Essay 7 - There is a lack of freedom given to teenagers today. Do you agree?

 written in 2019 

Today, the majority of teenagers complain about how little their part in making choice decisions and feel like they are not granted the freedom that they deserve. But from my observation, I think that parents nowadays have realized the importance of their child to have privacy of their own. I feel like they do not stress their children too much in doing something that is unfavorable to the children. In fact, there is a lot of freedom given to teenagers in so many ways. Therefore, I strongly disagree with the statement that says there is a lack of freedom given to teenagers today. There are a few reasons why I say so. 

One of the reasons why I think teenagers nowadays are given more than adequate freedom is that their parents often left them home alone while going to work. There are many parents who are employed nowadays. Because of this, they are too busy to keep an eye on their child properly and end up neglecting them. In my opinion, getting to decide what they want to do without having adults monitoring them is a type of freedom that is vaguely provided to them. Teenagers take advantage of the absence of their parents to hang out with their friends, watch television, play video games and many more. Not only that, they also spend too much time in front of gadgets and surfing the internet without limits. This situation is very common in our daily life and teenagers are supposed to use it for beneficial use such as studying and finishing the house chores. Instead, they spend the freedom that is given to them for  something fun and this has led them doing things based on their choices. Overall, I believe that teenagers nowadays are given sufficient freedom while their parents are working and are not at home. 

Next, the reason why I think teenagers nowadays are granted enough freedom is that they are free to socialize and interact with other people. This is owing to the fact that parents these days do not care or do not want to know who their children have been associated with. At this moment, teenagers are exposed to all sorts of people in school or college. Being teen means they are in the era where they started to show interest in something new and looks awesome to them. This has led the teenagers to be friends with people who are engaged in those things. On top of that, being the person who is frequently getting ignored by their parents and has no one to go to has made teenagers choose friends over parents. With that being said, good people will surely bring a good influence to the teen but the opposite happens when they are not. The friend could cajole them to do things they should not like smoking and drinking alcohol that could bring harm to themselves. Even worse if they are pressured to do things that are morally inappropriate and unreasonable like committing crimes. So, without knowing who their children’s friends are is the type of freedom that is granted to the teeenagers nowadays that could lead to so many consequences, especially the bad ones.  

Besides, teenagers nowadays are given a lot of freedom to earn their own money and decide how to spend it.. Getting a job and earning money from it is fine, but spending money on bad things is not. When it comes to spending money, many boys and girls in their teens are provided with too much freedom because their parents think that the children have the right to manage  their earnings that they have put hardwork and effort into. As a result, teenagers have the freedom to buy whatever they want. If the parents are against it, they use a fair argument that it is their money, so they can do whatever they like with it. The parents left with no choice but to let the children behave like that. In short, teenagers these days are provided with way more freedom than they should have by deciding where they spend the wage  that they earn from working. 

Furthermore, I think that extreme freedom is given to teenagers to surf the internet. It is true the internet could do many beneficial things but only if it is used in the right way. No teenager knows how to fully organize their personal details and information that they put on the internet. This is terrifying with the fact that once you upload something on the internet , it stays forever. In this case, not even the adult can get away with it. With the amount of freedom that they have today, many of them have stuck their face in front of the bright screen all day long while talking to only God knows who and doing only God knows what. Their parents however have no idea what their children are doing in their room behind closed doors or fiddling around with their smartphones every time. Hence, teens are more likely to be exposed to cyberbullying whether they get bullied or they are the one who is bullying. They also could encounter bad scams and fall into it as they are innocent and vulnerable to tricks.  After all, intense freedom is given to the teenagers in terms of the usage of surfing the internet. 

To sum up, teenagers nowadays gain more freedom than they deserve to have. It is true that it is essential for the teenager to have their own space and privacy. They could learn how to be responsible as with the big freedom comes the big responsibility. They also could get away with a tight scrutiny and supervision of their parents. When teenagers are involved in their life decision making, it lets them know that they are valued and cared for. Freedom could bring benefits to teenagers but granting too much is just as bad as giving too little. They could be exposed to various dangers in so many forms such as in real life or online. In other words, parents must decide when and how to give it according to the children’ priorities.