The importance of teenage rebellion

[Carnatic]

I was wondering what other people thought about how important it is in building character to not just do what you're told as a teenager.

 

Teenagers are often portrayed in a negative light, painting their rooms black, playing thier music too loud, experimenting with drugs and generally being bad people.

 

But I'm 26 and I've been re-evaluating my life. I never had that teen rebellion and I think that might have led to me feeling now that I'm not where I wanted to be in life.

 

If anything I would say that my parents brought me up too well. They are probably quite proud that when I was at school I was well-behaved, always did as I was told and made getting good qualifications my main aim. However I'm actually quite ashamed that I was doing this and not experiencing life. I hardly drank underage (even when I'd turned 18 it wasn't till I went away to uni that I started drinking properly), I had a small circle of friends who I rarely saw outside of school.

 

I guess I was quite fortunate in that my parents were fairly liberal (relatively speaking though). I didn't have too many arguments with them and never really felt a desire to deliberately do the opposite to what they told me to. If they told me something was bad then I wouldn't do it and if society told me something was bad then likewise.

 

I should point out that I wasn't a happy teenager, and I often felt isolated while everyone else was out experiencing life but to me the thought of joining them was out of the question, partly because I lacked the social skills, but mainly because I thought that what they were doing was 'bad' and I didn't want to be bad.

 

At university I started to break away from these restraints a little bit... I started to drink to excess regularly, and even did a little weed and went on a spontaneous drunken trip to Blackpool. But this was all in the first few months of uni, I seemed to gradually settle back into my old restrained self, and except for the drinking, I stayed that way for the next 8 years. I suppose my mum never liked my hair when I started growing it, but that really was the limit of me doing things she didn't like.

 

I think that if I look back even further, this might stem from my early childhood. I was labelled as a 'gifted child' because I learned reading and writing and maths before the other children. But I think that the reaction of parents and teachers may have sown the seeds of my present problems. I was alienated from the other kids by being given extra tuition, being moved up a year in primary school, getting my own psychiatrist to help with the fact I didn't relate to other kids, and being encouraged to take up academic, but quite solitary activities such as astronomy.

 

Any at the age of 25 I found myself in a well-paid professional job which if I'm honest I didn't like and realised I didn't want to just follow this path towards a boring suburban lifestlye and had to get out. So I just walked out one day and never went back, like a real life Reginald Perrin (minus the faked death)

 

I think I'm having my 'rebellion' now. My parents are very unhappy that I just quit my job and they're not happy that I don't want another professional job (I'm going to start a part-time non-graduate job). I'm also spending more time and money just enjoying myself and couldn't care less about the debt that's getting me into.

 

In retrospect though, I would say that this would all have been best done as a teenager:

 

I think psychologists believe that the adolescent years are the optimal years for this kind of discovering oneself.

 

I've put myself in serious financial difficulty by quitting my job and spending money on enjoying myself. I have a flat, I have bills to pay. Whereas teenagers are more free in terms of time and money.

 

More importantly, I'm going it alone. All my friends went though all of this cycle of rebellion and self-discovery a long time ago and they were embarking on the journey together. (and I should point out that they are mostly happy, well-rounded individuals... most went to uni so clearly you can rebel AND do well in school)

 

What does everyone else think? Does anyone disagree with me altogether and believe that you should just do what your parents and society tells you to do? Is anyone else going through this in their late 20s... I'd be very interested in sharing my experiences with other people who are going though similar ones themselves.

[greensleeves]

I believe it's important to follow your own path whether you're 15 or 50. I don't think teen rebellion is something that is necessary and that alot of teenagers make mistakes that they later regret because they're not at an age where they're really capable of thinking things all the way through to the consequences.

 

If your parents were fairly liberal, you probably didn't have much to rebel against. I just don't see that rebellion for the sake of rebellion is useful...there needs to be a reason behind it.

 

As for doing what society tells you to do, there are certain things that society tells us to do for a reason...we don't murder, steal etc., but that doesn't mean we all have to become a flock of sheep living a life in suburbia if it isn't what we want out of life. Self discovery is a life long process.

[Carnatic]

Thanks it's the simple things that make me feel better about myself. Just comments like 'Self discovery is a life long process' that take the edge of and make me feel a little less insecure about being so far behind.

 

Well my parents weren't THAT liberal most of the stuff we think of as normal teenage behaviour they wouldn't have allowed, but I feel like I could have gone my own way to far more of an extent than I did without getting any disapproval. However I often notice that unsurprisingly those who rebelled the most as teens are those who have very conservative parents, you know the sorts who take an instant dislike to your friends and who try and pressure you into a 'respectable' profession such as doctor or lawyer.

 

I think though that it's not so much rebellion for the sake of rebellion, more that it's inevitable we will have different values to our parents' generation and even if your parents aren't specifically forbidding it, going your own way is a form of rebellion because in the back of your mind is the thought that you don't want to just blindly adopt the values and customs of an older generation.

 

Your point on how rebellion as a teen isn't strictly neccesary is helpful though. It gives me hope and makes me feel less like I'm along in being on a path to self-discovery just because i'm older. I would say though that while I see your point on this, one of my points... about it being easier to do this stuff when you're less financially constrained might still be valid.

[dr_styles]

If your parents were fairly liberal, you probably didn't have much to rebel against. I just don't see that rebellion for the sake of rebellion is useful...there needs to be a reason behind it.

 

No one can tell the future, but I think it is important if you are in that sort of environment where the sense of rebellion builds - i.e. restrictive parents (I think abusive is getting into some touchy matters so I'll steer clear of that). Upbringing has a lot to do with it and I definitely say I "suffered" from overprotectiveness. Heck it still goes on with them, and you could say I'm going through my own rebellion phase now when I tell them I'm doing it anyway - I suppose the one difference here is that being a lot older than a teenager I know what I can do, and how safe things really are (they seriously do scare monger A LOT).

 

I think drinking/partying is a common one (and one of the ones I talk about). My parents think partying and drinking are basically evil, full scum bags, druggies and murderers. When I was younger in school, they'd put up a dozen walls in me going to friends birthdays, even taking the train home, etc. and yeah I just obeyed so to speak and didn't go to birthdays, always got driven (they STILL insist on it now!).

And well surprise surprise, don't do anything with friends anymore, don't like drinking or partying, anxious out in public and whatever else. Dare I say I think my "big rebellion" yet to come, moving out - see this is very trivial and at my age getting late, but relates back to the upbringing. Just to put in a bit of a whinge here, I can't wait to basically live EVERYTHING - the good and the bad, on my terms alone. No need to worry about my parents not liking this and that no matter how trivial it is.

 

Is it "bad" I didn't rebel? Would I be better off if I did? Can't say for sure, but I guess what I'll say is life experience is very important.

[greensleeves]

I would say though that while I see your point on this, one of my points... about it being easier to do this stuff when you're less financially constrained might still be valid.

 

Very true, but teenagers have other consequences to their actions as well...they're far more irresponsible in their rebellion so the consequences can be very severe and can really have a detrimental effect on their future, teen pregnancy, not finishing school, drug abuse, etc. I guess I'd say that self discovery and rebellion are really two different things.

 

I was very rebellious as a teen and am now the parent of two teenagers, one who tends to get into alot of trouble, so I can see it from both points of view. Looking back, I wish that I had made fewer mistakes as a teenager, so I want to help my son to not repeat some of the stupid things I did. I'd really prefer if he did it your way....finish school, let his brain develop completely and THEN rebel

[Carnatic]

Yes, good point I never thought about scare-mongering before. I can't think of a particular time where my parents were like 'no you're not going to this' (although at one party where they knew there would be alcohol and I was still underage by about a year they asked an older responsible son of one of their friends to keep an eye on me). But there were plenty of times where I could have chosen to go to a party or something like that but I declined because they way I had been brought up meant I thought it was bad.

 

And most importantly I never questioned why things were 'bad' I just took it at face value if I was told they were bad.

 

A side note, even now. I don't like to drink in their presence. Even after I went to uni and started drinking heavily I let them think I still only had the occasional beer. I squirm with awkwardness when they say proudly to a friend or family member 'no, he doesn't really drink'

[Carnatic]

I'd really prefer if he did it your way....finish school, let his brain develop completely and THEN rebel

 

The problem is, I think there is some in built need for teens to reject the values of their parents, not to completely go off the rails, but just so that they can form their own independent values.

 

I mean I think that becaue I was so obedient as a teen and never rebelled, my brain hasn't developed completely. Instead of becoming a well-rounded human being, I've become a neurotic, insecure, sociopath.

[dr_styles]

Very true, but teenagers have other consequences to their actions as well...they're far more irresponsible in their rebellion so the consequences can be very severe and can really have a detrimental effect on their future, teen pregnancy, not finishing school, drug abuse, etc. I guess I'd say that self discovery and rebellion are really two different things.

 

I think it all comes down to over-protectiveness. We have to acknowledge that they're just trying to look out for us for those exact reasons but if they are overboard/unrealistic - typically doing the scare mongering ones like mine - then I think you do need to have some rebellion at least with basic socialising like going to friend's parties. Alcohol/clubs/pubs is a little trickier I'll admit.

 

Yes, good point I never thought about scare-mongering before. I can't think of a particular time where my parents were like 'no you're not going to this'

 

And most importantly I never questioned why things were 'bad' I just took it at face value if I was told they were bad.

They didn't outright say no, but instead put up "100 questions". The usual who, what, when, where; but naturally as an impatient learning kid I couldn't be bothered answering those every time, especially ones I couldn't, like what EXACTLY you'll be doing, what time it finishes, whatever.

 

A side note, even now. I don't like to drink in their presence. Even after I went to uni and started drinking heavily I let them think I still only had the occasional beer.

 

Well if you wanted no stronger indicator of CURRENTLY I need to do some "rebelling" is drinking. A lot of times I just lie and say "I don't know" to what I'm going to eat with friends or relatives, because I don't want to put up with their anti-bar, anti-drinking, anti-out talk. I mean they even tried to tell me not to go to the supermarket (5 mins walk away) at 9pm because it was late and dangerous ...

 

Haha sorry for getting into the whinge again. I guess this just goes to show what I mean by "currently", and moving out.

[Night Pumpkin]

I wouldn't say that rebellion is good, but it is important for people to establish thier own identity during thier teenage years. People need to know who they are and what they are living for. There is nothing wrong with being good natured as a teenager either, as long as it is a lifestyle choice made by the young person.

 

You are an adult now and need to live like one. Quitting a job in this kind of economy is foolish - Think about how hard it is to find to new work !!!!

 

No matter what you did in your teenage years, now is the time for you take responsibility and think and act like an adult.

[Cognitive_Canine]

I feel like my mother's generation got away with far more than mine ever will....

[waveseer]

The only differences I see are these:

 

1. You are responsible for yourself and any debt you incur.

2. You don't have to worry about never finishing your education.

 

Those two seem to balance each other out in my opinion, so go for it! It's never to late to march to the beat of your own drummer!

[Carnatic]

lol good point debaser, while I don't specifically know what my parents got up to in the 70s, so I can't accuse them of being hypocrites, I know there must be quite a lot of hypocrites from that era.

 

Finding a new job has been very difficult, but I don't regret quitting my old job for one second. I've enjoyed life far more in the 8 months i've been unemployed than I ever did before then (except for that first few months of uni).

 

I realised back then that I had done things without it ever really questioning whether that was the direction I wanted to take my life. If even once in the previous 25 years I had stopped what I was doing and asked 'what do I want to do?' then I would never have been in that job to begin with.

[purpleduckie]

Better late than never.

 

 

I agree with the previous poster who said that it's actually kind of better now that you're smarter and would know better than to do really really stupid things. Drugs also screw you up more as a teenager. Life is too short, enjoy it.

[Cognitive_Canine]

My mother and her friends used to do the meanest things to people. And she got away with every single one of them too.

 

I didn't even break my 10:30 curfew in high school. Anything and everything you did could get your privelage to walk at graduation taken away. Heck, boys and girls weren't even allowed to sit next to each other on the band bus. Girls were in front, then two rows of chaperones, and then boys in the back....lame.

[Carnatic]

lol, that does sound depressingly repressive. would have driven me nuts.

 

over here the schools where the students are most debauched and OTT in their rebellious lifestyles are the private schools... a mix of too much money and a very conservative and repressed atmosphere drives them insane.

[Daria_Lane]

I hardly drank underage (even when I'd turned 18 it wasn't till I went away to uni that I started drinking properly),

 

Not sure why this is something to be ashamed of.

 

My siblings and I grew up in a "dry house" and with the BS I saw people go thru in college with their "woohoo" drunken freshmen nonsense, I thank my lucky stars that I was never interested in drinking.

 

I personally dont see the "advantage" of teenage rebellion, infact none of what you listed arent things anyone should wanna be part of.

[Daria_Lane]

Very true, but teenagers have other consequences to their actions as well...they're far more irresponsible in their rebellion so the consequences can be very severe and can really have a detrimental effect on their future, teen pregnancy, not finishing school, drug abuse, etc. I guess I'd say that self discovery and rebellion are really two different things.

 

completely agree

[Carnatic]

Well the point is that I decide what does and what doesn't interest me and nobody else. As a teenager I may have been told that drink is bad, drugs are bad, parties are bad yada, yada, yada... and shame on me for having no mind of my own back then I just said 'yes OK, what should I do?'.

 

I'm not saying that drink or anything else for that matter are good things... just that:

 

some poeple try it and like it

 

some people try it and don't like it

 

some people don't try it

 

I'd rather be in any of the first two categories for anything.

[Daria_Lane]

where's the 4th?

 

some people try it, get addicted and ruin their lives

 

sorry i seem pessimistic, but ive seen too much of above.

[Ignotus]

I completely agree. I had an older sister that was a cheerleader and never really rebelled and now shes 28 and is a bartender, not that its a bad job or anything, but she has an associates. My brother recently bought a house and is doing fairly well, not college but still he is grown up more, and it was probably because he rebelled with his appearance and music and what not.

 

I never rebelled outwardly, which I wish I would have because on the outside I was normal and it taught me to have 2 sets of friends, one of which was circled around drug use, but even though it has let marks I still got to go all out without caring about authority over me while seeing rock bottom.

[GeneralLee]

Contrary to what overly conservative/protective/controlling parents would say, teenage rebellion is a perfectly natural, and healthy phase of anyone's life and, if you ask me, is vital to growth as an individual.

 

No matter how evolved and far departed from our primitive ancestors we like to fancy ourselves, humans are still operating with the same mental hardware we've had for the last 10,000 years. If you were to travel back 10,000 years and take a primitive human child and raise it in the modern world, it would function just as well, if not better than a modern person. Teenage rebellion is the modern manifestation of every home sapiens' natural instincts. We are programmed for a tribal existence with a defined social hierarchy. When our bodies decide that we're ready, we are naturally wired to challenge other members of the tribe for higher status or control of the tribe (the typical father-son tension seen during and just after puberty) or to leave and start our own tribe (think about this the next time you hear a teen say "I can't wait to get away from home and live on my own").

 

Even though listening to your parents has helped you become intelligent, and helped you get a good job, it vastly affected your mind's perceived spot on the metaphoric totem pole. By blindly following your parent's direction, you resigned yourself to a lower status, that of a follower, and as such you think like a follower. Once you got out on your own, though, and out from under that parental sphere of influence that independence switch flipped in your mind. You no longer needed to operate as a part of the tribe, but for yourself.

 

Its good to see someone coming into their own. Too many get caught up in the ingrained morals and ideals of their upbringing, never taking the time to discover their own. You should be proud of yourself. But now you need to alter your thinking. You're the big dog now, the bull, the chief, whatever spin you want to put on it, you just have to start thinking that way.

[Carnatic]

where's the 4th?

 

some people try it, get addicted and ruin their lives

 

sorry i seem pessimistic, but ive seen too much of above.

 

You can't get addicted just from trying it.

 

I'm not trying to say hedonistic things like alcohol don't ruin lives. I'm just saying people can take their own risks. Knowing that you've made your own decisions in life makes you more self-confident, and a lack of confidence ruins far more lives than drugs or alcohol. But many people whose lives have been ruined in this way usually don't even realise there is anything wrong until they are in their 30s or 40s.

 

And anyway, when I talk about rebellion and making your own decisions I'm not talking purely about trying alcohol or drugs. It's just natural that people who want to make their own decisions will at some point want to make their own decision on these things, and this is what grabs most of the media attention.

[dragon lady]

I was very rebellious as a teenager. My parents weren't particularly strict, but my school was. I used to play up a lot. I think it was a very important part of my development. It allowed me to build the confidence to do my own thing. As a result, I don't let people push me around and I'm not a doormat.

 

Oh, and if I had been slammed down and made to cooperate with everything my parents wanted, then I imagine I'd have been far worse off today. They respected and even encouraged some mild rebellion and I am very grateful for that.

[leonardo2016]

I know this is seven years after your post, but I googled this intending to pretty much say everything you had said, before I saw your post.

 

I have been an advocate for the importance of teen rebellion since my realisation that my failure to participate in it was the fundamental reason for my catastrophic failure in life.

 

My situation is probably worse than yours.

 

Childhood, similar, in pretty much every way you said. Parents were 'nice', school teachers treated me 'nice', what reason was there for me to rebel, right? My mum further amplified this by saying that children who grew up too quickly were 'common' (we weren't rich but she was a snob). Even as a child I saw holes in her argument. Yeah, the 'common' people did underage drinking and sex and all.... but hang on, those well-to-do children are also doing it... hang on... oh well.

 

I was, as you'd probably imagine, bullied mercilessly at school and though I fancied girls (I'm a guy btw) I never had the guts to talk to them, partly because I was thinking how embarassing it would be for them to be put through that. Who would want the daily victim, the joke?

 

When I left school I isolated myself for about a year, seeing no one from there and 'breaking' from my past. My plan was to re-emerge as a butterfly from my cocoon. In the end, as I turned 18, my parents still being as overprotective as ever, disliked some of the new things I were doing (things, might I add, that my peers had been doing since they were 14, drinking, girls, smoking, drugs, etc). I rebelled then, but it was more of a coup d'etat... I was 18, there was nothing that could be done, so it was over very quickly and they, naturally, backed off.

 

But this couldn't be classed in my mind as a rebellion, as I was 18. You see the purpose children must rebel as children is that it is KEY to DEFINING their adult personas.

 

1) You need to be brave to either RISK crossing your parents, or by getting caught and crossing your parents and then being able to TAKE the punishment metered out.

2) You need to RISK repeating these actions.

3) You need to have the BRAVERY to do what your parents have told you not to do (I was a weird child as I fear things less now than I did then, I never climbed trees or anything, as I FEARED I would fall).

 

You see all these things build CONFIDENCE, your DEGREE FOR LIFE. It will get you partners, jobs, promotions and all those things that, by rights, my truant-hardened, cigarette-smoking peers shouldn't have had, but which, instead, I don't have.

 

It wasn't quite the same difference with the job for me, I didn't find myself rebelling in later life like that, I was just trying to achieve what anyone else was trying to achieve. But I couldn't get a good job, I couldn't get promoted to save my life. I had good ideas and strategies, but no one would ever hear them from a lowly office junior. Fine for someone in their 20s, right?

 

But in their 30s? Forties? Yeah. I do the kind of job that school leavers tend to get, and on a similar salary, and I'm 42. Not because I'm dumb, I am a degree holder, but I lack the drive and ambition that comes from BELIEVING IN YOURSELF, a trait fostered in one's teenage years, I firmly believe, by REBELLION and RISK TAKING. By my parents smothering me, yet keeping me on their side, I foolishly never rebelled.

 

My relationships started off good in my late teens, early twenties, but I think failed as they saw in me a lack of something they saw in themselves, maybe RISK TAKING or DRIVE. As I got older, my adolescent job titles would cause women of my age to steer away from me, managers and valuable employees that they were themselves.

 

As I went through life I'd be in groups of ANYBODY, and I mean ANYBODY, it would be friends, my girlfriend and her friends, my next girlfriend and her friends, work colleagues...

 

"Oh do you remember when you used to sneak out at night and get back in by 3am"

"Yeah of course, who doesn't? Ha"

"Those were the days"

 

I of course would lie. There was no way I even wanted to admit to myself I'd had such a dull, good-boy, sad adolescence. I'd try to make up lengthy stories so I could recite them at parties and get togethers, so they'd be more convincing, as if by trumping their wild life stories I'd somehow make up for the massive LOSS in my own puberty-years.

 

I'm now back to living with my overprotective mother, at 42, too broke to find a place of my own, and do the kind of job teenagers could get. My manager is in his early 20s. Any other staff even remotely my age are in higher management. Everyone has families, is married, or at least divorced...

 

You know why I say 'at least' divorced? I was chatting with a woman on a dating site the other month and when I told her that I'd never been married, I discovered that that actually went against me. Yes, this is how it is. Far worse then, in society's eyes, to end relationships when you know it's not good for the both of you, and far better, it seems, to marry, cheat, and get divorced. Because that's what the OTHER people do.

 

And all men seem to cheat in relationships. I never did. I got cheated on, though. Why? Same reason. Here's another example of SOCIETAL PERMITTED REBELLION, it frowns on it with the one hand, but reluctantly accepts that 'we are all guilty of it' same as 'all teenagers rebel'. I didn't rebel in younger life, nor did I rebel in relationships. And it cost me. Because now women won't date me as my longest relationship was five years. I've had several relationships of around that length, and spent a great deal of time alone, but, apparently, the 'norm' on some dating sites is 10 years. 10 years of cheating is fine, as long as you've had ten years.

 

So TL;DR, I think that if you're a parent, NEVER try to be your kid's friend ALL OF THE TIME. If you see they're obeying you too much, TRY TO THINK HOW TO COUNTER THAT OR SOMETHING. It's rare, and it was only the OP that rang a chord with me, but it COULD HAPPEN AGAIN.

 

Teenagers MUST rebel. It's the 'hidden curriculum', a rite of passage not listed in any book, but the key to the most important qualification their life can hold. Their belief in oneself.