The Issue of Emotion
Sitting around a table with family this past summer, the topic of music came up. Surrounded by adults at least twice my age, if not more, I listened to the conversation. Eventually, my favorite question in the world was asked, as I had hoped it would be: “What music do you like?” A friend of my uncle’s, a middle-aged man, posed the question as a sort of a challenge. No doubt he was lying in wait to mock whatever the modern youth liked, ready to scoff at the “lack of sophistication of kids these days." Aware of the oncoming criticism, I answered honestly. Hearing my answer, he scoffed before asking with a snarky laugh, “You like that band? Their music is so depressing. So angsty. Are you a happy person?” I didn’t really know how to reply. I laughed sheepishly and let the conversation go on without me.
What got under my skin about this man’s comment was how quickly he wrote me off as “angsty” and unhappy. So often have teenagers been classified by adults as “angsty” or “moody” that we’ve been conditioned to feel ashamed about being upset. We’re embarrassed to talk about our stress, sadness, or frustration because our elders have drilled into us not to be “mopey” or “self-pitying."
Any emotion we experience is “just hormones” and simply a melodramatic exaggeration of a real feeling. Anything we worry about or get angry about is merely another example of a teenager being “dramatic” or “seeking attention."
In class a while ago, I was asked to complete the phrase “The world is...” I finished it with “unfair”. I was thinking about Syrian refugees sacrificing everything while people like Donald Trump sit on their billions making fools of themselves. I was thinking about how single parents who work so hard still must spend hours at multiple minimum wage jobs to support their families. When I told the class my answer, my teacher responded, “So angsty! It’s okay, you’re a teenager.” My frustration at the imbalanced world was boiled down to a moment of hormones, as if what was unfair was the amount of homework I had to do or that my parents wouldn’t let me go to a concert.
And even if a teenager's emotions are shallow or vapid, they still feel very real to them. It's completely unfair to tell a teenager to "just stop worrying" about what people think of them or to "just get over" a breakup, because even if those emotions seem invalid to someone older, those feelings are still very real to the person experiencing them. Just because the emotion is not as mature as it could be does not mean that it is not worth considering. Imagine if adults disregarded the feelings that they deemed unimportant of other adults. The world would be a very indifferent place. But when it comes to teenagers, it seems it is perfectly alright to not only write off a teenager's feeling, but actually degrade them for having it. We are shamed for having feelings that the adult world does not account worthy.
I’m tired of being labeled as a melodramatic teenager. I feel things as acutely as any adult does, and I believe my peers do too. Yet somehow my emotions are consistently shortchanged by those older and “wiser” than me who think any expression of sorrow, upset, or anger is merely a chemical reaction. To my fellow teenagers I say: keep on feeling. Write that “angsty” essay, play that “depressing” song. Embrace your feelings. They are valid and important. They are what make you human. And no one should make you feel bad about that.
