Are you Daddy cool or uber hip mom?

Are we puzzled at the behavior of our adolescent children, do we treat them like babies? Mebbe not but we have never tried to enter their bizarre world, do we understand their lingo? We think their modified language is full of jingoism/slang which we thing is idiolect. Are we living under a rock wanting them to say thank you when the say “cheers”, “ta”, “cool”, or “nice one”. Do you wince when you hear the song Kolaveri Kolaveri Di, which got more than 7,59,385 views ----- on the net. Then you are moving away from them instead of saying “fab” and gracias”. Are they treading on your sacred cows “holy cow u” when they say “Yo boyz sing the soul song”.

Teenagers are always attracted to forbidden fruits like Adam, love and the darker side of the moon especially, not the innocent love between boy and girl that you experienced in youth. Harry Potter, Vampire loves, are like metaphors for the plight of today’s teenagers, some of them display anger, resentment and unpredictability that as adolescents they experienced from their parents and elders. They are trying to make sense of this tumultuous adult world and it becomes curiouser and curiouser. For them it is not about loving a single person in particular, they too follow their group herd instincts.The culture that surrounds and absorbs teenagers play a huge role in their lives. It is about loving the very person that their friends love the Archetype that they identify with a specific character who creates a security stereotype to validate their own experience.

It is a sort of “viral” thing like the song on u tube “white skin u girl” a shared fixation. Nonsensical words becomes trendy. All young girls and boys want to be part of a group any group.Together in the anonymity of the group the teens come to confronting situations / social issues that have pushed them to be edgy, morbidity or wickedness which becomes cool.

The themes that revolve around the groups include identity, sexuality, depression, drug abuse peer pressure,family problems, grades, love, friendship and authority. Their free creativity is actually governed or curbed by a rigid parental or societal system, imposed from without. It is more about connecting with people who like the same stuff. It is reminiscent of the old pop culture, where the group’s turns its back on the conventional aesthete judgment of elders.

All teenagers are after all intellectuals, insatiably curious and they puzzle over some of the things that bewilder us. Elders or parents and adults often cross the thin redline of the complex dawn of the teenagers, without grasping their issues which are not black and white but contain myriads shades of grey, which are baffling them. They want some empathetic dude who understands the psyche and spirit, not an old fogy who shatters their dreams in the hubris of the fading sunlight of his life. So clasp their hands take the physical and emotional journey through the conflicts of their pain and suffering to bring real meaning to their lives.

As a wise old parent we must protect our teenagers in facing their challenges for their spirits to survive.