I am a teenager. I am a good teenager. I don't jig classes when I know they're important and when I could very well be caught. I don't smoke. I don't break any serious laws; no vandalism, no stealing, no trespassing, no murdering etc. I respect adults who deserve it for respecting me. I am usually polite and try to do the right thing by others and by myself.
Despite all those things, one thing that pisses me off the most is people taking advantage of my youth. They judge me for being young, for being a teenager (which means you're dumb, rude and inexperienced), for being in uniform and so on. I may not have a PhD in sociology (hell, I'm still a student; hence the daily donning of my school uniform) nor am I a top ranking student with all her marks in the 90s, but I know age discrimination when I'm slapped in the face with it.
I can clearly recall 2 events in which myself and friends I was with were discriminated against due to our age.
Event 1: A restaurant I once went to had great service, great food and great ambiance -all in the company of great people. (Yes, overuse of 'great' but blah). All was going great until the bill came. (Not to say we didn't have the money to pay for the meal). We calculated how much each person's share was and the required amount was collected, combined with everyone else's share, checked, double checked and triple checked.
We knew we had enough to cover the bill + a little in tips. There was no question about it. However, after hanging outside the restaurant for 10 or so minutes after paying the owner came up to us and explained that we were short by $3.15. There was no way we could have been short that much because we checked it multiple times and one of my friends even added some extra coins in at the end just to be nice.
You may assume that the general age in the group I was with would be in the teens as I myself am a teen. However, this assumption is incorrect. The average age of people in my group was roughly 22. The owner said they checked it multiple times but still turned up short and not wanting to be rude (since the owner was really friendly), we paid the $3.15.
It can be argued that it's not even a big sum of money and they could have easily misplaced the money, so why am I making such a big deal out of it? The main focus here is not on the amount of money but rather that we were taken advantage of because of appearing young and vulnerable.
Event 2: On the way home one night with my P-plater friend driving a people mover holding 6 other passengers. It was pretty obvious that we were teenagers since some of us were still wearing our school uniform (the Ps also gives it away). When we were about to pass the airport and jump on the M5 east, we noticed that there was a taxi next to us and for some unknown reason, kept flashing the left light on the taxi's 'TAXI' sign at us. The light pretty much shone straight at the right windows of our car and for a second my vision only consisted of millions of black dots.
This lasted until the road split for one road leading to the M5 east and one leading to Rockdale. Over this period of time the taxi driver shone his light at us multiple times and quite frankly, we were getting really angry about it. Not only was it annoying for us and our drive but it was also dangerous as our driver could've been distracted by the light, swerved, hit a wall or another car and people could have been seriously injured.
Just before the road split and we lost sight of the taxi, he stuck his finger at us through the window. If there was any doubt in our minds that he didn't know what he was doing and was accidentally pressing the light switch or what not, there wasn't any after that. Just for the record, we didn't do anything to provoke him in any way nor did we reciprocate his o-so-elegant gesture at us (all we did was rant about it afterwards).
Perhaps my claims about being discriminated against due to our ages are not actually true, but we shall never know. I am merely stating my conclusion after replaying and analysing both events, whether or not we were or weren't discriminated against is up to you to decide.
[ This post is a little different to my usual ones; it's not filled with random facts about what I did/bought/wore today with sarcastic comments here and there. Lately some things have happened lately which have caused me to want to speak out about this issue. I don't know how many people read my blog but if it makes even the slightest bit of difference to someone then I can die a happy girl/teenager/female/woman/whatever the hell you want to consider me as. Hell, if nobody reads it then so be it or disagrees with me then at least I've said my bit.
P.S. I'm not the goodie goodie the first paragraph makes me appear as! ]
5 comments:
It's a catch 22, really. There's a lot of issues when it comes to teenagers being considered as responsible people.
You know, when I think about it, I reckon this goes for all young adults as well.
There's a real struggle there.
A lot of us are trying to find acceptance and validation by the adults, but it all comes down to our actions, and usually, young people really have their work cut out in that regard.
In a general sense, we may think what we're doing is ok, but in fact it's disruptive or not orderly conduct.
But it's true that a LOT of the time we're scrutinised a HELL of a lot more than we should be, and it really is frustrating, mainly because there are so many young people that screw it all up for the rest of us.
Excessive drinking and smoking, irresponsible teen sex, wreckless driving, drug abuse, anti-social behaviour...why? Because it's cool? Because that dude looked at you funny and you HAD to go beat him up? Because that chick looked like she was begging for it? Because you're a teenager and therefore you have a RIGHT to rebel against authority and do stupid shit?
People really have to get their priorities straight.
Most of the time it's a search to find yourself and where you belong in this world. People generally grow out of it, that's why it's called a phase, but it really doesn't help when no one's willing to help, but they're so willing to criticise everything you do.
I have no idea what that taxi driver was thinking...but then again ALL taxi drivers are fuckin crazy XD
I'm beginning to see where you were going with your original Terrigal scenario, though.
*sob*
our little bonnie is finally growing up~~~
oops...did i just say u are young again???
the truth about the taxi driver...*shock horror*
lol...sorry to burst your bubble bonnie...but theres more to the taxi driver than meets the eye...for you see...i accidentally had my fog lights on that night...and didn't realise until i got to stratty! WHOOPS!!! ><;;;
okai...so with this frame of reference...ray and i have developed a new theory for the taximan's behaviour
a)when we first encountered the taxi driver, he slowed down considerably.
originally - we thought he was picking on us
now - he was blinded by my fog lights when looking in the rear view mirror xD
b) after overtaking him in the next lane he flashed his side lights at us with a menacing grin and a seedy look on his face
originally - we thought he was a madman
now - he was taking revenge!!! trying to blind us with his pathetic little side lights and what seedy and childish way of acting for an adult too...>__>;;;
so there you have it folks...the skeleton is out of the closet...=D
I was going to post a really long rant about what I felt about being treated like a child and stuff, but I decided against it, since most of it has already been said by steve and kfc. XD
Geoffffffffffrreeeeeie clearly cannot drive properly is my only conclusion =P
And don't bias against taxi drivers, they're super cool. They know all this stuff that's so amazing...(unless of course, they're seedy asians who can't speak engrish properry..)
Steve: yeah, I hate all the tags with being a teen >< (tho I reckon I'm a pretty typical teen XD)
Kev: *kicks Kev* enough said.
Geoff: I still reckon part of the reason was because we were young. *shrugs* But hell, that's only my opinion. Nobody else has to agree with me. It IS my blog.
Cam: blah to you.
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