This article demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what teenagers are—language like "what teenagers today are offered instead", and "kids ... need more, deserve more"—this is a mom who thinks that teenagers live in a world created for them by the adults and that the adults have failed them.
This is the opposite of my memory of being a teenager. Teenagers, as a rule, are actively seeking to define their identity independent of the adults around them. The subcultures of our teenagehood weren't carefully constructed extracurriculars that our parents prepared for us, they were formed organically by the kids themselves, and they were subcultures intentionally crafted to exclude the adults in our lives. My dad was big into football, so my brother and I went all-in on the nerd culture. My dad didn't get D&D and MTG and fantasy novels any more than this mom gets what her daughter is participating in, and that was part of the point.
Teenagers are kids who have hit the age where the modern, hovering parenting style completely falls apart. They're not living in your world anymore because their hormones are telling them it's time to forge their own path. It's time to begin to let go, not attempt to craft a better subculture scene for them.
This is the opposite of my memory of being a teenager. Teenagers, as a rule, are actively seeking to define their identity independent of the adults around them. The subcultures of our teenagehood weren't carefully constructed extracurriculars that our parents prepared for us, they were formed organically by the kids themselves, and they were subcultures intentionally crafted to exclude the adults in our lives. My dad was big into football, so my brother and I went all-in on the nerd culture. My dad didn't get D&D and MTG and fantasy novels any more than this mom gets what her daughter is participating in, and that was part of the point.
Teenagers are kids who have hit the age where the modern, hovering parenting style completely falls apart. They're not living in your world anymore because their hormones are telling them it's time to forge their own path. It's time to begin to let go, not attempt to craft a better subculture scene for them.