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?

When I was 13...

When I was 13, I specifically remember fighting for happiness. I had just moved from the tiny town I grew up in to a much larger and scarier town where I knew no one. It was the eighth grade, and it was scary. I was determined to be happy and to make things work. If I had known then just how lifechanging 13 was, I probably would have vowed to remember more about it. I'm a September baby, so birthdays and the new school year always coincided.

To me, 13 was the start of everything. I vividly remember meeting my very own Mr. Feeny, my mentor and buddy for life. Ms. Nadine Pomeroy changed my entire life. She was my very first band teacher, and it turned out she would follow me through the grades and be my very last. I found my passion, music, and spent my teenage years striving to be better and to succeed. The day I met Ms. Pomeroy, affectionately known as Pom, I knew what I wanted in life. I was going to be a music teacher no matter what it took, and although I am no longer a Music Education Major, my career advice is still taken from Pom. To me, 13 was the beginning of an incredible adventure.