First of all, the primary source uses many words to describe adults’ actions to indicate the oppression teenagers suffered right now. Evidence like “clean up your looks,” “watch all the things you do,” “got methods of keeping you clean” and “rip up your heads” clearly show what kind of oppression teenagers have and what they need to resist. Adults are trying to make teenagers fit the “good standards” created by them. Good teenagers should be innocent, be obedient, study hard and so on.
What’s more, adults are ready to find out teenagers’ mistakes at any time so that they could guide teenagers to what they thought is the correct way. They also want to make teenagers believe that the adults’ words are all right. Teenagers who live in such environment for a long time would have highlevel pressure and these pressures would probably cause mental health problems. Teenagers are mostly in adolescence period, so I think mental health problem is very serious for them because every little change in this period would result in totally different future.
However, according to Glatz and Christy, in order to improve parental self-efficacy, parents are better able to advocate adequate limits for their children and should be good at dealing conflicts with child (1370). They claim that parents need to guide their child to positive development and set up some rules to help them when they are teenagers. Although the secondary source challenges the original claim, primary source still states that oppressions given by adults would have negative effects on teenagers and would result in serious problems about their future development.
According to the song, in order to avoid these problems, teenagers should take action to resist the oppressions. Secondly, the primary source points out the truth that adults’ expectations are too hard to achieve. The sentence “You’re never gonna fit in much, kid” explains why these teenagers have to resist the oppression given by adults. In today’s society, many teachers always expect their students to achieve higher score in tests and most of the parents always expect their children to be successful in all aspects.
They both have high expectations on teenagers. In the meanwhile, teenagers keep trying to do their best to fit adults’ standards, but the problem is that adults will never be satisfied with their performance and keep making new requirements. Then the disappointment of adults will make teenagers depressed and pay too much attention on their academic performance. They probably lack confidence and are unable to balance study and entertainment well.
As expressed in the article “Adolescent Mental Health And Academic Functioning: Empirical Support For Contrasting Models Of Risk And Vulnerability,” higher levels of depression and poorer academic performance are two main risk factors for adolescent mental health (Lucier-Greer, Mallory, et al. 1286). High expectations of adults would give teenagers great stress on their performance and the failure of achieving adults’ expectation would result in high-level depression. These two factors are very dangerous for teenagers to get mental health problems or even cause suicide.
The primary source shows that adults need to change their education method since high expectations have so many bad results. Adults may never notice their education problems if no one tells them, so it is necessary for teenagers to organize a revolt to tell them. In addition, the song states that adults create a fake world for teenagers to keep them away from other voices to control their mind. In the music video, there is an image of the room’s door with lock which is shaking. The image discloses teenagers’ situation and their internal instability.
The door is like the barrier adults set for teenagers to avoid them having contact with the real world. They are unable to hear different voices. Adults have already filtered all the information and just let teenagers know what they want teenagers know. They often said that they are aimed to teaching teenagers judge the rights and wrongs in the society. However, teenagers even do not have chance to have a comprehensive understanding of some things, so how could they distinguish what is right and what is wrong?
How could they develop their own thinking? The adults think that creating a fake world is good for teenagers’ development. The primary source indicates that it’s very necessary for teenagers to break the barrier and have their own thinking. What’s more, the shaking lock exhibits teenagers’ instability. It means that teenagers are also desired for breaking the barrier and have contact with the real world. The song suggests that the best way for teenagers to change the situation is revolting.
Glatz and Christy state that adults should learn to understand and adopt teenagers’ demand for independence and privacy (1370). Children would need more personal space when they gradually grow up. Many changes take place during adolescence and teenagers would develop their own judgments and recognition toward the world in this period. Instead of controlling their mind, adults should give them some space to develop to mature humans. After all the above analysis, the primary source presents the view that teenagers need resist the control of adults and ask for space for their own development.
