LibraryThing

All topics

Hot topics

Book discussions

All discussions

All discussions Books



Authors



Series

Your LibraryThing

Join to start using.

Twenty-five Things to Know on Becoming a Teenager Off-topic Join LibraryThing to post. This topic is currently marked as "dormant"—the last message is more than 90 days old. You can revive it by posting a reply. 1offtopicsam First Message Sep 29, 2007, 5:16am A family I know has a tradition of making a book when their children hit 13. Everyone writes a memory, or a piece of advice. I set down to write a list of 25 things that are *actually* true. Is there anything wrong here? Is there anything I'm missing?



1. You are somewhat better looking that you think you are.



2. You are somewhat more popular that you think you are.



3. Your parents are somewhat more cool than you think they are. They are somewhat less cool than they think they are.



4. Your parents are sometimes wrong. You are wrong more often.



5. For any given "grown up" activity, somewhat fewer people are doing it than you think.



6. For any given "grown up" activity, somewhat fewer people are doing it than say they are doing it.



7. People are not thinking about you. They are thinking about what you're thinking about them.



8. You are entering a period of chronic, low-level insanity. You will look back on your teen age years and realize this. All teenage girls are insane.



9. Teenage boys are worse. They are stark, raving, often droolingly insane, and generally remain so well into their twenties.



10. There is nothing wrong with your breath.



11. Your body smells just fine.



12. Noses never hit. Braces do not lock. Teeth sometimes hit. Lips chap, but it take a long, long time. You now know absolutely everything about the dangers of kissing.



13. Oh, I forgot. It's much easier than you think to get a hickie. If you get one, you will try hard to hide it. Your parents and teachers will try equally hard to pretend they don't see it, or don't know what it is.



14. The coolest kids in my class are failures now. This is a simple fact. If I had known it at the time I would have thought it a very fun fact. Now I realize it's kind of sad.



15. The nerdiest kid in my mother's class went on to win a Nobel Prize in Physics. (He is, however, still a major nerd.)



16. No teacher ever hates you. They just don't think that way. The good ones will love you a little or a lot. The bad ones will have the same emotion toward you that a factory worker has toward objects flying past on an assembly line.



17. Your parents don't hate you. Your parents love you more than you can even understand now.



18. If something is illegal, there is probably a good reason.



19. The things that you think will get you into trouble probably won't get you into as much trouble as you think, but will still get you into trouble.



20. The things you think might be dangerous are probably more dangerous than you think.



21. Tattoos last an extremely long time. Studies have shown that only 1% of teenagers who get a tattoo like them ten years later.



22. Nose rings and tongue studs last only as long as you want them, but bother parents just as much.



23. You're not stuck. It will end. But it's going to take a long, long time.



24. When you enter a room and everyone is laughing, it isn't about you.



25. When you enter a room and everyone is laughing, and you recently blew your nose, and they're all pointing at you, and there's something green swinging in the corner of your vision, considering revising rule 24. 2readafew Sep 29, 2007, 9:58am Nice! 3MerryMary Oct 1, 2007, 6:14pm Perfect! 4NonfictionFanatic Jan 15, 2008, 4:57pm Wow! That pretty much sums up teenagers in a nut shell!

5januaryw Jan 18, 2008, 2:25am Everyone is as insecure about things as you are. Even the cool kids think they need to change everything about themselves.



Nerds are true and genuine people who make excellent friends. 6NonfictionFanatic Jan 18, 2008, 3:58pm #5...

Are you a teenager or have been there done that? Cause either way serious words of wisdom and I totally agree! I hate it when people act like they think they are perfect. No one is totally comfortable with themselves. 7januaryw Jan 18, 2008, 4:37pm #6 Been there done that, wore that ugly t-shirt 8NonfictionFanatic Jan 25, 2008, 4:08pm That's where I am at right now. But thinks for the outlook cause so many of those rules totally applied to me. 9emaestra Mar 4, 2008, 6:36pm 26. The clothing and hair style that you think are so very cool now will make you cringe when you look at photos of yourself ten years from now.



27. Contrary to what people may tell you, these are not the best years of your life. They may, in fact, be the worst years of your life. But you will survive and it will get better.



I think I am going to post your list in my classroom. I know it made my day. 10cal8769 Mar 6, 2008, 8:47am This message has been deleted by its author. 11Avrillavigneaddict Mar 6, 2008, 10:57am lol 12fannyprice Mar 13, 2008, 10:59am Agree, agree! I'm sending this to my parents - we are all way past the teenage years, but I know they will get a kick out of it. 13echomikeromeo May 26, 2008, 9:05pm Speaking as someone on the upper end of the teenage years, I completely agree with all except number 18, which is absolutely wrong. 14whersmacheese Jun 16, 2008, 11:25am Spoken like a true teenager 15kaelirenee Jun 16, 2008, 12:06pm For #22-You might want to make mention of the fact that you'll still get a scar when you take out the tongue stud, navel ring, or whatever. Oh, and labret piercings are just annoying (boy did I learn that one the hard way). And I think all of those upset my mother more than my tattoos, though now that a decade has past, she's better with them. 16Cavale Jun 20, 2008, 11:02pm What's wrong with this list:



You use 'that' instead of 'than' in the first two.

Number 18 is untrue.

Number 21 is made up.



And the entire list is trite. 17januaryw Jul 7, 2008, 1:01pm Message 16: Cavale

What's wrong with your response:

1. It's overcritical

2. It shows that you lack all sense of sentimentality

3. It's a bit rude 18MistyMikoK Aug 8, 2008, 10:28pm i love this 19chefgirl95 Oct 18, 2008, 8:09pm wow whoever wrote that list should so consider maybe writing like a book or something... its good 20KathiJ Oct 18, 2008, 9:30pm I have just sent the list off to many people. Including my 19 year old child. I have another child turning 13 in a month. Will make a copy to give to her on her birthday. Wonderful list. 21thedailyuplift Oct 22, 2008, 5:19pm 12. chins will get raw but it takes a bit of time or fun for this to happen.

my blog below....

www.thedailyuplift.com 22Pemberley Oct 31, 2008, 5:03pm - Books you read, should be reread later on.

- Do not read books about teenagers when a teenager. They are much better, when you think you don't need them anymore. 23twilightlover Nov 2, 2008, 6:58pm lol this so makes my day 24offtopicsam Edited: Nov 2, 2008, 8:21pm This message has been deleted by its author. 25offtopicsam Nov 2, 2008, 8:25pm I'm rather fond of this too. It's trite, I know, and I can understand why it's attacked. Nevertheless, I think it says some true things, and some things that--however obvious--seemed like real discoveries to me at the time. Over and over again I am confronted with evidence that "all the bullshit is true," or anyway most of it.



I'm particularly attached to the idea of asking a teenage to consider themselves seriously from another point of view. The idea that everyone is thinking about you, or about how you smell, that your teachers "hate" you--well, they all stem from the same teenage affliction: an inability to imagine a world in which you, and what you are going through aren't the center. It has this weirdly distoring effect on everything.



I should say that the girl I wrote this for is now finishing up high-school, and applying for colleges. Except she isn't really. Like so many teenagers she has this idea that the world is out to get her, and parents and colleges are part of that. She has vague ideas of living at home and doing nothing for a year instead. She doesn't know what she wants to do with her life and considers this to be an existential crisis rather than a restatement of her age and situation.



The application essays don't help. They all pretend to believe the applicants ar- and ought to be fully formed. If I worked in an admissions department, I'd gladly let someone in who simply confessed "I want to go to college so I get past being a dumb-ass high-school student and becoming something else. I'll try hard."



I want to strangle her. Or leave her along in the woods with a rifle, a canteen and a wilderness survival guide so she could learn something about the world's combination of cold indifference and reward for learning and industry.



I do think this would make a nice impulse buy book, small, one page per rule and with some cute cartoons. The cartoons would make it, probably. But being a "published" author is an extremely frustrating, random and unpleasant business--and I have a job. 26Pemberley Edited: Nov 5, 2008, 5:47pm This book sounds like a great idea! I've worked in a bookshop for several years and from my experience there I think that this book will be appreciated by many book buyers. You're probably right about the cartoons. That's what catches the eye in the first place.



I hope I wasn't misunderstood, when I stated "don't read books about teenagers when a teenager." When I wrote this, I had those novels in mind that are particularly written for teenagers. Sometimes it's better for a teenagers to read some "real" novels, especially in times of change. At least, it was for me. Those teenage books are much more fun to read, when you are grown up and can look at these coming-of-age years from a distance. 27Taleri Dec 31, 2008, 6:50pm Speaking from experience as a teacher, #11 is wrong. You might want to change it to say "Your body smells just fine, as long as you shower regularly and dont drench yourself in Axe or Tag."

The only thing that smells worse than BO is someone who overcompensates with smelly "deoderant."



I would reverse 8 and 9, Teenage girls are worse, specifically middle school girls, as they can be incredibly vindictive. Boys will do something stupid, but at least tend to be honest about it. Girls will do soomething stupid, and then blame it on someone else to get them in trouble instead. Unfortunately they almost always get away with it because they are also very good at exploiting many adults' perception that girls are innocent and need to be protected from "evil" influences.



Message 9 - I agree with your #27

Message 22/26 - I agree with your idea of not reading books about teenagers while a teenager. 28AngelaB86 Dec 31, 2008, 7:04pm "She has vague ideas of living at home and doing nothing for a year instead."



I stayed home for a year after graduating from high school. However, I had a job (well, not all the time), and I studied independently for CLEP tests so when I started college, I had a semester's worth of college credits under my belt already. I wish more kids would take a year off before going to college, because I'm sick of watching kids wash out in their first semester/year because they just weren't prepared for college.



"I want to go to college so I get past being a dumb-ass high-school student and becoming something else. I'll try hard."



Hear, hear! I would buy your book, especially if it was part of a duology-the first part is the "Teens Should Know..." and the second half a wilderness survival guide for those teens who respond with "Or else what?!"

29Taleri Dec 31, 2008, 7:10pm "Hear, hear! I would buy your book, especially if it was part of a duology-the first part is the "Teens Should Know..." and the second half a wilderness survival guide for those teens who respond with "Or else what?!"



Precisely! :) 30alloverme Feb 28, 2009, 2:16pm i did actually have a teacher that hated me she was actually fired for hostility to students 31ianea Feb 10, 2010, 7:50am it is cool and still absolutely true!!! i agree with you and try to give you an extra tipp so

26. your junger sister / brother understands more than you think she/he does -even if that goes with a good or bad meaning- sometimes it was your fault and not their

by the way still being a teen that tries to accept that.

anyway your list was .... True after all!!! :) 32ianea Feb 10, 2010, 7:59am what is wrong with your list:

- do not like - do not judge so rudely

- try to give explanations

- think before writting , i mean noone told you that all 25 things are that true or that you have to have experienced so or even that you should feel those 25 ways being a teen if one of them worked for you then you are just fine , aren't you? 33brittney-olet7 Sep 28, 2010, 2:05pm This is pretty good , but you forgot to mention heartbreak . Lot's of teenagers go through so much heartbreak , and some have trouble dealing with it . I'm actually a teenager , and this would have been great when I was at the deepest point in my depression because of a break up . But otherwise , good job for the rest ! 34ianea Sep 30, 2010, 4:01pm Yeah , that's so true.... But it is also the crazy heartbeat and the fast breathing after a kiss. I am a teenager too so trust me i think it goes like that. First hearbeat then heartbreak. Anyway i hope things are fine now and you have moved on. :) Besides there's so much more to come!