Louisa Young
Source: The Guardian >> Read Full Article
Why are people so negative about teenagers, asks Louisa Young, when most of them are adorable, funny, interesting, imaginative, brave, generous, loyal, hard-working and helpful?
Louisa Young and her daughter Isabel. Photograph: Linda Nylind
Why are so many people so negative about teenagers and so rude to them? I’m not talking about the ones who knife each other at bus stops and torment each other to suicide on social networking websites, about whom we read so much in the scared and scaremongering newspapers. I’m talking about everyday, normal teenagers. There is scarcely another group in this country so stereotyped and maligned.
What is worse, most adults think that teenagers deserve the bad press they get. I don’t, so I am going to upend the negative generalisations and announce my own: that teenagers are, in general, adorable, funny, energetic, very hard-working, beautiful, interesting, imaginative, generous, loyal, vulnerable, brave, charming, helpful, clever, well-dressed and very good cooks. (And I’m not just talking about my own. I’m writer in residence at two inner London secondary schools.)
Consider these teenagers. Eighteen-year-old soldiers William Aldridge, Joseph Murphy and James Backhouse, died in July in Afghanistan trying to save the lives of their brothers in arms. Andrew Dalton, 17, from Wirral, saved two small children from a fire. Mike Perham, 17, sailed round the world alone. Fifteen-year-old Tom Daley is a world champion diver. Milan Karki, 18, in Nepal, has invented a new kind of solar panel using human hair. Welsh 15-year-olds Leighton Griffiths and Tyler Hulpin saved six children from the burning house next door in May. Leighton went back in three times and ended up in hospital himself.
Of course, not every teenager gets the opportunity to be that kind of hero. But in my experience they are not lazy sods who never get out of bed. Isabel, a 16-year-old London A-level student about whom I can say nothing because she is my own daughter, worked out an average teenage schoolday for me … Continue Reading
