Teenagers Today

“Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us.”
  - Henrik Tikkanen

There always seems to be a way of denigrating teenagers.  “They’re too young”, “They need to grow up”, “They’re not like us when we were teenagers”, “They’re lazy”, “They spend too much time on their electronic devices”.  But there are two very recent examples where teenagers have shown their maturity and resolve.

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
  - George Orwell

The first example was brought to light by the death a few days ago of Becca Schofield of New Brunswick.  She died at the age of 18 two years after she was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.  When she was first diagnosed, she did not just curl up and feel sorry for herself, but became an advocate for kindness between people.  Her call for such kindness spawned a movement called #BeccaToldMeTo wherein people who did such deeds of kindness would respond, “Becca told me to” when asked why they had done it. God know we need such kindness in the world and this brave young woman became an advocate for it.  The courage that it took her to become such an advocate in the middle of the fight of her life is amazing.  She could have become bitter about such a fate.  But she didn’t.  She advocated kindness.  While so-called adults bicker about almost anything, this teenager chose a message that should resonate in everyone’s mind.

The second example is the students of Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida who have just survived yet another mass shooting in a school and have lost 17 of their schoolmates.  It must have been a terrifying experience for all of those who survived.  But their response to this tragedy has been to speak out and demand more gun control.  This is not a trivial matter.  Florida is a state with very liberal (read lax) gun legislation.  I’m sure that many of their parents are gun owners and perhaps loyal members of the National Rifle Association (NRA).  But these students are speaking up.  One senior student, Emma Gonzalez, spoke for many of them on Saturday at a gun control rally in Fort Lauderdale.  She systematically tore apart the various arguments used by the gun lobby to justify the proliferation of guns.  One of the more common arguments states that one good man with a gun could stop a bad man with a gun and thereby prevent or limit mass shootings.  The problem with this argument is that not once, in any of the mass shootings in living memory, has this ever happened.  The government states that the problem is not guns but mental illness.  In this argument, everyone who uses a gun to shoot someone else must be mentally ill. And yet in almost all cases when the shooter has been caught and brought to trial, mental illness was never proven as a factor.  That’s why in so many states, death row is populated by legally sane shooters.  The fact that students, such as those in Parkland, are the ones leading the cry for something to be done speaks volumes not only for them, but the millions of adults who do nothing.  The adults will make sure that, at least for the near future, that no significant changes will be made that could curb the ongoing gun violence in the United States and the growing gun violence in parts of Canada.

“Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity.”
  - Christopher Morley

Teenagers tend to be idealistic.  The two examples above illustrate this.  This is a very good thing for the future.  They may be able to solve a lot of today’s problems. They are at a stage when, with encouragement, they can think out of the box.  What we, as adults, have to do is nurture this idealism rather than denigrating it with such phrases as, “You’ll know better when you grow up”, “Where did you get that stupid idea?” or “Get real”.  There have been too many generations that have sold out their idealism as they grew older, including many in my own.  The idealism of the 60s and 70s (anti-war, peace and love, communal living) gave way to the cynicism and greed of the 80s and 90s.  Gordon Gecko became their hero.

The examples above are not unique.  There are a lot of insightful and idealistic young people out there, many of them teenagers.  Support them.  Encourage their idealistic ideas.  Lose your cynicism and maybe become a bit more idealistic yourself.

“There are only two kinds of scholars; those who love ideas and those who hate them.”
  - Emile Chartier