“Oh my I sound just like my mom.”

“Oh shucks now I sound like my old man.”

“Never thought I would see the day that I understood why my parents said to me while I was a kid.”

Ageless sayings pranced and danced from our folks day in and day out. The worst part is… now the tables have turned, and we’re the ones annoyed with them.

We understand that being teenagers, we can be annoying. Trust me, we get annoyed with ourselves. And although this topic could be argued for days on end, being a teenager nowadays is so much more complicated than it was back “in the old days.”

Let’s start comparing shall we

“When I was a kid, I walked half a mountain to get to school.”

Now, although I’m sure the climb was treacherous up your make-believe mountain Sheryl, (all names are made up- and are for comedic effect only- thank you for your time) I promise you, there are still kids who have to walk to school. In fact, the economy is getting worse as we live on, which means, even though I’m very sure you don’t care, most kids still can’t afford a car. Even though I’ve been part of many conversations with older folks either at work or church who complain that all kids my age have cars or have everything handed to them, which still isn’t true.

Most of us have part-time jobs, which takes me into my second topic of comparing.

Working students go to school from 7:30- 2:40 p.m. every single day and then run home to get ready for work and leave for work. The times vary based on the place of work, but work is still tiring. Workers get put on the closing shifts which means we’re working until whenever the store closes most of the time. Some of us aren’t leaving until nine or ten, or even eleven o’clock at night. When we get home, we are tired, hungry, and stressed because… oops we suddenly realize we have homework still to do.

We realize adults also work and have a day job, but how about we take a moment to realize, most students are putting in more than half a full days worth of hours doing school and work, ESPECIALLY around the holidays when people like myself who work in retail are working all the time to keep up with all these holiday sales. Now none of us are going to cop out on these hours because for once, we’re making BANK! Our minimum wage jobs are finally worth the effort because we’re proud of the paychecks we’re bringing home, and now, we can finally pay our bills and car insurance and even get you guys something a little special. However, sometimes adults fail to realize that we’re working our butts off to get this bank!

Teens are always looked at as “moody” and “grumpy” but you guys, we are stressed out!

School work is my third topic of complaining. Schoolwork is NOT the same as it once was when our parents and grandparents went to school.

“All those kids do is sit around on their phones and on social media all day.”

This is one of the most frustrating things for me. It is not our fault that this is our generation. We are forced to use technology every single day in school, at work, at home, etc. So getting mad at us for using these resources does absolutely nothing but make us madder. It’s just how it is, Linda, get with the program! Pshhh we know that you’re trying to pretend like you aren’t on Facebook posting about your nieces, uncles, dogs, best friends, birthday like you’re their BFF.

Not to mention, the workload is ridiculous!

We have been taking standardized tests since we were in the third grade. We have been forced to grow up before we’re even ready, and being worked to the bone is all we know! Sometimes we just want to lay in bed and sleep in or watch Disney+ without being yelled at by Randy to go cut the grass! We spend hours upon hours of our time doing homework that no offense… is most of the time pointless… and we run out of “us” time, and we become walking stressed robots!

Although I’m sure it’s easy to ignore a teenager’s opinion because we are younger and “less experienced”, we do have feelings.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.