Teenagers Need to Have More Leeway

Con: I don't think teenagers have ever felt this bad Yes, I do see your point on the high amount of physical labour that teens likely had to go through with 500 or 200 years ago. But 500 or 200 years ago, education was not a priority. The priority of education for teenagers nowadays is replacing the hard, physical labour of the teenagers of the past. Anybody who continued their schooling further than expected in the past was part of the upper class; a higher social status who gets a lot of their money handed down from generation to generation. The world has only changed what's expected from teenagers. In the past, it was more physical-labour based. Now, we're expected to have a high mental capacity for creativity, knowledge & adaptation. And not to mention the fact that a lot of teens have those assets for school, but also work a physically demanding job out of school hours as well. Con #1: Social Life I can easily say that every parent that I know has a MUCH higher amount of friends than any other student in my high school. When teens reach this time in their life when they have to be pushed to get into an amazing school, all they care about is getting a 95% average. They dedicate all of their time, every little bit, to studying. And if they're not studying, they either have a part-time job to help pay for post-secondary or they're in extracurricular activities to prove to the Universities that they're applying to that they don't just sit around all day and that they can balance multiple things at once. And I'm for sure not the only one who as "felt my social life slip away". MANY of my peers have stopped talking to their best friends because they simply don't have time. They somewhat socialize with the peers that they sit near in class, and that's it. Nothing more. Con #5: Busy Schedule When you finish your post-secondary education, you're likely to go out and use that degree to get yourself a job. The average work day consists of 8 hours at the office (or whatever you setting you happen to work at). If you put that into perspective with a teenager, the average teenager wakes up at 6 AM - 7 AM, attends school from 9 AM - 3 PM (6 hours of work), then comes home to MORE work (Grade 9 & Grade 10 students are expected to have 1-2 hours of homework a night; Grade 11 & Grade 12 students are expected to have 2-3 hours of homework a night). That already pushes the 6 hours spent at school up to 7-9 hours, and we haven't even taken into consideration that the student may have a work shift, varying from a 3 hour shift to a 12 hour shift. If you add up the lowest amount that the student could possibly work (3 hours), that's 6 hours of school + 2 hours of homework + 3 hours of work = 11 hours. That's more than the average work day that an adult does. And when the adult comes home from work, they have the tasks of getting dinner ready, organizing their children (depending on the age of their children & how much assistance they may need) and possibly any other work they have to do for their job, etc. Most adults I know have it pretty easy going compared to their teenage years. Both of my parents & both of my step-parents, as well as both of my dance teachers have said that their teenage years were "hell" compared to what they're living like now. As well as every therapist that I've ever had (I think I've had around 5 in total) has told me to "persevere and push through; this is the hardest part of your life". And they obviously know what they're talking about. Con: Pressure from the Media Yes, everybody DOES get pressure from the media. But a lot of people who work for the media (eg. market research analyst, sales representative...) have degrees in Psychology. Why? Because their job is to get into the minds of who they're targeting. And there's the obvious fact that a majority of adolescents are oblivious to what's out there; they believe anything when they see it and don't take the time to look into it. These workers who are promoting advertisements directly at teenagers are getting into their heads and filling it with unnecessary & insensitive crap, for the reason that they want the teen to buy their product. Example: a teenage girl at the mall sees a size 0 model in the window of a clothing store. She'll think: "oh, she's skinny. Skinny girls likely shop there...let's go in. Maybe the clothes will hide my '20 extra pounds'." And regarding the workplace, teenagers will NEVER get hired if they have piercings or tattoos to the extreme; you can't express yourself when you're working. And there's dress codes in schools. A lot of teachers will get offended by the way people dress. You can't wear tank-tops, hats, hoods, shorts, tight pants.....the list goes on. You can't express yourself any more than the formal dress attire that an adult would have in the workplace.