Society’s Attitude towards Young People

Why does not society offer individuals of young age a possibility? Everyone is different. Not all are violent, use hoodies, and are ignorant. A few of us are fully grown, do well in school and are on the right course in life; so to be stereotyped into one category by older grownups is unjust. Young people in our society today are seen in an unfavorable method. They are often frowned upon by society based on a few of their peers being violent, unreliable, and incapable to accomplish greatness.

Teens are seen as a risk to society. Grownups frequently do not trust younger individuals. They likewise tend to presume the worst of them. Even the senior hesitate of our youth now days to a certain degree. I understand a lot of peers just like myself who are the opposite of what society believes of them. They are great individuals that are concentrated on school and are becoming something in life. Then, there are the ones that simply do not care.

Older adults are highly suspicious of younger people, assuming the worst of them. Older people have a fear towards young people. In our society today when some elderly woman notices a group of young people she will hold on to her purse tightly and get away as soon as possible. They do this because they might not feel safe. The group of young people may be making a lot of noises or engaging in bad acts. I observed this situation before many times from my own experiences. When I was back in junior high school I used to take the bus home with a group of my friends. On the bus we were usually loud to the point where many elders didn’t feel safe. They ended up moving away from us to the front of the bus. Also many older adults often told us to be quiet because they felt that we were getting out of hand. I and my group of friends really weren’t going to cause any harm we were just happy to be out of school, but the older adults didn’t see it in that manner.

From this situation it’s clear that both the elderly and older adults don’t trust younger people. As a result young people suffer from unfair treatment. Older adult’s suspicions have led to our youths suffering from harassment and discriminatory targeting from authorities and law enforcement. This sort of discrimination is unfair to certain young people because they are the opposite of what society thinks of them but they’re still being stereotype because of their peers. From my own experiences I observed many situations where an older adult targets a younger person. A majority of the time their suspicions ended up to be wrong. During my last year of high school I got out of school as early as 10 am. As a senior I only had two periods everyday so I left school at 10 am. While I was on my way home I was often targeted by authority because they immediately thought that I was skipping school.

Almost every day I was stopped by the cops because they thought I was skipping school for being out so early. They would ask me for my ID and once I explained to them that the school day was over for me and told them what school I went to they let me go. By seeing me out so early in the streets officers automatically assumed the worst of me, and it was not the case at all. Since I was young older adults and the authorities assumed the worst, when I was honestly innocent. Many older adults feel that young people are incapable to accomplish what older adults can accomplish because they are too young. This theory is not always the case. There have been many situations where the young has proved the statement “age is nothing but a number” to be true . Many of my peers have proved that they can indeed do what an older adult does. Just because they are younger doesn’t mean they are incapable achieving greatness. I’ve observed this from my own experience of observing my best friend named Tanicka at her workplace. Tanicka is the opposite of what society views our youth to be. She is a hard working college student that also has a part time job. She is working very hard to get somewhere in life, and stays out of trouble. Tanicka is a 19 year old college student that got hired as a phlebotomist at Bio reference laboratory.

Being a young phlebotomist is not easy. She went through many hardships at her job because of her age. She works with many older adults and basically is the only young one there. Since she was young her older coworkers tried to take advantage of that. They immediately disliked her and were very negative towards her. They pinned everything that went wrong at the job on her. There was no proof that she made any mistakes but they still felt that she was an easy target because she was young. Her older coworkers negative attitudes almost made her lose her job because they were blaming things on her that were false. The supervisor later figured out that she didn’t make any mistakes and what her coworkers were saying was false. This goes to prove that the whole time Tanicka was a young professional phlebotomist doing her job right.

When I asked Tanicka how she felt, she explained that she felt attacked by her older coworkers because of their age difference. Considering that her older coworkers were very negative towards her she had to change locations. With this new found location she is no longer discriminated against for simply being young. Even though Tanicka is young she still manages to reach greatness as a phlebotomist. Despite the hardships she went through she is still working at Bio Reference laboratory for 9 months now. She has proved that the young can accomplish what older adults can accomplish in the workplace. I do admit that there are many dangerous teens out there that are very rebellious, but not every young person is the same. Sometimes it’s not always the teens fault for being the way they are. Bad parenting, the wrong guidance, and even boredom can all play a role in as to why some young people can be violent, and untrustworthy. Some young people just have a lack of respect for life; this can correlate to being surrounded and guided by the wrong things. Also sometimes things can be a little opposite. In some cases the parents are actually doing the best they can and their children are just rebellious beings. They can sometimes get bored and do things for amusement.

Like I said before not all young people are the same, there are many mature ones that are very opposite from rebellious beings. I and many of my peers are the opposite of what society expects us to be. We work hard, and are on the right path in life. Not all of us are violent, untrustworthy, and incapable of greatness. Many of us are mature and very well capable of greatness in all aspects of life, which is why adults shouldn’t categorize all young people under the same stereotype. It’s just very unfair because everyone is different. I can understand where these negative stereotypes are coming from because there are bad teens out there but there are also many good teens. So society shouldn’t be so quick to judge those under the age of 30 because they may be wrong. By my peers proving themselves as capable of greatness it shows that older adult’s attitude towards the young is unfair to certain young people. We are all humans and we deserve to equally share the right of achieving greatness.