Why I’m so glad I’m not a teenager today: Frances Whiting

Teenagers today have it so tough - there’s so much judgment, and so much pressure.

Schoolies 2024 Picture: Brett Hartwig

I have a few friends whose children have just graduated from high school, along with the hundred of thousands of other school leavers around Australia.

Some of these young adults will look back on their high school years as the best days of their lives. Others will look back and shudder.

Some of them went to schoolies and had an absolute blast. Some of them left early, and some chose not to go at all.

But all of them are young adults who most likely have made a few mistakes along the way, and are highly likely to make some more.

I know I did. And so did all of my friends. We also had a lot of fun. We danced. We sang. We got drunk. And we made some choices that some people might have found questionable, but we didn’t hurt anybody, and crucially, nobody filmed it.

And thank goodness for that. Because, as my friends and I often reflect: “Can you imagine if some of the stuff we got up to was on camera?”

I’m very grateful, for example, that nobody filmed my best friend and I at Moofy Davies 21st birthday party. Let’s just say it involved Blue Lagoon cocktails (aah, the eighties), a very tall tree, and an attempt to use the skirts of our large taffeta dresses (again, it was the eighties) as parachutes.

Schoolies having fun. Picture: Jason Edwards

But young adults now don’t have to imagine it, because it happens to them. All the time. Sometimes they film it themselves. And sometimes they’re making mistakes. And sometimes, they’re just having fun, and either way, I want to say to those young people that it’s okay. That you’re okay. And so are your friends. You’re not actively hurting people? That’s okay. You’re not putting yourself, or other people in danger? That’s okay too. You’re not shaming somebody else? Again, okay. You’re not filming someone else without their consent and then posting it for laughs? Also, okay.

And you’ve graduated high school, and you’ve somehow got through it, even with all the pressures you face? That’s more than okay. That’s brilliant.

Because the other thing my friends and I say to each other - all the time - is that we are so glad we are not teenagers today.

We are glad we did not face the daily onslaught of pressures today’s young men and women do. We did not live with daily judgments of our behaviour. Our clothes. Our looks. Our lifestyles. Our choices. We faced all of that, of course - teenagers then - and now - can be brutal. But we were not fed a daily diet of it, 24/7. We had periods of respite.

It was - and I firmly believe this - a less competitive time. Less status aware. Less complicated.

Now, please do not think I am looking back at my early years through rose coloured glasses, I know that we faced many of the same hurts, the same shames and the same self doubts. Of course we did, it was ever thus.

But we didn’t have to do it publicly. We could go somewhere to lick our wounds in private. Today’s young generation often doesn’t have that luxury.

So I say to the 2024 graduates, Bravo. Bravo to you all. Well done. Go well and remember, you can’t use a taffeta skirt as a parachute.

Fran Loves: 103.7 FM. It’s the 4MBS classical music station and lately, I’ve been listening to it whenever I’m in traffic. Such a gentle, soothing station and the announcers are informative and passionate about what they play.

Originally published as Why I’m so glad I’m not a teenager today: Frances Whiting