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Weird Teenagers

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Clarissa

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A 15-year-old boy told me that someday he wanted to raise a family, not the way his parents are raising him (with phones out during meals and in the park and during his school sports events) but the way his parents think they are raising him — with no phones at meals and plentiful family conversation.

I believe the author is either lying or the boy in question suffers from a form of mental retardation. He’s 15 and he says things like “My parents are raising me”? And he wants to eat dinner with his parents? And have them engage him in “plentiful family conversation”? And he actually said the words “plentiful family conversation”?

Another possibility is that the boy is a sociopath in the making and says these things because he knows they will please the clueless adults.

Normal teenagers at this age want to be left alone in their rooms with their porn, video games, social networks, weird music, and drama. They don’t want to be “raised by parents amidst shared meals and plentiful conversation.” We have already established that this is a very kind and gentle society that delays development but that doesn’t cancel out hormonal processes, does it?

14 responses to “Weird Teenagers”

  1. TomW Avatar
    TomW

    Isn’t this an adult rephrasing what a kid said? I agree a 15 year old would never use those words, but I can imagine a kid resenting it if the parents make a big deal that the whole family has to sit down at the dinner table together (and there are people who make a big deal about that) and then they all stare at their phones. Similarly, it would be incredibly disappointing if your parents came to watch you play sports and they were staring at the phone when you scored or did something impressive.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      “I can imagine a kid resenting it if the parents make a big deal that the whole family has to sit down at the dinner table together (and there are people who make a big deal about that) and then they all stare at their phones”

      • Yes, absolutely, I can see a teenager resenting being forced to sit down to dinner with everybody, as if he were a toddler who can’t decide when he is hungry without Mommy telling him. But then that’s what he would say and not complain about not being raised among plentiful conversation.

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      1. TomW Avatar
        TomW

        I think you are reading too much into the wording. There is no indication in the linked article that the kid actually used the phrase “plentiful conversation”, that’s the researcher’s summary of the conversation in her words. I agree that that would be a weird thing for a kid to say, but I don’t think that’s what he really said.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          But that’s exactly my point. This kid doesn’t exist, he’s been invented by this author and invented very carelessly and unconvincingly. What I’m trying to show with this post is that such articles are always projections and don’t reflect anything but the author’s capacity to invent.

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          1. TomW Avatar
            TomW

            Ahhh, I think I was being a little dense (or perhaps under-caffeinated) when I first read this. Yes, whatever the boy said, it’s been subject to a heavy dose of interpretation by the researcher.

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  2. Evelina Anville Avatar
    Evelina Anville

    Well I did love family dinners even when I was in high school. Mostly for the time I spent with siblings though more so than my parents. I definitely wanted alone time of course. But I also had parents who paid attention to me. I think if I had felt that my parents were ignoring me, maybe that would have been hard?

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      And did you notice the reference to the park? Why does he go to the park with his parents? And what is it that he wants them to do as they are all together in the park? Stare at him while he plays with his toy truck?

      I can just imagine a teenager coming to school and telling his buddies about the great time he had in the park with his parents over the weekend.

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      1. Evelina Anville Avatar
        Evelina Anville

        Yes. The park part specifically is a bit weird. I don’t know what the “park” is about.

        But my experience with teenagers is that they are a weird mix of LOOK AT ME/LEAVE ME ALONE. They want parental attention one second, the next second they want to be ignored and sometimes they want everything at the same time. And there is an added bonus if they can make their parents feel guilty about something.

        So I can see this as part of normal teenager behavior. And teens really do need their parents still. So if the parents are truly ignoring the son in favor of their electronics, it seems logical to me that the teenaged boy would complain. (But again, the park comment is weird.)

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  3. Good Enough Professor Avatar
    Good Enough Professor

    In my experience, teenagers hit developmental milestones at widely varying rates, manifest their hormones in a wide spectrum of behaviors, and cope with their widely varying circumstances in equally widely varying ways. Sort of like real people. Many are aware of parental hypocrisy, and some even have the verbal skills to articulate that awareness.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      I can totally see a teenager saying, “My parents are such hypocrites.” But I cannot imagine a normal teenager who sees himself as being raised by his parents and wanting them to play with him in the park.

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      1. Good Enough Professor Avatar
        Good Enough Professor

        Really? Maybe he went through his “watching porn in the bedroom phase” last year, or maybe it awaits him next year. Maybe in between bouts of smoking pot with his friends in the mall parking lot, he feels bouts of nostalgia for his childhood. Maybe last week he wanted to be left along in his room and thought his parents were the stupidest people ever, and he’s going to feel that way again next week, but this week, he seems something to admire in them and longs for some connection. Maybe he’s annoyed that they’re always on his ass to get off his phone/computer and holding out the promise of rich connection (say a family hike in the local forest) as a goad, but then when he tries to be the “good kid” they want and go for the bait, they let him down by absenting themselves in precisely the way they dub “wrong” when he does it.

        Or maybe these reflections get under my skin because, in between bouts of simmering resentment and profound unsociability, my kids seem to take some pleasure in my company and get annoyed when I’m distracted or absent during times when we could be sharing some pleasure (a meal, a movie, a hike).

        So yeah, I’ve screwed them up but good.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          “Maybe he went through his “watching porn in the bedroom phase” last year”

          • Usually, once sexual awakening arrives, it kind of stays with a person until the next great hormonal crisis of about 50 years later. 🙂

          “Maybe he’s annoyed that they’re always on his ass to get off his phone/computer and holding out the promise of rich connection (say a family hike in the local forest) as a goad, but then when he tries to be the “good kid” they want and go for the bait, they let him down by absenting themselves in precisely the way they dub “wrong” when he does it.”

          • Now this sounds like a normal teenager. 🙂 But the difference between your comment and the quoted one is like the distance from here to the Moon.

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  4. anon Avatar
    anon

    Lol – sometimes weird kids read weird books and temporarily pick up quirks in their language that they relish because they are trying to establish an identity and “be different” and all that… Not that I am speaking from past personal experience at all… <.< cough But Good Enough Professor is probably right – he’ll likely grow out of it by next week and start doing something else we all think is weird.

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  5. Fie Upon This Quiet Life Avatar
    Fie Upon This Quiet Life

    I read the original blog post and immediately felt guilty. We are on our devices (phone, computer, iPad) constantly because we are workaholics and intellectuals who read the news an awful lot. My kids want to be on devices constantly too, and it’s unnerving because I want them to do “kid stuff.” But then, I remember when I was a kid, I wasn’t out playing and such. I was reading constantly. If my mom had taken away that “old” technology (books), I would have done something very dramatic in response.

    Every generation laments how the new generation sucks. Is that what this is? Or is there a real problem? Or is it just a difference in lifestyle? At any rate, someone is making fat cash out of tech addictions — there’s rehab for it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/this-is-where-people-are-_n_3976240.html

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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