The Disappearance of Youth
Is there such a things as a youth in America anymore? Is a six-year-old boy still an innocent youth or has American culture washed that away? Ten years ago, I knew nothing of the world. Everyone I knew was naive to the ways of the world. We did not care about the murders on the news, we did not care about how faw the war had progressed, and as far as we knew, we had come from a stork. Now, children come home, talking about the malicious murder they heard about on the news, or a new weapon they read about on the Internet, or sometimes, a new love in their life. The interests of youth did not change by themselves; they were forced upon them like a mother spoon feeding her baby, through media, movies, books, and TV. And that’s just to name a few. Is a six year old still a youth? In terms of age, yes, but in terms of knowledge?
In the early years, children should be carefree and able to enjoy life, free of worries, but that is lost. Walking over to a friend’s house should not be a lesson in covert operations; it should a stroll in the park. Members of the opposite sex should have “coodies.” Having fun should not be a dream. It should be reality.
It used to be relatively simple to keep a child wholesome through the first ten years of their lives. All you had to do was keep a semi-watchful eye over them; the only problems were at school, the one place you could not watch them. Now, not only do you parents have to shield their children from the physical likes of bullies, but they also have to worry about the mental aspect too. Look through the pages of the latest People or Seventeen. There is more skin showing the first five pages of those magazines than most teenagers see in the first five years of their lives. It works just like brainwashing, kids see the couples together, dressed up and looking happy as can be, and they want that life. It becomes their mission to achieve that perfect life. Children are very susceptible to the media, just look at their eyes when they discover an ad for a toy they want. They glaze over with wonder and awe. Discovering something you want is all right, it is human nature to want what you cannot have, but it is more the constant nagging that come along with it now. Young children want more and more, for less and less. The days of children believing they came from a stork or “tummy” are gone, they know more than ever before.
A six-year-old boy used to be naïve in comparison to an adult, but since September 11, 2001, all they care about is the news. They come home, and the first words out of their mouths are not, “Hey Mom! Today was awesome,” but rather, “Hey Mom, did anything big happen today?” They used to get home, talk to their Mom and run to their room to play with their cars and trucks. Now the first they reach for when they get home is the TV remote. The days of toy trucks and baseball cards are gone, replaced by Dan Rather and Katie Curic. Violence has shattered the innocence of youth and forced them out of their peaceful niche of innocence into the adult world many years ahead of their time.
Youth is a time of discovery, a time of joy, a time to do as much as you want. It is not a time to decide you future, and dedicate yourself to a single activity. Travel teams have emerged for first graders! How insane can you get? The only way a youth can successfully stay active on a team such as this is to drop everything else they do and focus on that sport. They only know one piece of the delicious pie that sports is. How can a youth know what he truly enjoys, when he has not truly experienced everything?
In the first grade, boys and girls were like two polar magnets; they wanted nothing to do with each other. They had “coodies,” a highly contagious disease that only exists amongst those in the fourth grade and below. Ten years ago, a boy and a girl would not even go near each other for fear of getting that life-threatening disease, now you see couples! Boys and girls hold hands and hug, just as if they have been together for a year in high school. They’ve seen how its done through countless skin-baring ads for the Abercrombie and Victoria’s Secret and hundreds of uncensored TV shows such as the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show and Undressed. What once used to be confined to the teenage years or later has escaped and infected the youth.
Once, there was a time to grow between childhood and maturity. It was called youth. It no longer exists.
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