tanner, Robert. “15 Influential Events That Shaped Generation X.” Management Is a

Journey®, 24 Nov. 2021,

 managementisajourney.com/fascinating-numbers-15-influential-events-that-shaped-gener

ation-x.

Rahman-Jones, By Gurvinder Gill And Imran. “Me Too Founder Tarana Burke:

Movement Is Not Over.” BBC News, 9 July 2020,

www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-53269751#:%7E:text=Tarana%20began%20using%20the

%20phrase,Harvey%20Weinstein%20of%20sexual%20assault.

---. “Berlin Wall.” HISTORY, 31 Mar. 2021,

www.history.com/topics/cold-war/berlin-wall.