A Letter to all Parents

Dear parents,

I hope you are doing fine. I have been meaning to write this letter for quite some time but put it off for some reason or the other. This is an open letter to all the parents who read my blog and if you are not a parent then do me a favour and show it to yours. This letter contains things that your son or daughter might want to tell you but does not. Raising kids is not an easy job because there is no course in college that teaches you ‘Teenagers: 101’ or ‘How to Pacify Crying Kids’ and we understand that you have sacrificed a lot of things just to make us happy and see us shine. But there are a few things you need to hear from our side. So take your time and read this long but sincere letter.

First of all, we are different from you and that is not a bad thing. Yes, our take on a lot of things can be very different from yours. For instance, some of us support gay rights, are atheists or agnostic, choose to be vegans, believe that gender is fluid and so on. We are exposed to a lot of different information that shapes our thoughts and opinions which might be of concern to you because they are not similar to yours. Well, let me tell you something. Your parents might have found your views to be ‘too progressive’ and ‘not in lieu with our culture’ but you turned out just fine. The same thing is happening to us and do not worry, we will be fine too.

Secondly, please do not compare us with other kids. I know you want us to be the best at everything we do but it hurts when you tell us that another person is better than us. All of us have something unique that makes us stand out and to quote Dr. Seuss ‘Why fit in when you were born to stand out?’ Sorry to break your bubble but the cherubic faced, well mannered and studious prodigy who is the ‘ideal child’ is sometimes the craziest one. How do I know? Well, that would mean spilling secrets and putting some people I know in trouble and – someone just take this laptop away from me before I reveal anything else! Well, the thing is we love to make you proud by doing something that we are good at and it does not always have to be studies or sports.

Lastly, be our friends. I know you have been trying to do that for the past five or six years but hear me out here. Try talking to us about something that we could relate to. For instance, talk to us about the pranks you played in school or the time you were suspended from college (we all know that happened!) so that we can open up about some silly stuff we have done without being afraid of being punished. Talk to us about the ‘forbidden stuff’ like sex, alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, etc because if you don’t we might end up getting information from the wrong source and that can go wrong in a lot of ways. We are not little kids anymore so instead of threatening or scolding, why don’t you try being a cool friend?

Being a teenager nowadays is harder than you imagine. There is so much of peer pressure and though you tell us to ignore it, it is not that simple. I have to admit, that we have crazy fights and might not get along sometimes due to ‘generation gap’ but we love you know that you want the best for us. I hope I have not offended you with anything that I have said. If so, please accept my apologies. So these were some of the things that I felt my generation would want to tell the previous generation. I sincerely wish we would find great companions in each other for a lifetime.

Love
Your teen on the verge of adulthood.