I take a deep breath, my body tingling as it struggles with the intense alteration in temperature.
Breathing on my hands to warm them, I can smell the building's age.
The heavy door slams behind me, shutting out the brutal, cold winter air, and I turn to my dad beside me.
We quickly exchange awkward "what should we do now" grins.
We're in a church, both eager to attend our first ever writers meeting.
A short staircase leads down to the unknown and seems the only direction available.
Clumsily, we descend and find ourselves standing in a small corridor with several different doors to choose from, two of which are bathrooms.
Suddenly, an older woman nearing sixty appears behind us.
"Are you here for the meeting?" she asks, and it is in that moment that I realize how lost and ridiculous my father and I must look.
It is only seconds that I dwell on this before another revelation strikes me.
She has only made eye contact with my dad.
I am somehow ignored.
"Yes.
It's our first time," my dad replies.
"I am still pretty new too.
Last time we had it in here.
" The woman points and begins to saunter in the direction that she is indicating.
Voices resonate, echoing against the walls.
Somewhere people are talking.
The woman leads us to a room around the corner where I can already see groups gathered, conversing.
As I enter into the diminutive throng, I swiftly scan the room, taking note of the severe time warp I have just intersected.
There is an easy twenty years between myself and the members of the writers group, which I will not name for confidentiality reasons.
They are, however, very friendly and welcoming and immediately greet us, let me rephrase, my dad to the assembly.
My existence hardly acknowledged, I feel myself fading into the background, my body becoming part of the dull, plastered, white walls that enclose the tiny room.
We exchange names with the few that come to welcome us and then they begin a conversation with my dad, asking him what things he likes to write and such.
While I am being practically unseen, I decide to casually observe my surroundings.
It is, as I said before, a small room with round tables, adorned with vividly colorful table cloths, positioned around a podium.
In one corner sits another table, this one rectangle, covered with several different refreshments to choose from.
When I turn my attention back to the conversation before me, I quickly realize I am waiting for something.
I am waiting for someone to ask me, "Hey, what do you write?" or "What made you want to visit our group?" If they only took a second to ask, they would learn that I am actually the author of a fiction novel that will debut this year, that I am a twenty-year-old college student trying to make a name for herself.
They would then recognize that I am one of the most successful people standing in that room.
Instead, I just get looks that ask, "Why is she here? Is she even old enough to drive?" I suddenly feel invisible, just the kid that her dad brought along because he couldn't find anywhere else for her to go.
I want to scream and shout and make a scene just like a little kid because that is how they see me.
I want to run up to the nearest old person and shake some sense into them.
I will admit that I look young for my age, but why does my youth have to become my curse? This certainly is not the first time I have been overlooked in a group of older people.
It's everywhere I go.
My publishers were surprised to find that I was so young.
People ask me almost every day at my job if I am even old enough to have a job.
I have to ask myself if that is even a legitimate question would I be working if I was not old enough? What age will I begin to receive the credit that I deserve? It is obviously not twenty.
Twenty-one? Twenty-five? Thirty? When will the adult world finally see me for the adult I am? I had this strange idea that, because it is the legal age in the United States, at eighteen I would at last join the "grown-up" world and ultimately have an opinion that mattered, but I guess that was just another childish whim.
Why are people so surprised that at twenty, I have written and published a book? Is twenty too young to believe? Hundreds of young people throughout history have done greater things than simply writing a book.
David was seventeen when he killed Goliath.
Alexander the Great was sixteen when he found his first colony.
At nineteen, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake after leading the French army into several victories during the Hundred Years War.
By the time he was eight, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had already published four sonatas and was entertaining audiences in major cities and courts.
Fifteen year old Louis Braille created the Braille writing system for the blind in 1824.
In 1965, S.
E.
Hinton wrote the famous book The Outsiders at fifteen.
Natasha Hull-Richter helped found the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party in 2005 when she was only thirteen, and in 2010, Jessica Watson became the youngest person to sail solo around the world at just sixteen.
There are millions more young people that have done extraordinary things that are never recognized, that are never given the credit that they have so painstakingly earned.
Why does society keep them a secret? Why does the world continue to question the authority, skill, and intelligence of its youth? Just days ago, I was able to attend another writers meeting entirely separate from the first, this time on my own.
It was being held at Kennesaw State University where I am a student, but it was not exactly associated with the school.
At the entrance a small gathering of people had congregated appearing to have intentions of signing in and being welcomed to the meeting.
I stood among them, waiting to turn in my registration form and then gain allowance to enter and have a seat.
I waited and waited and waited until I was the last one standing from the cluster.
It was immediately apparent that I was already, from the first second I walked in, being judged according to my age.
When I finally received the opportunity to sign in and hand over my registration paper, the woman behind the desk stared up at me with a bewildered expression.
"Do I need to sign in? I printed this off the website," I said to her, giving her the paper.
She took it, looked at it while I signed in, then answered, "Yeah, thanks for printing that out.
" I nodded and headed inside the room where the meeting was to be held, thinking I was done at the desk, but she suddenly called me back, "You look very young.
Are you a student here?" It was just a simple question; however, it was not the question that threw me.
"You look very young," a statement that said much, much more than that.
The woman was not actually just telling me that I looked young, she was actually asking, "Are you sure you belong here?" and therefore, insulting my intelligence and my significance as a human being.
She might as well have asked me where my mommy was.
Appalled and irritated by the lack of respect, I had to then prove that I, in fact, belonged in the meeting, the adult world and that I was "old enough" to possibly have worth in society.
If we continue to be so subdued, stalled from maturity, can today's youth take the lead in the future? Could America's survival be at stake once it's in our hands? As time passed, and I began to reflect in greater detail what could possibly be the root for such an underestimation, I could not help but wonder if it had always been so or if today's society had twisted and warped the image of its youth into something disrespected and misrepresented.
We have all heard the old Victorian idiom, "children should be seen and not heard," which has been drilled into our society's ideology long before the turn of the twentieth century.
Now as an adolescent myself, it has become very apparent to me that no one has even begun to decide when a child is no longer a child, and therefore, we must determine each for ourselves when to begin to not only see but also hear our younger counterparts.
A change in the times both economically and philosophically could be cause enough for youth's continuous discredit.
Is it possible that today's young people are being kept dependent far too long? Flash back to 1950, it was considered normal to break off from one's parents to create an independent household relatively quickly after graduating high school "because opportunities were plentiful and social expectations of the time reinforced the need to do so" (Settersten and Ray 6).
Now flash forward to 2000, according to the U.
S.
Census, there were approximately 2.
6 million households which consisted both of parents and their young adult children (Di, Yang, and Liu, 4).
But, can adulthood really be defined by where and with whom one lives? True, moving out gives a person adult responsibility and has remained a customary tradition for the majority of young people who have recently graduated high school, but the failing economy of today's America has its youth struggling to make ends meet while trying to become independent.
So, we can probably assume that our youth's financial dependency on their parents has led the older generation to question their transition from child to adult.
However, there are millions of other young adults who manage to hastily strike out on their own, and yet they are just as underrated.
According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, the word "adult" is defined as, "fully developed and mature, grown-up," which should then impose the query of the precise meaning of "mature", which Merriam-Webster has defined as, "having completed natural growth and development, ripe" ("adult" and "mature").
I can only conclude from such English definitions that once a person reaches complete physical development, in terms of overcoming puberty, and "ripens" into a mentally stable human being, then he or she is classified as an adult, and should no longer endure the humiliation of exclusion from the adult realm in which a child must suffer.
Seen and not heard should not apply to "fully developed and mature" persons, but in proceeding further into life as a grown-up, I see on a regular basis that this truth is neither honored nor acknowledged.
Nowhere in these definitions does it state that one must be entirely independent in order to be an official adult.
They make no claims that a young person must make any extraordinary achievement or even contribute anything of value into society.
In fact, there are no requirements for adulthood except merely reaching a state of "full development and maturity.
" So why do we remain invisible? It is often stated, and without doubt observed even, that young people have an inclination to party, consume alcohol, and on some occasions, draw the attention of law enforcement, or in other words, get into mischief they ought not to.
This behavioral misconduct could also factor into the cause of miscalculations of their authority and responsibility.
Dr.
Dina Krauskopf, a Regional Researcher on Adolescence and Youth and International Consultant on Young People Policies, asserts that acting out is one way youth tend to get noticed.
This helps explain why they are often viewed as problematic and irresponsible.
"And when young people work and do a good job, they're not seen as young people but as successful businesspersons" (Krauskopf).
Apart from being too dependent, we are also perceived as troublemakers.
I agree with Dr.
Krauskopf, but I must pose the question: is it fair to group all of us in one stereotype even when few of us seem to fit the bill? A horrific inference society has crafted of its youth, which cannot be any less equal to the ongoing problems of racism and discrimination.
Like any stereotype, the one that alleges that all youth are "problematic" is exceedingly degrading.
While some of us will join a gang or graffiti a wall or even just simply commit the crime of public intoxication to combat our incessant invisibility, there are many, many more of us that will perform quite the contrary, proving our "fully developed and mature" capabilities.
This argument cannot be left one-sided, however.
Many Americans in the generations before us believe that today's youth think themselves "entitled".
What does that mean? It means that employers and businesses believe we are over-demanding and arrogant once we reach the workforce, that our expectations are entirely way too high, and that we want everything right away.
Ron Alsop, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, states that, "Millennials [people born between 1980 and 2001] feel an unusually strong sense of entitlement with older adults criticizing the high-maintenance rookies for demanding too much too soon" (D1).
Alsop backs his statement up by blaming youth's "entitlement" on nurturing parents, teachers, and coaches who praised us even when we failed in order to spare our self-esteem.
While I agree that the majority of today's young people were overly doted upon and often told they were "special", I do not affirm our supposed entitlement.
It is not entitlement we are suffering; it is babying.
Young people have been robbed, deprived even, of experience and of growth.
When a child touches a hot stove for the very first time, it burns so much that the child will always remember never to touch the hot stove again.
We learn only from gaining knowledge through experience, and as long as the older generations proceed to deny the very essence of learning from their youth, young people will remain discredited and undervalued.
From the Tale of the Body Thief, author Anne Rice could not have put the unending battle into better terms, saying, "The young know how truly difficult and dreadful youth can be.
Their youth is wasted on everyone else, that's the horror.
The young have no authority, no respect" (134).
This brings me to the next issue of inexperience.
Young people are always being taken advantage of.
Doctors, dentists, and credit card lines prey on youthful ignorance, attempting to extract monetary gains from their inexperience.
I have been in numerous situations where a doctor tried to cajole me into accepting treatment or medication I did not need but would have to pay severely for.
Recently, I went for my annual eye exam.
I went alone to a new doctor, because I had moved too far from my previous doctor.
This particular optometrist sized up my youth in a matter of seconds.
He told me I needed bifocals, which I later learned were more expensive and later declined.
He also decided to switch my contact brand to a more expensive brand without informing me of the new cost.
He then offered to test for glaucoma and several other eye diseases.
It had been a long time since I was last tested, so I reluctantly agreed.
However, he deliberately failed to mention that the tests were fifty dollars more than I actually needed.
I tested negative for all the diseases, and as I walked out of the office after paying my excessive bill, I realized that I had been taken advantage of.
I then had to blindly drive home in the dark with dilated pupils cursing myself the whole way.
Embarrassed to even admit such an incident, I can imagine what other people my age are also enduring because of their naïveté.
Irish writer and poet, Oscar Wilde said, "In America, the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience," (Stillman 1).
Wilde is right, not only are we invisible, but we are also cruelly used.
The only way we, as young people, can defend ourselves against such schemes is to educate ourselves, to question all authority both old and young and make responsible choices to the best of our abilities.
Experience can only be gained when it is offered.
American society has set apart its youth by setting limitation after limitation, which keeps them dependent, immature, and irresponsible.
The U.
S.
recognizes legal adulthood to be at 18 years of age, and once reached, a citizen is then permitted to join the military, go sky-diving, buy cigarettes or lottery tickets, or get married, among other things.
However, now that the 18 year old is a legal adult, he or she cannot buy or consume alcohol, rent a car, get a hotel room, go or work on a cruise ship alone, become a police officer or EMT, or volunteer for the United Nations.
Is there a paradox in these limitations? Why is America holding its young people back? The answer: because older Americans are distrustful and possibly even afraid of every new generation that threatens to change the world as they know it.
Or perhaps it is because parents are just too afraid their "pride and joy" will get a paper cut, curl up, and then die in pain.
They lack the capability to communicate with their younger citizens on an adult level and appear to be oblivious to the fact that these limitations are stifling their youth more and more, hindering their abilities, their intelligence and therefore, making it so easy to discredit them.
How can we be told to go fight for our country, our freedom in a foreign land overseas, only to return and be refused permission to rent a car and a hotel room so that we may celebrate a vacation in our own country? Tell that to Alexander the Great; tell that to Joan of Arc.
Can America be alone in this great war between youth and its predecessors? Further research of societies and young people around the world may prove that to be true.
It would certainly explain why the U.
S.
tends to fall short in education and leadership.
I have little knowledge of other countries' youthful limitations, but I do know that youth in Europe are given more privileges than young Americans and are far more trusted by the older adults, while youth in Japan undergo rigorous education and are expected of high performances.
In spite of this, broadened research could possibly illustrate similar issues with youthful invisibility around the globe.
If America's young adults remain unseen, then who will become the next superpower of the world in our stead? While scouring the internet for various articles pertaining to youth, the most common issue was whether or not America's young people can take the reins of the country when/if that becomes a necessity.
The majority involved in the argument agree that we could not, another insult to add to the unending list of discredits.
If that be the case, then we must ask ourselves, why? Third Century eminent Greek philosopher, Diogenes Laertius once said, "The foundation of every state is the education of its youth" (Banks 255).
We are what we are taught to be.
America's ludicrous limitations are holding us back, keeping us children when we are actually adults and allowing our elders to perceive us as so, to underestimate us.
Renowned author J.
K.
Rowling, who seems one of the few to remember exactly what youth was like, declares, "Age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimates youth" (386).
I am curious to know at what age a person transforms from an underestimated youth to an underestimating adult.
Will we, today's youth, become these underestimators or will our perception of the generations that follow us be entirely different? Only time will tell.
Does the blame fall on one particular cause? No, the fault cannot be placed solely on parents and their incessant coddling or on America's age restriction laws, or even young people's tendency to live at home longer.
All of these factors contribute, but one cause is acutely more severe than the rest.
I have often heard the phrase, "youth is wasted on the young," but like Rice said, the true waste of youth is caused only by their deprivation of authority and respect.
While the old attempt to restrain our development into ripened adults, the real crime lies with youth itself, for the young stand back and do nothing.
For too long have we been deterred from greatness that we allow ourselves to fall victim to the worst, most degrading discredit of all: invisibility.
The fight for respect will continue, with the older, and presumably wiser, always having the upper hand in battle, and while older adults continue to demand proof of worth from young people, the desire for respect and credit in society will continue to dwindle as long as youth remain invisible.
As one of these translucent beings myself, I know that I must fight for my own position in the world, claiming credit where credit is due and earning experience and authority wherever I can find it.
I encourage other phantoms like me to do the same.
Looking to the future, I am aware that this war will never officially end, and as I grow older, I will look back to the days in which I was invisible and remind myself to see the generations after me.
Works Cited "adult.
" Def.
1.
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.
2011.
Merriam-Webster Online.
15 Mar.
2011 Alsop, Ron.
The " 'Trophy Kids' Go to Work.
" Wall Street Journal.
21 Oct.
2008.
D1.
15 Apr.
2011.
Banks, Emma.
Teen Reflections on Education.
Xlibris Corporation, 2010.
Print.
Di, Zhu Xiao, Yi Yang, and Xiaodong Liu.
"Young American Adults Living in Parental Homes.
" Joint Center for Housing Studies.
May 2002.
Harvard University.
13 Mar.
2011 Krauskopf, Dina.
Interview with Daniela Estrada.
"Young People Are Invisible Until They Become a Problem".
IPS, 2008.
Web.
15 Mar.
2011.
"mature.
" Def.
2a.
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.
2011.
Merriam-Webster Online.
15 Mar.
2011 Rice, Anne.
The Tale of the Body Thief.
New York: The Random House Publishing Group, 1985.
Print.
Rowling, J.
K..
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
New York: Arthur A.
Levine Books, 2005.
Print.
Settersten Jr.
, Richard A.
, and Barbara Ray.
"What's Going on with Young People Today? The Long and Twisting Path to Adulthood.
" Future of Children 20.
1 (2010): 19-41.
Web.
15 Mar.
2011.
Stillman, Nick.
"Youth Initiative.
" Artforum.
1 Jan.
2009: Research Library, ProQuest.
Web.
15 Mar.
2011.
Breathing on my hands to warm them, I can smell the building's age.
The heavy door slams behind me, shutting out the brutal, cold winter air, and I turn to my dad beside me.
We quickly exchange awkward "what should we do now" grins.
We're in a church, both eager to attend our first ever writers meeting.
A short staircase leads down to the unknown and seems the only direction available.
Clumsily, we descend and find ourselves standing in a small corridor with several different doors to choose from, two of which are bathrooms.
Suddenly, an older woman nearing sixty appears behind us.
"Are you here for the meeting?" she asks, and it is in that moment that I realize how lost and ridiculous my father and I must look.
It is only seconds that I dwell on this before another revelation strikes me.
She has only made eye contact with my dad.
I am somehow ignored.
"Yes.
It's our first time," my dad replies.
"I am still pretty new too.
Last time we had it in here.
" The woman points and begins to saunter in the direction that she is indicating.
Voices resonate, echoing against the walls.
Somewhere people are talking.
The woman leads us to a room around the corner where I can already see groups gathered, conversing.
As I enter into the diminutive throng, I swiftly scan the room, taking note of the severe time warp I have just intersected.
There is an easy twenty years between myself and the members of the writers group, which I will not name for confidentiality reasons.
They are, however, very friendly and welcoming and immediately greet us, let me rephrase, my dad to the assembly.
My existence hardly acknowledged, I feel myself fading into the background, my body becoming part of the dull, plastered, white walls that enclose the tiny room.
We exchange names with the few that come to welcome us and then they begin a conversation with my dad, asking him what things he likes to write and such.
While I am being practically unseen, I decide to casually observe my surroundings.
It is, as I said before, a small room with round tables, adorned with vividly colorful table cloths, positioned around a podium.
In one corner sits another table, this one rectangle, covered with several different refreshments to choose from.
When I turn my attention back to the conversation before me, I quickly realize I am waiting for something.
I am waiting for someone to ask me, "Hey, what do you write?" or "What made you want to visit our group?" If they only took a second to ask, they would learn that I am actually the author of a fiction novel that will debut this year, that I am a twenty-year-old college student trying to make a name for herself.
They would then recognize that I am one of the most successful people standing in that room.
Instead, I just get looks that ask, "Why is she here? Is she even old enough to drive?" I suddenly feel invisible, just the kid that her dad brought along because he couldn't find anywhere else for her to go.
I want to scream and shout and make a scene just like a little kid because that is how they see me.
I want to run up to the nearest old person and shake some sense into them.
I will admit that I look young for my age, but why does my youth have to become my curse? This certainly is not the first time I have been overlooked in a group of older people.
It's everywhere I go.
My publishers were surprised to find that I was so young.
People ask me almost every day at my job if I am even old enough to have a job.
I have to ask myself if that is even a legitimate question would I be working if I was not old enough? What age will I begin to receive the credit that I deserve? It is obviously not twenty.
Twenty-one? Twenty-five? Thirty? When will the adult world finally see me for the adult I am? I had this strange idea that, because it is the legal age in the United States, at eighteen I would at last join the "grown-up" world and ultimately have an opinion that mattered, but I guess that was just another childish whim.
Why are people so surprised that at twenty, I have written and published a book? Is twenty too young to believe? Hundreds of young people throughout history have done greater things than simply writing a book.
David was seventeen when he killed Goliath.
Alexander the Great was sixteen when he found his first colony.
At nineteen, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake after leading the French army into several victories during the Hundred Years War.
By the time he was eight, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had already published four sonatas and was entertaining audiences in major cities and courts.
Fifteen year old Louis Braille created the Braille writing system for the blind in 1824.
In 1965, S.
E.
Hinton wrote the famous book The Outsiders at fifteen.
Natasha Hull-Richter helped found the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party in 2005 when she was only thirteen, and in 2010, Jessica Watson became the youngest person to sail solo around the world at just sixteen.
There are millions more young people that have done extraordinary things that are never recognized, that are never given the credit that they have so painstakingly earned.
Why does society keep them a secret? Why does the world continue to question the authority, skill, and intelligence of its youth? Just days ago, I was able to attend another writers meeting entirely separate from the first, this time on my own.
It was being held at Kennesaw State University where I am a student, but it was not exactly associated with the school.
At the entrance a small gathering of people had congregated appearing to have intentions of signing in and being welcomed to the meeting.
I stood among them, waiting to turn in my registration form and then gain allowance to enter and have a seat.
I waited and waited and waited until I was the last one standing from the cluster.
It was immediately apparent that I was already, from the first second I walked in, being judged according to my age.
When I finally received the opportunity to sign in and hand over my registration paper, the woman behind the desk stared up at me with a bewildered expression.
"Do I need to sign in? I printed this off the website," I said to her, giving her the paper.
She took it, looked at it while I signed in, then answered, "Yeah, thanks for printing that out.
" I nodded and headed inside the room where the meeting was to be held, thinking I was done at the desk, but she suddenly called me back, "You look very young.
Are you a student here?" It was just a simple question; however, it was not the question that threw me.
"You look very young," a statement that said much, much more than that.
The woman was not actually just telling me that I looked young, she was actually asking, "Are you sure you belong here?" and therefore, insulting my intelligence and my significance as a human being.
She might as well have asked me where my mommy was.
Appalled and irritated by the lack of respect, I had to then prove that I, in fact, belonged in the meeting, the adult world and that I was "old enough" to possibly have worth in society.
If we continue to be so subdued, stalled from maturity, can today's youth take the lead in the future? Could America's survival be at stake once it's in our hands? As time passed, and I began to reflect in greater detail what could possibly be the root for such an underestimation, I could not help but wonder if it had always been so or if today's society had twisted and warped the image of its youth into something disrespected and misrepresented.
We have all heard the old Victorian idiom, "children should be seen and not heard," which has been drilled into our society's ideology long before the turn of the twentieth century.
Now as an adolescent myself, it has become very apparent to me that no one has even begun to decide when a child is no longer a child, and therefore, we must determine each for ourselves when to begin to not only see but also hear our younger counterparts.
A change in the times both economically and philosophically could be cause enough for youth's continuous discredit.
Is it possible that today's young people are being kept dependent far too long? Flash back to 1950, it was considered normal to break off from one's parents to create an independent household relatively quickly after graduating high school "because opportunities were plentiful and social expectations of the time reinforced the need to do so" (Settersten and Ray 6).
Now flash forward to 2000, according to the U.
S.
Census, there were approximately 2.
6 million households which consisted both of parents and their young adult children (Di, Yang, and Liu, 4).
But, can adulthood really be defined by where and with whom one lives? True, moving out gives a person adult responsibility and has remained a customary tradition for the majority of young people who have recently graduated high school, but the failing economy of today's America has its youth struggling to make ends meet while trying to become independent.
So, we can probably assume that our youth's financial dependency on their parents has led the older generation to question their transition from child to adult.
However, there are millions of other young adults who manage to hastily strike out on their own, and yet they are just as underrated.
According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, the word "adult" is defined as, "fully developed and mature, grown-up," which should then impose the query of the precise meaning of "mature", which Merriam-Webster has defined as, "having completed natural growth and development, ripe" ("adult" and "mature").
I can only conclude from such English definitions that once a person reaches complete physical development, in terms of overcoming puberty, and "ripens" into a mentally stable human being, then he or she is classified as an adult, and should no longer endure the humiliation of exclusion from the adult realm in which a child must suffer.
Seen and not heard should not apply to "fully developed and mature" persons, but in proceeding further into life as a grown-up, I see on a regular basis that this truth is neither honored nor acknowledged.
Nowhere in these definitions does it state that one must be entirely independent in order to be an official adult.
They make no claims that a young person must make any extraordinary achievement or even contribute anything of value into society.
In fact, there are no requirements for adulthood except merely reaching a state of "full development and maturity.
" So why do we remain invisible? It is often stated, and without doubt observed even, that young people have an inclination to party, consume alcohol, and on some occasions, draw the attention of law enforcement, or in other words, get into mischief they ought not to.
This behavioral misconduct could also factor into the cause of miscalculations of their authority and responsibility.
Dr.
Dina Krauskopf, a Regional Researcher on Adolescence and Youth and International Consultant on Young People Policies, asserts that acting out is one way youth tend to get noticed.
This helps explain why they are often viewed as problematic and irresponsible.
"And when young people work and do a good job, they're not seen as young people but as successful businesspersons" (Krauskopf).
Apart from being too dependent, we are also perceived as troublemakers.
I agree with Dr.
Krauskopf, but I must pose the question: is it fair to group all of us in one stereotype even when few of us seem to fit the bill? A horrific inference society has crafted of its youth, which cannot be any less equal to the ongoing problems of racism and discrimination.
Like any stereotype, the one that alleges that all youth are "problematic" is exceedingly degrading.
While some of us will join a gang or graffiti a wall or even just simply commit the crime of public intoxication to combat our incessant invisibility, there are many, many more of us that will perform quite the contrary, proving our "fully developed and mature" capabilities.
This argument cannot be left one-sided, however.
Many Americans in the generations before us believe that today's youth think themselves "entitled".
What does that mean? It means that employers and businesses believe we are over-demanding and arrogant once we reach the workforce, that our expectations are entirely way too high, and that we want everything right away.
Ron Alsop, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, states that, "Millennials [people born between 1980 and 2001] feel an unusually strong sense of entitlement with older adults criticizing the high-maintenance rookies for demanding too much too soon" (D1).
Alsop backs his statement up by blaming youth's "entitlement" on nurturing parents, teachers, and coaches who praised us even when we failed in order to spare our self-esteem.
While I agree that the majority of today's young people were overly doted upon and often told they were "special", I do not affirm our supposed entitlement.
It is not entitlement we are suffering; it is babying.
Young people have been robbed, deprived even, of experience and of growth.
When a child touches a hot stove for the very first time, it burns so much that the child will always remember never to touch the hot stove again.
We learn only from gaining knowledge through experience, and as long as the older generations proceed to deny the very essence of learning from their youth, young people will remain discredited and undervalued.
From the Tale of the Body Thief, author Anne Rice could not have put the unending battle into better terms, saying, "The young know how truly difficult and dreadful youth can be.
Their youth is wasted on everyone else, that's the horror.
The young have no authority, no respect" (134).
This brings me to the next issue of inexperience.
Young people are always being taken advantage of.
Doctors, dentists, and credit card lines prey on youthful ignorance, attempting to extract monetary gains from their inexperience.
I have been in numerous situations where a doctor tried to cajole me into accepting treatment or medication I did not need but would have to pay severely for.
Recently, I went for my annual eye exam.
I went alone to a new doctor, because I had moved too far from my previous doctor.
This particular optometrist sized up my youth in a matter of seconds.
He told me I needed bifocals, which I later learned were more expensive and later declined.
He also decided to switch my contact brand to a more expensive brand without informing me of the new cost.
He then offered to test for glaucoma and several other eye diseases.
It had been a long time since I was last tested, so I reluctantly agreed.
However, he deliberately failed to mention that the tests were fifty dollars more than I actually needed.
I tested negative for all the diseases, and as I walked out of the office after paying my excessive bill, I realized that I had been taken advantage of.
I then had to blindly drive home in the dark with dilated pupils cursing myself the whole way.
Embarrassed to even admit such an incident, I can imagine what other people my age are also enduring because of their naïveté.
Irish writer and poet, Oscar Wilde said, "In America, the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience," (Stillman 1).
Wilde is right, not only are we invisible, but we are also cruelly used.
The only way we, as young people, can defend ourselves against such schemes is to educate ourselves, to question all authority both old and young and make responsible choices to the best of our abilities.
Experience can only be gained when it is offered.
American society has set apart its youth by setting limitation after limitation, which keeps them dependent, immature, and irresponsible.
The U.
S.
recognizes legal adulthood to be at 18 years of age, and once reached, a citizen is then permitted to join the military, go sky-diving, buy cigarettes or lottery tickets, or get married, among other things.
However, now that the 18 year old is a legal adult, he or she cannot buy or consume alcohol, rent a car, get a hotel room, go or work on a cruise ship alone, become a police officer or EMT, or volunteer for the United Nations.
Is there a paradox in these limitations? Why is America holding its young people back? The answer: because older Americans are distrustful and possibly even afraid of every new generation that threatens to change the world as they know it.
Or perhaps it is because parents are just too afraid their "pride and joy" will get a paper cut, curl up, and then die in pain.
They lack the capability to communicate with their younger citizens on an adult level and appear to be oblivious to the fact that these limitations are stifling their youth more and more, hindering their abilities, their intelligence and therefore, making it so easy to discredit them.
How can we be told to go fight for our country, our freedom in a foreign land overseas, only to return and be refused permission to rent a car and a hotel room so that we may celebrate a vacation in our own country? Tell that to Alexander the Great; tell that to Joan of Arc.
Can America be alone in this great war between youth and its predecessors? Further research of societies and young people around the world may prove that to be true.
It would certainly explain why the U.
S.
tends to fall short in education and leadership.
I have little knowledge of other countries' youthful limitations, but I do know that youth in Europe are given more privileges than young Americans and are far more trusted by the older adults, while youth in Japan undergo rigorous education and are expected of high performances.
In spite of this, broadened research could possibly illustrate similar issues with youthful invisibility around the globe.
If America's young adults remain unseen, then who will become the next superpower of the world in our stead? While scouring the internet for various articles pertaining to youth, the most common issue was whether or not America's young people can take the reins of the country when/if that becomes a necessity.
The majority involved in the argument agree that we could not, another insult to add to the unending list of discredits.
If that be the case, then we must ask ourselves, why? Third Century eminent Greek philosopher, Diogenes Laertius once said, "The foundation of every state is the education of its youth" (Banks 255).
We are what we are taught to be.
America's ludicrous limitations are holding us back, keeping us children when we are actually adults and allowing our elders to perceive us as so, to underestimate us.
Renowned author J.
K.
Rowling, who seems one of the few to remember exactly what youth was like, declares, "Age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimates youth" (386).
I am curious to know at what age a person transforms from an underestimated youth to an underestimating adult.
Will we, today's youth, become these underestimators or will our perception of the generations that follow us be entirely different? Only time will tell.
Does the blame fall on one particular cause? No, the fault cannot be placed solely on parents and their incessant coddling or on America's age restriction laws, or even young people's tendency to live at home longer.
All of these factors contribute, but one cause is acutely more severe than the rest.
I have often heard the phrase, "youth is wasted on the young," but like Rice said, the true waste of youth is caused only by their deprivation of authority and respect.
While the old attempt to restrain our development into ripened adults, the real crime lies with youth itself, for the young stand back and do nothing.
For too long have we been deterred from greatness that we allow ourselves to fall victim to the worst, most degrading discredit of all: invisibility.
The fight for respect will continue, with the older, and presumably wiser, always having the upper hand in battle, and while older adults continue to demand proof of worth from young people, the desire for respect and credit in society will continue to dwindle as long as youth remain invisible.
As one of these translucent beings myself, I know that I must fight for my own position in the world, claiming credit where credit is due and earning experience and authority wherever I can find it.
I encourage other phantoms like me to do the same.
Looking to the future, I am aware that this war will never officially end, and as I grow older, I will look back to the days in which I was invisible and remind myself to see the generations after me.
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