Originally Posted by Locke9-05

You have got to be kidding me... The only reason they're treated like that is because they act like it. I never resented the stereotype when I was that age because I knew about all the stupid things my peers were doing to fuel it. I could live with it because I knew I wasn't contributing to it, yet there was still a damn good reason for it. If kids want society's respect, they need to earn it, just like anyone else. They don't do that by breaking all kinds of laws--smoking pot for individualistic pleasure and calling it "rebellion" when all it really is is selfish idiocy, boozing it up for no reason except that "everyone else is doing it" and it seems cool, drinking and driving (ten times worse), vandalism, bullying, slacking off in their studies and then blaming everyone but themselves... There are so many kids out there who don't get reality and what it's all about. They think it should be a walk in the park just for them and that's why they fail. That's why society sees them as exactly what they are. And the very few out there who do try, who don't break all the laws for selfish reasons, who work to earn society's respect suffer because they're teenagers too--they're just the rare few that don't act like it.