Hine Talking Points

The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager
By Thomas Hine

From this reading, it seems like Hine thinks of teenagers as a group of people stuck in an awkward limbo of life. Teenagers are caught in a constant struggle. “They are frail, vulnerable creatures. They are children. They are sex fiends. They are the death of culture. They are the hope of us all.” In this quotation, Hine refers to the fact that our views of teenagers are incredibly contradictory, but to me it sums up the idea of the teenager perfectly, messy and unique.

The differentiation between time frames and the term teenager was confusing.
“While it’s anachronistic to talk about teenagers before 1940, I have done so.”

Reading this was like our description of teenagers. There were all kinds of drastically different ideas based on what our experiences as a teenager were.

I found the way Hine spoke about how adults contradict themselves when it comes to the expectations they have for teenagers very funny, but also very accurate. How is it so much and so little can be expected all at once?