on adolescence

A student's essay on the most difficult aspect of being a teenager today started out:
"Being a teenager, I think, is the most stressful time in your life. You have school to deal with. Then the fact of trying to find a job for your college fund, because let's face it your parents aren't going to pay your way ll throughout college. Also the nerve racking decision of what college you want to attend after you graduate high school."

Setting aside issues she has with syntax & spelling, this rough draft caught my eye because of the stressful time in my life right now. My initial reaction was, "Hogwash. If you only knew."

And then I thought for a moment about what my senior year was like, and I identified with the pressure she's under. Thinking about Pink, I remembered her struggles with delayed gratification, separation from loved ones, and frustration over not getting exactly what she wants. For her, life gets pretty darn difficult at times. Then I thought of my mom - she owns her house free and clear, has a steady income, and is healthy. She has also been a widow for over five years and tries her best to accept that as God's will, even though she hates it.

Which stage is the hardest? Adolescence, as many of my students asserted? My current stage of uncertainty in which we prepare to welcome a little one into God knows what house or what city? Toddlerhood? Empty-nesting & potentially widowhood? Or could it be that God allows us to grow during each stage, through all the trials we face, so that we are then prepared to face the joys and trials of the following stage?

Certainly if my student, God bless her, were dropped into the middle of my life right now, her heart would give out. But does it follow, then, that my current life stage is more difficult? Or only that hers seems relatively easy to me because I've had 15 years of maturing, living, and growing since I was in her shoes?

Perhaps each stage is just as difficult as the next, barring tragic circumstances, and this girl's life is no less stressful to her than mine is to me. Perhaps I shouldn't snicker when I read essays that detail the stresses of a relatively "easy" life stage, but should rather take my student and her peers quite seriously. I'm sorry it took me 32 years to figure this out, but I'm glad it didn't take any longer, lest I mock any more of my impressionable young students.