Am I Old?

When does one realize that they are getting old?



Chorus:

"They said all
Teenagers scare
The living shit out of me
They could care less
As long as someone'll bleed
So darken your clothes
Or strike a violent pose
Maybe they'll leave you alone
But not me"

The lead singer who wrote this song after being on a subway train with a group high school age teenagers. He said,

"That was the first time I felt old...I was nervous and I was a target. I felt like I had become a parent figure or part of the problem."

The lead singer at the time was probably around 28 years old.

It suck when you begin to realize you’re not a teenager or even 25 anymore even though in you’re mind you think you still are. But one day you look around and see young people looking at you as if you’re old. I know I could go to a Alice Cooper concert or a Rob Zombie concert and there will be young people looking at me like what you doing here old man. Even though I was listening to Alice before they were born and Alice is 63yrs old or that Rob Zombie and I are the same age. Fact is that if I sat down with Alice or Rob I would have more in common with them than some 20 year old.

The song “Teenagers” to me is about the violence in the youth culture and that adults are to blame due to their lack of involvement in teenagers life and that we should be more involve in their lives even if they don’t want it. But involved not has either a policeman or as a best friend but as a parent or as a mentor. To me a parent’s job is to teach your child how to survive with out them, to understand the rules of one society and prepare them to be able to cope in the real world. To learn from mistakes and if they fall to always get back up.

When I was a school age teenage in the late 70’s and early 80’s I knew kids who had parents with guns and they would have never touch them nor would have brought them to school no matter how angry they were. We did carry pocketknives to school, which could be confiscated if a teacher saw you playing with it but usually you were warned to put it away. If it was confiscated you could get it back at the end of the day. Fights were rare and usually quick and weaponless. Most of the time students would jump in and break it up before a teacher got there. Reason is because their fellow students would break it up so the two who are fighting wouldn’t get in trouble. Teacher had no problem jumping in the middle of a fight because typically a student would not dare hit a teacher because they were taught at home and school to respect their elders. Don’t get me wrong I’m sure a few got hit in the heat of things.

But today it seems when a fight breaks out the surrounding students standby with their cell phone videoing it for the Internet. I too think adults are to blame because we are the one making the rules and produce media programs showing insane drunken behavior of reality TV. I believe children and teenager needs rules and boundaries that will allow them express themselves and be themselves but not violate others rights or peace. But adult need to lead by example especially by parents and teachers. It seems today there are parents and teachers who don't think they have an obligation to be a moral role model without regard of how it's going to influence young minds. Truth is those adults are lazy and self-centered.

I do understand how teenagers can scare me. We fear what we don’t understand and where I once could relate now I wonder who are these people. I’m sure all the things I felt then is about the same as today teenagers do. Most teenagers tend to be idealist because the lack experience in being in the real world unless they are in a very poor gang control area then its just a form hopeless survialism. Maybe what happens is as we get older and go through life we begin understand more and life becomes less fearful and more secure in our own skin and we begin to understand our parents better. As I say to my young adult kids, just because you’re an adult it doesn’t mean you’re grown up. The day you grow up is the day you realize you have responsibilities. Responsibilities to work, to family, to friends, to community and even responsibilities you don’t even want to have but you do. That’s the day you grow up whether it be at 20 or 50 and I know some who are in their 40s and still haven’t grown up because the won’t take responsibility and I’ve know 16yr old who had to grow up because they had to become responsible to support their mother and siblings after their father died.

But the real question is; have we let an untrained dog off the leash? Many “parents” today will allow a minor do things that in my day we couldn’t do until you were over 18 and living in your own place unless your parents were old hippies even then they would draw a line. Will young people today be able to grow up?

I think it’s important to be young at heart but be real about it. There just some things our aging bodies can do anymore. I use to be able to stay up all night and then go to work but oddly it just doesn’t seem to be the smart thing to do anymore.

UR