Why should young people have great amounts of pressure forced onto them?

The amount of pressure forced onto young people today is a catastrophe. Why? Problems such as religious, societal and cultural expectations force children to grow up fast, which contradicts with the constant, infantilizing messages of society that state this generation is “hopeless” and “don’t deserve a voice”, leaving young people with no way of winning in today’s society. This tough seesaw young people try to balance causes problems such as stress, anxiety and procrastination, leading to a worldwide crisis for young people, caused by adults and older members of society.

First and foremost, young people face the troubles of being compared by parents/elders; this makes young people feel like they’re only seen by certain factors — rather than their values and who they want to be and who they are as a person. Young people also deal with cultural and religious conflicts, as they feel forced to take part in traditions or follow beliefs that don’t align with themselves — this causes an emotional separation from mind and from body; their actions don’t reflect who they are. Additionally, many older siblings face the continuous conflict of being the “third parent”. This is a responsibility that many older siblings are forced -by their parents- to take on, where they will experience a loss of childhood whilst having to become a guardian for younger siblings. This puts immense pressure on a child, leading to problems such as being overindependent and people-pleasing.

All of these pressures are enforced by adults.

In addition, the pressures of expectations — which cause children to grow up fast — juxtapose the pressures of their voice being constantly surpressed and being consistently overlooked. This is commonly excused by adults as a matter of age, implying young people’s voices are invalid and wrong. In many traditional families, young people face a hierarchy of age, where decisions and thoughts of older family members are considered more valuable and correct, whilst younger members’ ideas and opinions are disposed of and ignored. Through the media, we see how many people from the middle-aged and above demographic view this generation as “useless” and “doomed”. This creates a societal battle between young voices trying to be heard, and the adults who try to silence them. These pressures result in young people having a low self esteem and view of themselves. Young people who try to speak are brushed off as “opinionated”, “woke” and “sassy”, which contributes to the erasure of their opinions. This consistent shutting down of young voices cause a sharp juxtaposition with the adultification of children, where they’re forced to grow up fast. This pressures young people as adults want us to be more mature yet they don’t want the natural forming of opinions that comes with it.

Moving forward, adults need to eradicate their contrasting expectations for young people, which will allow them to be successful without simultaeneously failing. Adults need to stop forcing their children to grow up fast whilst also surpressing their voice and opinions. Nowadays, adults view children as people who will just dote after them, fufilling their every need that agree with everything they say or do. Adults don’t want children. They want robots. Our society would be higher functioning if people didn’t put these contradicting, impossible-to-balance pressures on young people, who are still figuring themselves out and discovering who they want to be. Children shouldn’t have to struggle with balancing contrasting expectations just to be accepted by society — they should be recognized for their minds and hearts, not by how long they can look after someone or by how long they can stay silent for.

So, why should young people have great amounts of pressure forced onto them?

~A