ROAR BLOG #1: The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager

Courtney Patterson
Roar Blog
April 1, 2010

Roar Blog #2

Summary:
In the book The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager written by Thomas Hine, Hine research if being a teenager from the way they act, talk, and do other things, is a phase or a part of people that never goes away. The readers learn about the phases that teenagers go through. One of the phases that Hine wrote about was how many teens express their conventional wisdom, but they also take apart of awful behavior, that many adults think is unnecessary. The same adults who don’t agree with the teenagers’ behaviors can sometimes behave the same way as the teens. Is the teenage agers a phases that many people get out of their system when they are still teens or is this a phases that which people could not never fully get over?
The readers also learned that the growth spurt and physical maturity that happens with teenagers today, has happened quicker in today’s teens then the teens in the past. Hine believes that it’s due to the food and how people live in today. Maturity is always a difficult thing to go through and Hine talked about Erik Erikson, who believes that today’s society moving too fast. The older generations aren’t able to pass on their thoughts/ experiences about how teenagers should deal with maturity.
The culture that American teens live in is very fast paced and it forced teens to deal with adulthood quicker than most culture, but coming of age is shown differently in every culture. Some culture feed their teenage girls fatting foods and forbids them to do any physical activity, because they are preparing them for marriage. In America, Hine express that the culture helps many teenagers have eating disorders because America is always telling teens that they should be extremely thin, but at the same time America always tries to force advertising for fatty snacks down teens’ throats. This also leads to many teens having to deal with obesity.
*Pages summarized 27-44


Quote:
“Older people may complain about the hardships they had to endure when they were growing up, but when it comes down to the things that really count, it never gets any easier to be younger” (Hine 41).


Reaction:
My reaction to this quote is that it shows how growing up will always be hard, because culture is changing and things are not the same way they once were. This quote is important to understand because it shows that being young will always be difficult to deal with. The other generation will always complain and say that the new generation is out of control, but the older generations need to understand that the new teens are living in a different time, so it calls for new experiences. Thomas Hine’s writing style is very good at expressing both how today’s teens lived their lives and their cultures, along with the other ways that pass generations lived their lives.