‘The teenage years are the best years of one’s life.’ Would you agree with this view?

You can always hear parens telling their children, " Cherish the years you have being a student, where you only need to study and not worry about anything else. You will come to learn of how good it is to be a teenager, only when you enter the adult world and start working." Is that really true? I wonder. A lot of teenagers are always hoping to grow up almost instantly just to gain the freedom they yearned for. Other than the freedom adults get to enjoy, comes the many problems they have to face and solve. After much thought, I feel that the teenage years are indeed the best years of one's life.

Firstly, most of the teenagers, especially in Singapore, do not have to worry about financial troubles. We are well provided for by their parents, and receive a regular weekly or monthly allowance. If we can exercise thriftiness, we can even save up some money and buy something that we like once in a while to pamper ourselves. On the other hand, working adults have to constantly worry about receiving the dismissal letter, especially so in times of recession. There is tremendous stress for the adults to keep themselves employed in order to feed themselves, for it is deemed inappropriate for them to take money from their parents anymore when they are already grown-ups.

In addition, teenagers as students, get to enjoy long holidays. Although some of our weekends are to be spent doing the huge piles of homework, if we manage our time well, we can still reserve some time for funand joy with our family and friends. In the case of adults, even though they can do likewise, they do not get to enjoy the June and December holidays like students do! They only have around 10-20 days of leave that they can be use annually. During the December holidays, teenagers can let their hair down and enjoy their break thoroughly, without much homework to bind them down. Some fortunate kids can even earn themselves a vacation overseas if their end-of-year results are up to their parents’ expectations!

Although some parents hold a very tight rein over their children, most of them allow their children to enjoy some freedom, be it the wall colour of their bedroom or the clothes that should be sitting in their wardrobes. If we teenagers behave ourselves and choose our circle of frineds wisely, staying out late for a barbeque or having a sleep-over at a friend’s house once in a blue moon should not be a problem. Even when parents are overly protective of us children, we should understand as it is our safety that they care about. There are frequent reports in the papers about adults in their twenties getting involved in armed fights, speed driving or engaging themselves in illegal activities. This is what happens when their parents are ‘not allowed’ to have control over them, for they are officially adults at the age of 21. Isn’t it better to be teenagers, for our parents to care and protect us, giving us gentle reminders when we are going off the track?

Thus, I think that being a teenager has more boon than bane, and teenage hood is the time where we get a good balance between studies and play. All the more, teenagers should stop whining about wanting to become an adult and escape the ‘clutches’ of parents and teachers!