Adolescence Throughout Time

                I thought what we talked about in class, about things being different for teenagers now as opposed to a hundred plus years ago was interesting.

                We seem to have predetermined ideas about what life as a teenager, what going through that period entails. But looking back, we can see that what we think about teenagers now might really have not always been the case.

                The whole period of adolescence, where the idea is that this is the time that people start to develop as individuals/become independent by doing things such as experimenting with drugs and alcohol and rebelling against the world around them- that’s something that really is not a given. Back in the day, adolescents had other things to worry about. Many of them had to focus on things that were more pressing and urgent- like finding a job and supporting a family. Even those who hadn’t moved away to start their own lives by their late teens were still facing a very strict and traditional society, one that just really didn’t have much room and tolerance for rebellion or really much space for developing as an individual.

                Maybe it is that people have become more tolerant of the actions that we now associate with teenagers- society has given them… space in a way. In this way I think it has helped society as a whole by letting teenagers comb through options on their own- instead of forcing decisions directly down their throats. While in the past you might expect to find mostly farmers and housewives- people focused immediately on survival- on the basics- today the diversity of the developed world has allowed people to branch out and create and explore. It is unlikely that Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg would have ever done what they had if, at the age of say 13, they were taken out of school and sent to work in a field.

                So really, I think adolescence- the ideas that we have of it, are actually really important. And it speaks to where we are as a society, open and continuously developing.

                Eleanor and Parks coming of age, and stories like it, carry that importance down in relatable reminders as to just what adolescence means to people. Like Romeo and Juliet, and many other stories of youth- people just I think reading about that- a time where they had options and their whole futures at their own fingertips.