The_Teenage_Years_Are_the_Most_Carefree_Phase_of_One’S_Life.”_Do_You_Agree_with_This_Statement_

The teenage years are the most carefree phase of one’s life.” Do you agree with this statement' “Young people don’t know what age is, and old people forget what youth was.” When I was younger, my mother always told me how wonderful life would be once I hit the long awaited age of 13. Such perennial clichés like ‘the teenage years would be the best times of your lives’ have been unloaded onto me by adults as though it was their job to. Unfortunately I, as with many other teenagers I believe, had been influenced by their many life stories that I spent a relatively long time anticipating for that 13 candles erected on my birthday cake. Then hurrah, for when that day finally arrived, I had high hopes for the magical moments to slowly slip into my life. It has been a rather long time now since that day and presently, I have to admit that things had not exactly gone the way I had wanted it to. Moreover, I was not expecting teenage angst and rebellion to kick in so quickly, together with the incessant nagging and the never ending expectations set upon me by higher authorities. Therefore, I only agree that the teenage years are the most carefree phase of one’s life to a small extent. Firstly, a reason why the teenage years are still carefree for most of us is because the responsibility to support the family is not on our shoulders. We do not have to work for long hours, six days a week just to get the income to raise our loved ones. We do not have to meet deadlines for office work, get reprimanded by bosses or feel the stress of the competitiveness in the working industry. Instead, we depend on our parents. We get pocket money for school, allowance for trips with friends and free food from the kitchen. Our parents are the ones carrying this responsibility and we do not really have to fret much over whether there’s enough money for meals the next week. We just carry on with our usual lives of being a teenager. This is why adults call our lives carefree, because we do not seem to be feeling any burden of the world. However, we cannot deny that there are other teenagers out there who are not so fortunate and indeed have to work in order to support the family financially. These youths are from less well off families and they are forced to work at such a young age, when they should be focusing on their studies and preparing for a better future. This is a reason why the teenage years are not necessarily the most carefree phase of one’s life. As a teenager from a well developed country with no financial problems, I do not have to come face to face with the hardships of work. Instead, my form of hardships comes in different ways. One of which is the hardship of school. As a student, we are obliged to study hard and prepare for a bright future. Mountain piles of homework rest on our study desk and conquering this silent battle does take a toll on our bodies. We hardly have time to take a short nap in the afternoon and we flop ourselves to our seat to get the work done right away. We are also evidently pressured with the expectations of our parents, school and the society. We must do well in order to contribute to our family and community. The possibility of whether we are able to do so comes mostly from how well we fare in national exams. Parents, teachers or anybody available, help to prepare us for these ‘life deciding’ tests. These include the International Cambridge examinations; the Scholastic Aptitude Tests and the International Baccalaureate just to name a few. They expect nothing less than the best. As the end receivers of this stress, it tires us emotionally, mentally, and physically. This has lead to countless suicides by teenagers in Korea as they prepare for their Sunneung or College Scholastic Ability Test. This is a reason why I feel that the teenage years are not the most carefree phase of one’s life. Another reason why the teenage years are not the most carefree phase of one’s life is because we are facing with the issues that puberty has brought upon us. It is only natural and normal for us to become very self conscious and care about what people may think. Just a tiny pimple on the forehead may seem like the end of the world for some girls while not having the right hair may make us ugly ‘beasts’ .However, this is an unhealthy habit that has made us become insecure of how we look and our body type. It is a kind of stress that many teenagers experience and some even go to extremes like having plastic surgery in order to make themselves feel superior of others. We are also being exposed to the adult world of having a relationship, drinking, clubbing etc.There is always peer pressure that makes us do the things that we know are not morally right, but we still do them anyway…for we yearn for acceptance. We want to be part of the ‘in’ crowd and follow the latest trends of fashion or high tech gadgets. I feel this is mainly due to our not yet completely matured mindset and the want to quickly move on to adulthood. We constantly have to make sure we are not ‘outdated’ and it is actually quite hard work. Therefore, I do not believe that the teenage years are the most carefree phase of one’s life. In my opinion, the most carefree phase of my life would have been when I was still a small child, not older than ten years old. Those were the years when I could go home and watch television from the afternoon until past eight at night, when I had no troubles over homework, and had no worries over my looks and relationship issues. Those days are long gone, and I have to move on. Being only 15, I know I still have long way until I finally move out of this phase and enter adulthood, and I cannot deny that I’m actually looking forward to it. Now, it always never fail to put a smile on my face whenever the adults tell my 10, 11 year old cousins the same stories they have told me before. Their excited gestures make me giggle, quite sadistic I know, but I do not exactly know why, I tend to find myself telling no one in particular…”hope everything turns out well for them’’.