by Maria Rogers

Created on: July 13, 2009

The life of a teenager is much more difficult and complicated today, than it was twenty years ago. Back then all we had to do was worry about what top matched best with what skirt or pants. Does my hair look good and whether or not we'll be asked out on a date by the coolest guy in school? Today, teenagers have to deal with drugs, drinking and under age sex. Not to say that it didn't happen back then too. It just didn't happen quite as much as it does now, and not as open either.

As a teenager in the eighties, I grew up going to dances and going to Friday night football games with the popular kids. I didn't really think about doing any drugs; even though it was out there. I thought more about having good clean fun. That's not how it is nowadays. Kids seem to succumb much more to peer pressure and this usually leads to bad endings.

I live in a big college town and have seen things that sadden me deeply. We've had teenagers die from being drunk and doing things that they normally wouldn't do. The rate of teenage pregnancies has risen astronomically, and keeps rising. STD's are on the rise with no end in sight and it doesn't seem to faze kids.

We're living in a society where the more kids see on television, the more they want to imitate it. It's almost as if they're trying to out do one another just to be accepted. They don't seem to have as much confidence in themselves as teenagers did years back. They also don't seem to have as much real fun as they did back then.

I'm extremely lucky because I have teenage children who tell me everything that goes on in their lives. I've instilled in them the promise that I may get angry later, but I'd like to hear about whatever they do or try so I could help them through it. I know that I might hear something someday that I wouldn't be very happy about, but they know that I do it because I love them very much and want to protect them from this increasingly ugly world.

As a teenager, I realize that they think that they are immortal and know better than anybody else, but at the same time, I know that they secretly want us to protect them and watch out for their well-being.

They try to tell us that it's much harder being a teenager today, and I believe them. The more exposure our teenagers have to the world, the more they see and the more they want to do. The problem is that the more they see the more pressure there is to be like what they see. I think that most teenagers are remarkably strong in their beliefs and convictions, but for those who aren't, at least they know they have us; the parents who love them to turn to.

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