Don’t worry, the kids are alright

Two vastly different events over the past week – a school shooting and Kiwi success at the Olympics – point to a growing maturity in today’s teenagers.

IT’S probably time to talk about the kids.

Specifically, it’s time to focus on teenagers – the much maligned group that occasionally gets treated as though they’re another species.

On the one hand, they can be regarded as one of society’s biggest problems and in constant need to be fixed, yet at the same time they’re also the most soughtafter consumers targeted by seemingly every marketing and advertising expert on the planet.

With such mixed messages, it’s no wonder that this already confusing time of rapid mental and physical development can become even more fraught.

I’ve blocked out most of my teen memories but I think it was about the age of 14 when I first realised that I knew everything. But those were rare moments of confidence in between all the other moments of feeling scared, alone and worrying about everyone else thought.

I can remember in the 1980s watching all the Hollywood movies that were aimed at teens. I recall thinking that my life as a Samoan kid in suburban working class West Auckland was nothing like those portrayed in movies starring Molly Ringwald and Andrew McCarthy.

Sometimes I couldn’t understand why the ones in the movies were in such angst. They always had their own room, and the worst thing that seemed to happen to them if they mucked up was getting grounded. That seemed awesome compared to getting a hiding, which is what happened to teens from around my way.

Yet being a teenager back then seems a doddle compared to the landscape they inhabit today.

This week has shown two vastly contrasting situations involving teenagers that really do challenge some of the stereotypes.

First up, the aftermath of yet another school shooting in the US. These seem to occur so often that we have become used to the cycle of how they are reported: firstly, the shooting lays waste to innocent lives, this is then followed by thoughts and prayers before gun control advocates plead for something to be done and people watching around the world point out how gun control has worked almost everywhere else. Finally, the US Congress does nothing and everyone forgets about it.

But the surviving classmates from this latest shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, decided that, this time, the news cycle should take a different turn. They are demanding change and following that up with organised action.

And now social media is full of comments about how extraordinary it was to see these teenagers apparently acting and speaking with more wisdom, compassion, sense and smarts than the adults in power.

Secondly – and in a completely different sphere – New Zealand finally won a Winter Olympics medal. In fact, we earnt two in one day and it was all thanks to two 16-year-olds from Wanaka.

In media appearances, Zoi Sadowski-Synnott and Nico Porteous have seemed relaxed, refreshingly real, humble and completely unaffected.

One can only imagine the dedication, commitment and sacrifices that are made by athletes to train for, qualify and then succeed at the Olympics. That these two young athletes have conquered that mountain at such a young age is extraordinary – and just to drive the achievement home, the pair weren’t even alive the last time a Kiwi stood on a podium at the Winter Olympics.

I can’t help but think that given these extreme examples of what teenagers are capable of, it’s probably time to stop referring to them as kids.

Being a teenager back in my day seems a doddle compared to the landscape they inhabit today.’