| "But Ma, Debbie Miller's parents are letting HER get her navel pierced, and are letting HER stay out until two with her 27 year-old boyfriend, and SHE got a pony for Chirstmas! It's not fair that I can't have that! You're the meanest parents in the whole wide world!" - Anonymous Who is this Debbie Miller, you inquire? A girl I just made up to prove a point, but it's a point well spoken on behalf of whiney teenagers nationwide. And yes, I do mean whiney, because if you listen to the majority of whiney teenagers, 99.2% of their conversations are focused on the oppression received from parental units. The remaining .8% is griping about how teenagers deserve "fair and equal treatment". It can be more simply put as, teenagers deserve more rights and responsibilities because, dag nabbit, like their closely related cousin, the emu, teenagers are people too. Unfortunately enough for those emus and teenagrs I've mentioned, I am not speaking in favor of more rights and responsibilities. Teenagers already have enough to worry about, from the fact that stirrup pants still exist, to the monsters underneath their beds. If we had to deal with anything else, what's left of our fragile little minds could face spontaneous combustion. Besides, teenagers are already treated decently enough in the United States, with only a few restrictions. Until a teenager is of legal age, there are certain rules one must follow, such as a curfew, a drinking, smoking, voting, and a driving age. But, these shouldn't come as a problem, because if it's one thing a teenager needs for survival, it's patience. If this skill is not developed early on, they face the risk of randomly having the urge to run headfirst into walls, preferably ones with brick. The laws give teenagers a respectable amount of freedom, but the deciding factor for the real rights and responsibilities lie with their parents. Your parents (or any other parents for that matter) are supposed to provide the basics: food, clothing, water, shelter, and perhaps a lot of money to buy a country of your own. If they fail to feed and clothe you, you can't walk to the toy store and buy new parents, BUT, you can either walk to the pet store and purchase a puppy, or turn them in to authorities. You have a few choices at this point, if your parents are proven unfit: emancipation, or a foster home. The best choice would be to wait until you are 18. That way, you are fully responsible for your life. I would suggest getting along with your parents until then, for if they decide to boot you out on the streets, sitting on a street corner with a tin cup and a dancing monkey will lose it's appeal rather quickly. Believe it or not, you do need your parents, as cruel and unusual as they may be. Without them, we could all be living in a van down by the river surviving off of a steady supply of government cheese. And if you already are living in a van down by the river eating government cheese, push your van up that hill and boycott government cheese, because the government is secretly trying to annihilate entire races without their consent. Living in a van down by the river or not, life for teenagers is not as horrid as most make it out to be. Years ago, teenagers were forced to become the perfect little gremlins society thought they needed. Prim and proper. Sugar and spice and everything nice. Snips and snails and puppy dog tails were not allowed, or it was a paddle to the bum for you. Presently, teenagers have little forced upon them, besides school and chores. They say and do what they want regardless of authority. Granted, they face the consequence of punishment, but where teenagers of the past wouldn't dare to venture (such as, school shootings, drug use, disrespect), the recent and upcoming generations have been fed raw meat, and are more ruthless than ever. To prevent mass destruction and nationwide panic at the thought of these rabid teenagers, I suggest we stop creating children and instead buy Chia Pets. Teenagers should take advantage of what rights and responsibilities they have rather than complain about what they aren't allowed to do, and they should definitely avoid government cheese at all costs. In the meantime, be nice to your parents. Buy them many a cake and a yacht or two. You'll be ever so much happier, especially remembering the fact that your parents could be caring for a Chia Pet instead of a whiney teenager. Competition with a Chia Pet is hard to be beaten. So, go do something productive. Buy some bread. Fold your socks. Help up those old people that have been tipped over. Don't waste your life by complaining for what you don't have. |
| Teenager's Rights & Responsibilities... Why We Should Stop Having Children |
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