RateItAll: The Opinion Network

My teens started out pretty bad,I have pretty much blocked out age 13 to 16 from my memory. After I tuned 16 things changed for the better,From 16 on to 19 were great,and so far the 20's are alot better.

My teen years had its high points and its low points. But I made it through.

This comment is a short addition to my comment on the 2000's decade page. I work in a public high school in Pheonix, Arizona. I must say that your generation is to mild on things that should and could be fought aganist. Such as your generation has pushed back to many times..you have been told don't do this and that..even when some of you are young adults. You have been told STOP what you are doing(such as things that are not the best things in the world to do) even though the people around you may be doing them and may not be setting an example. You may love and respect them but your parents cannot and should not forever cling to you when you become an adult(people want their kids to follow their path istead of letting them make their own path). There are steps you can take to grow up. Ask questions and hear and think about the words that people used. And like I put down in my other comment..don't be very moldable. Form your own view on something. And no matter how hard some people may try don't let them rip you from what you have come to belive in. Think good on a reply to the older generation when they try to push you back. Your Generation is the next powerful Generation...And you will not remain powerless kids forever..you will find and keep your own way. Opps! my comment was not so short after all! Arizona Bird.

I am 14 and i quite like the life i live apart from it being really rough, i smoke permenantly which i enjoy bt hate, i started smoking new years eve 2004 and its now december the 7th 2005 and i still enjoy and smoke around 15-20 a day, i have had weed before and i like it but its nt worth ruining your life for, at the moment i have a mate stayin every friday nyt and we have a £5 bottle of vodka each around half a litre each and we both drink it all and have a great laugh. The only thing annoying about being 14 is that adults treat you like babies they dont realise how grown up i am, they just think were money grabbing trouble causing rascles which alot of us are bt i am nt like that im really good have lots of common sense and own my own business on ebay which i set up my self with just £200 in my bank and now i earn around £600-800 a month now which i used to buy more stock and sell more, i am the best person at computers goin, i have hacked into my schools mainframe and deleted all the filed and gt on and even started to unblok all the bloked sites the teachers wont let u go on which they still cant realise wts happening which gives me great pleasure because ALL you adults need to realise tht teenagers arent all the same and u shudnt be type cast and luk at us as pieces of vermin -Ryan

Being a teen was always rough.Read your history.For me,it was a frustrating time when I was no longer a carefree,optimistic kid but not yet able to run my own life.It was a time when I found out that people in authority often abuse their power.It was also a time of learning about love and sex-which get confused in the minds of teens.I wish I had that kind of energy again,but I'd NEVER want to go through my teens again!(Even though I was wild and had my fun then,I had lots of pain then,too.)

Horrible. Couldn't drive (until it seemed too late) couldn't travel, wasn't in college yet thus forced to sit through government-sponsored moronic schools, couldn't drink, had to hide my cigs, forced to hide my pornography, a complete lack of sex, degrading part-time jobs that did not enhance my appreciation for my present upper-class living, and last but not least- being treated like sh#t by every cop I came across. I walked off the stage of my hs graduation and ran to college. . .

I would not say my teen years were the best. I am a very quiet and shy person, and my social life was hell in school. Whatever i did, i never fit in. People can be so mean and critical during this time of life. Looking back, i think it is a great time of life to learn things. If you wont listen, you learn. My friends at that time were the best thing that happenned to me. Even though i have not talked to them in years, i would not trade my relationship with them for the world! If i did not have them as friends, i would not be myself today. It gives me something to look back on. It seems like we dont listen as teenagers and learn from our mistakes.Then pass what we learned to our children today who:DONT LISTEN! This world is messed up! If i can go back, i would help me get a better social life by being in extracurricular activities dispite other wrongdoings.

I discovered marijuana at 15. From there things kind of went to pot so to speak. It made an already rebellious boy separate himself more from family ways. It really made me stop doing anything that I did not love doing. At that time it was Tennis, Girls and my guitar in that order. I never really graduated to worse drugs but I am paying the price for my lack of interest in school now. I only lasted one year in college.

at the time, I hated my teens, i wished I could just stay in bed until i graduated but I got out and I did what had to be done. Now I think back and I actually had a pretty decent time.Would I go back then? hell no, thinking as bad as it was then, it's 100x worse now.

I think the most difficult of decades, because life throws a lot at you and you have very little experience to understand what is going on. Happily, everyone you know is faking it the way you are. Too much temptation, too much alcohol, too much (you know what) and the next thing you know all those years you should have been studying and conditioning yourself for adulthood are gone and you play catch-up. I remember trying to prep my children, each individually, for what they would confront in college, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. The narrow, protected psyche of a high school kid thrust into a college setting where anything goes, and who are your friends? What choices will you make? If you raised them well, they'll come back, somewhere near your concept of the straight and narrow. But they're never the same after sowing their wild oats. Hopefully, they realize that your love and support never changes.

definitely my favorite decade. i discovered alcohol at 15 and sex at 16. i had no responsibility except working part-time and going to school. school was easy, i actually graduated half a year early. i had sex with anything female that moved, i drank anything that would get me buzzed, and i did my share of drugs as well. not saying this because i am proud of it but because it was a valuable learning experience. i had fun, but knew when it was time to just say no. i would have loved to have another decade like this one.

I would call my teen years a wash. Some bad and some good with the good winning out in the end. Like Irish I lost my dad at thirteen.. in an auto accident that also claimed my ability to speak as my larynx and vocal cords were crushed. So at thirteen I was almost six feet tall with orange hair, freckles, huge feet, and had to speak with my hands. Plus I had to be the man of the house as my mother worked and I had four younger brothers. Still, I discovered that I was good at sports (made varsity in three), started reading a lot, made friends, discovered sex, and came out the tail end of those years healthy, fairly well educated, grounded, and excited about what was to come next. I grew up and I learned a lot. In the end it's all good. I wouldn't go back but I don't regret any of it either.

Had some good, even great moments but generally pretty miserable. I wouldn't live those years again for anything, especially 13-16. Seventeen to nineteen weren't as bad. I had the ill fortune to have my father die a few days before I turned thirteen (although to be less selfish, my ill fortune was nothing on his) and that messed up my early teens pretty good.

Do whatever you want? Whenever you want? What generation were you guys living in, because my generation adolescence wasn't a piece of cake. Why is it that in adolescence we are convinced that we are so alone and no one else is capable of understanding our emotions, and so we reside in solitude with no one to comfort us except ourselves? A great writer once wrote that it is during adolescence that we discover our identity, which is to say we discover for the first time that we are alone. Isn't that a horrible feeling? The more you surround yourself with people physically, it seems the more depressed you become. It's vicious being unable to find comfort in such an inconsolable state, and with all the obligations and pressures (academic, social, etc.), you feel like you are drowning with all these debts to pay off. And then, surprise!, only a few years later you think what a dope you were for being so self-absorbed as to shut out every source of pleasure, and then blame it on misfortune. Adolescence is truly a confusing time of experimentation, and the slightest difference in it can make a dramatic difference in adulthood. Though I don't believe in regrets and changing our mistakes, I wouldn't relive it for a million bucks.

Hands down THE best time of my life. If someone asked me to go back again I would. No responsibilities, school was easy and I tried to make the most of what some would describe as the worst times in a young persons life. I have few regrets and maybe I'm paying for some of them now, but I have great stories to tell my grandchildren which puts a huge smile on my face.

I'm 20, and am already missing my teens. I did a lot of rediculous crazy stuff then that doesn't really cross my mind to do today. The stuff that was new and exciting then has become more commonplace and dull. I'm becoming more of a realist and less of a dreamer. The part-time job actually goes to pay bills. School is hard now. Don't get me wrong. 20 isn't bad, but there's a lot to be said for the teen years.

Did whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, however I wanted, it sucked, I'm still paying for that so-called freedom to this day. No purpose, no thought to the future, nothing. One thing that did save me from utter destruction was the grace of GOD and because of that grace staying in school, so I at least had enough education to go to college and be competitve.

It was some fun for me, but I think for myself and everyone else, it's a time of awkward change. You're not a little kid anymore but you're not an adult by a long shot. I found those years a bit annoying.

Ghastly for me, and probably not much better for others. One of the common illusions is that you are miserable yourself but others are happy, and it isn't until much later that you realize that this was a cruel illusion. I was two years younger than my classmates because I skipped grades--we didn't have a gifted program in my school--and I think it warped me for life. Not a pleasant memory, those times, for me, not at all.

Combination of rebellious fun and high school hell. I rebelled against the trendy and obnoxious crowd. I didn't rebel against my home life at all and stayed out of serious trouble. Very mischevious.

The teenage years may be fun for people who are trendy and obnoxious, but for people like me, they're hell.