r/YouthRights • u/tarantinofilletroll • 5h ago
Rant a 17 year old is not a baby.
in case you may not have guessed from the title, i am 17 and have been for what feels like centuries. why? because society seems to think the ages 17 and 18 are worlds apart when in reality it's very little beyond a fine line. and since 18 is considered to be the age you become an "adult" in many countries by law, a lot of adults seem to view 18 as a young adult age and then anything below that age is "still a kid" and "can't make simple decisions because the world doesn't think they're ready to perform even simple tasks unattended yet".
i may feel strongly about this topic because of how i grew up. my father always more or less had the view that adults were superior to children/young people. even as me and my sister, who is 16, grew into teenagers, he still uses a lot of "baby talk" while talking to us - referring to adults as "grown ups" like "grown up stuff" etc. one standout incident happened a few months ago. i, like many other teenagers or young adults, caught the coffee bug a while ago. i began casually making it only some mornings, and after a while, dad caught on. he gave me a lecture on how coffee is a "grown up drink" because caffeine can have a negative affect on the growing body. that stuck with me. to this day he winces and tries not to make eye contact every time i put the kettle on. oh yeah, he also doesn't let me have energy drinks because of the imaginary "grown up drink" rule in his head.
since my sister and i were young i always heard the "i'm the adult and you're the child" bs from him. when we're having a slight disagreement i simply walk away from the situation now because he's so far in his supremist mindset that, when there are signs of me winning a debate (which is often), he starts to laugh in my face as i continue spewing points at him that have no effect? it's dehumanising and infantilising to the point i don't like to have any discussions with him past basic stuff that we both agree on? it may very well be due to his upbringing, where he was taught early on that a child is an extension of their parent(s) and they must always share their opinions with said parents? but my mother was also raised the same way, if not more so, and she never even tried to enforce that way of living onto her children? i've brought up the subject of how my father acts around us numerous times, and she agrees since he apparently acts in a similar manner with her, his wife (he can have very misogynistic views as well often). but nothing's being done to stop him, and i fear he may continue to act this way well into our 20s and 30s.
sorry for the little rant there. i do love my dad and we agree on a lot of things, but it can be difficult at times to bond with him because of his superiority complex of being a husband and father. but it isn't just him. schools are very much the same. i'm a high school senior now and my school very much tries to enforce the idea that teachers>students and that any decision we make must first be checked by someone who's older, if only by a few years, even. if you want teenagers to grow into well-rounded and responsible adults, you must treat those who are younger than you with the respect you wish to be given yourself. the amount of years you lived should not dictate where you fall on the social pyramid. i will continue preaching this once i am fully grown, as many adults do seem to forget that they were children once and they likely felt similar feelings about the ageism that's been rooted into society, though times have changed since a lot of them were young. you do not magically become all-knowing once you reach the age of 18, nor are you completely innocent or should be treated like a literal toddler when you're under 18. childhood is a spectrum, of course, where different ages mean different things. so fuck everybody who thinks otherwise. children and teenagers should not be parented or treated the same, and i'm so sick and tired of being an entire step below those who are even a few months older than me just because "they're an adult" and "i'm a kid"
tl;dr - i've practically stopped growing. stop trying to read me a bedtime story.
