Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Most of us grow up hearing that we are either too mature or too immature for our age.
Having personally experienced this label, I can say with confidence that it’s not easy to live up to this expectation. Not to mention being expected to ‘act your age’ at the same time, as my loving parents would put it.
It’s a paradox, to put it simply.
This shouldn’t be a problem since it’s a common practice of the young to behave differently with their friends and equally different with their family. Never the twain shall meet.
The trouble, however, starts when the two do meet.
The young bring to the table their ideologies of what it means to be young and to have fun in today’s world and often, parents just don’t agree.
There can never be a standard way to enjoy your youth because there are a variety of multicultural ways to do so.
In the Middle East, most youths go to the mall or enjoy dinner with friends whereas in the Western world, clubbing and weekend road trips are just as enjoyable.
It’s particularly hard to want to act your age when the media portrayal is different in comparison to what ones youth should actually comprise of. Influences such as books and the internet don’t make it any easier, and let’s not forget those friends that never fail to expose us to all kinds of information - whether it is necessary or not.
Either way, being young and having an opinion doesn’t have to be paradoxical. Being young in today’s world means being educated a majority of the time which in turn means you can make more informed but not necessarily better decisions.
Now as to whether that’s a blessing or a curse, I’ll leave that up to you.
